Building an Engagement Ring BoxPosted by Gammelgaard Harris on June 13th, 2021 I bought an engagement ring, but it came with this plastic box since I wanted to make something a little more personal, I started risking Purple Heart, just reciting it to get some thinner strips to use for the walls. Then I planed both pieces down to the same thickness. I took it over to the table, saw that cut them to the correct width, and then I could start cutting the miters on the corners. I had cut a little piece of scrap wood that was roughly the size that I wanted to make the box, and that way I wouldn't have to rely on my poor measurement. I could just use that scrap wood for each piece, but once I had one of these cut, then I could actually use that as my reference piece and cut all the others to the same size, i numbered each of the edges so that I could make sure To put them against the right pieces, and then I check the fit to make sure it looked good with the walls looking good. I could then cut the bottom and top of the box. I used some CA glue on the miters because I wanted this to come together a little bit more quickly than regular wood glue. I also triple check to make sure I was getting all the pieces dry and in the correct way and pressing them against a square. I could make sure each edge Woods, correct and ninety degrees, and I ran into some frustration with the glue, preferring to stick to my thumb instead of the wood, but eventually I started to get this to come together, as I was bringing all the joints together. One of the previous ones broke and then the glue started, sticking to my fingers and everything just got frustrating so I stepped away sanded down the miters again and started to reglue it, and that's when I realized that my cuts weren't perfect. So my miters were good, but the angle across that cut wasn't good, so he bottom of each piece was a little bit further in than the top and that left some big gaps for the miters that weren't going together. Well, so I decided to cut my losses and start again doing a different technique, eventually I'll, probably just remake my little miter sled, but I didn't feel like you ain't mad at this time. So I just cut some new pieces and I took an old scrap piece of 2x4 and I cut a groove in it. That was the same thickness as the pieces of wood. I had just cut and then I put one of these scraps into that. Groove excuse a cleft friend, slash a custom bottom and back to stock, and then I had line everything back up rich my a dado stack. The idea here is that this piece sticking out represents one of the fingers in the box or fewer joint and the space between it and the blade is the exact same. So then you can just use it as a little key or not, and slowly move the pieces across one of these days. I'Ll make a proper jig for this, but this seems to work well for a small project with all the fingers done. I could tap it into place and check the fit. It was actually extremely tight, so I ended up not needing to use any glue and I used my random orbit sander to sand everything down and I've got these new pads that go all the way up to 3,000 grit. So review feels just super smooth and he starts to even look reflective without any finish, then I glued the bottom into place. It was a little bit finicky, but eventually I got it in there when I was gluing that top into place. It was a bit tighter of a fit, so I ended up just kind of tapping it into place with my mallet the next day after it had dried. I could take it over to the sander and this sandy walls of the box flush with the top end, and then I took a cube. A table saw so I could cut just a little bit off each of the corners. I didn't want it. These sharp corners, but I wanted to cut off a decent chunk of it. So then I could take it back to my sander and kind of round over these edges, and I just did this by heating to give it a more organic feel. The bottom of the box I made ever so slightly rounded, and that was so that when it sat on the table, it would actually look like it was floating just a little bit above. It sounded like a good idea in my head, but I ended up not liking that as much. I took a marking knife to the box, so I could mark off where I wanted all the cuts and the idea was. I was going to separate this at an angle, but I needed enough room on kind of either end of it so that it wouldn't fall apart. I should have planned this out a little bit better, because one of my cuts goes through one of the teeth and causes that to break off so there's just a little tiny piece of missing, but I guess that adds to the character cut this apart with a Hand saw hoping that would give me a cleaner cut than using the bandsaw they're kind of something bad camera work here. So it's a little bit off the screen, but you can get an idea of the two pieces here and I sanded down both of the pieces to make sure they would fit together really well and unfortunately I broke the top out somehow. So I just took that over to my bench and scraped away the glue and then I use CA glue to fix it. I also chipped just this little piece. It was kind of cracked across but didn't break off. So I could glue that back together with some CA glue and just holding that in place for a little bit. When I put the top back in place, I had to be careful not to push it too far through and I'd. Let it sit for awhile before I, the sander and kind of repeated all the clips. Then it was time to put in the hinge - and I did this terrible wrong. So don't do what I'm doing now. For some reason I was thinking if I epoxy dit on the inside and lined up the hinge at 90 degrees. Then this would work for the box. It very much does not work, so I had to redo this plan since that position, wouldn't let the hinge actually open all the way I realized I needed it to just do the traditional position, which is to cut out just a little piece for the hinge to Actually fit into so I popped it off with one of my old crummy chisels, and then I marked off where I wanted the hinge and use my nicer chisels to actually make just a really tiny indentation. Here I didn't have to use a mallet or anything. I was just peeling away the slightest bit since this wood was a little bit thin. I needed to cut down the hinge and the easiest way was just for some tin snips. I could cut off just a little bit to make sure it would fit. Then it was back to you, the epoxy and getting the hinge in place. This was a little bit tricky cuz. It was so small at this point, and I wanted to make sure that epoxy was only on the edges of the hinge and not getting into the part that needs to move, but eventually, with a little bit of patience and practice. I got it in there and it worked out well with the hinge looking nice. My next thing to do was to figure out how to hold the ring in place. Sort of traditional boxes just have two cushions, but I thought it would be more interesting to have sort of a wooden finger that was sort of wearing the ring, and so I just kind of round it over a dowel cut it off and then drilled a couple. Little holes into it to stick thinner dowels into then I could snip those off and the idea was. This dowel was roughly the right size of the finger, but these thinner dolls sticking out from it would just hold it in place a little bit higher up on that artificial finger, and I couldn't help but draw a little smiley face on it. But they glued into place. I could get ready with the flocking one of the things I've learned with this is to go relatively thin with this, so I usually start out and put a big clump of it in one part of the piece I'm working on, and then I kind of use That to spread around and spread around until I get it right and then you just put a whole lot of flocking onto it way more than is necessary and then the next day you can come back and brush off some of the loose fibers. Once I peeled off the tape - and I could make sure I had a good clean edge - and I decided to make this little piece on the back - that would kind of support the hinge. So the idea was, it would go right under the hinge and when the lid was completely open, it would rest against this little piece, and that way there wouldn't be any stress on the hinge that would end up breaking it. I would just finish this off with some boiled: linseed oil. That'S quickly becoming one of my favorite finishes because it looks nice and it's really easy. Then I could put the ring into it and see how it looked and she said yes,Like it? Share it! |