Watson Woodworks, Sculptural Jewelry Boxes, (888)679-1840

It was these trays that sparked the design of the entire clam jewelry box (I designed it inside out).  I wanted to create a jewelry box with pivoting internal trays and what better shape could there be than a half circle  (although I already have ideas for a rectangular jewelry box with similar internal design). [...]

I didn’t think there would be challenges to the abalone dot inlays, but there was.  Maybe one day I’ll make my life easy and design and build a rectangular jewelry box like everyone else.  A few of the inlays had to be drilled out and redone because they got tilted in the hole as I was tapping [...]

Making the half-circle front to the clam jewelry box can be done in two ways: A bent laminate ( bending veneers around a caul) A solid wood  front built up with segments. I chose to use solid wood because I wanted the lid to be flush with the body of the box and I wanted [...]

My newest and most challenging jewelry box ever will be this this one, ‘The Giant Clam’.  I chose to work on the lid first because it seemed like the most challenging part.  I knew I wanted to make the lid segmented for reasons of both aesthetics and wood movement/stability.  The lid will be 18″ long by 9″ [...]

The finger pull for lifting the lid off the leaf box is accomplished using a vertical oscillating spindle sander.  I have a Jet spindle sander and it doesn’t have the ability to tilt the spindle, so I had to make a jig to hold the leaf box body at a 45 degree angle as seen in the photo.   [...]