Upon graduating high school, I wanted to send off my best buddies with a graduation gift that we could all have and share forever, a set of personalized humidors. While none of us smoke cigars, I felt like a keepsake box would make a great gift. Even though making a set of 5 was tedious and challenging, the payoff was fantastic.
I started this project like my others by modeling the boxes in Sketchup. (swipe between pictures)
After much planning, I was able to find a beautiful slab of 4/4 black birch that I milled to consistent 3/4." It was then ripped into strips, and miters were added to create the joints. Dadoes were cut at the top and bottom of each side to inset a birch plywood panel. These were then glued. (swipe between pictures)
Next was cutting the slots for the wenge splines to fit into to increase the strength of the miters and add detail (swipe between pictures)
Next up was cutting the rabbets for the walnut detail (swipe between pictures)
Next I cut the box open to create the halves, branded it, and applied the personal note for each friend (swipe between pictures)
Finally, I filled the knots with black CA glue, and attached the hinges and knob (swipe between pictures)
The final prodcut was better than I could have imagine. The 5th box, for myself, was finsihed at a later date. (swipe between pictures)