I lightly clamped the lid of the catalpa box to the base so that I could mount the hardware.
I used the ever-reliable ice pick to mark the front latch and piloted the screws with a small bit and screwed in the screws. The screw heads that come with the hardware are so fragile that if you don’t drill a pilot, the heads will twist clean off; especially in moderately hard woods.
After the bottom of the front latch was mounted, I screwed in the hinges on the back side of the box. I bought the hinges online in bulk and they are fine but also crummy. I’ll need to figure out a support to stop the lid from swinging too far back. I’m thinking about 3d printing one.
The inside box is looking great. I’ve put on a couple layers of polyurethane and the gloss is very nice. It slides inside of the felt without snag. I think the look of the catalpa against the green felt against the spalted maple is pretty special.
With the spalted maple insert nearly complete, I started work on the marquetry-faced drawer. I cut in to the dimensions that I needed using the band saw and then a series of cuts on the cross cut sled.
I made a drawer out of some plywood I had laying around. I wish I did a box join on this now that it is glued up, but it would have been another two days to get the jig together and I would have had to do some mickey mouse cuts to make it work. I expect to make a box joint jig in the next couple months.
I completed the drawer. Unfortunately, the drawer was incredibly boring and I didn’t like how bland it was against the other, more interesting, catalpa box and middle, maple box. I spent a couple days clamping some veneer, but it was still lame.
Real bad. Look how lame it is.
I decided to make some 3d inserts. The build plate of my 3d printer isn’t big enough for a model that would fit the entire interior of the box, so I designed 3 boxes that fit (snug) inside.
Seven hours of 3d printing later, I have 3 boxes that fit inside the drawer.
The plastic boxes need sanded and smoothed. I might glue them inside permanently, but that might change.
What’s next: I need to design a way to pull out the drawer (ribbon or knob); as well as a way to pull up on the spalted maple box from the outer box (i’m thinking a ring that you have to pull).
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