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).

There were many challenges with the design of the trays.  When I began drawing the parts in my CAD software program I quickly realized that the pivot point of the trays had to be as far back as possible.  In fact, the pivot point had to be in the back of the box in order to eliminate gaps between the front sides of the trays and the inner walls of the box. Since this was physically impossible, I decided to use bronze bearings mounted at the back of each tray and drill a relief for them into the back wall of the box (see photos below).

This was the first time I used bronze bearings and I’m glad I did.  The trays swing as if they were floating in air.  It’s possible I may incorporate them in my other two pivoting designs, the trapezoid box and the helical box.  One challenge I ran into was that the bronze bearings are oil-impregnated.  This made it very difficult if not impossible to glue.  I solved this by tapping into the bearing and screwing into it from inside the tray.  I also used a dab of epoxy for extra strength (the epoxy definitely helped, but if I used it alone it would likely fail in time).  The result is a surprisingly strong bearing support.

The horizontal channels in the top tray are for a unique ring holder which I came up with for this box and most likely will be used in future boxes as well.  The design will allow for wider ring bands such as wedding rings as well as narrow ring bands.  It will store at least 30 rings and present them all face up.  When the jewelry boxes are finished I will have some detailed photos.  Check back soon.

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 them in.  Of course they were glued in to place with a quick setting glue.  There was about an extra half hour of work, but all is well and the lids look great.  They are completely sanded and ready for finishing.

Next will come the most challenging part, the inner trays.  The plan is for there to be two trays which rotate off a bronze bearing.  Once I get past that, the boxes will be very close to being finished.  Check back in a week.

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 the most durable method. The laminate/veneer method couldn’t tolerate the sanding necessary to make the lid flush.  Both methods are labor intensive.

There were quite a few steps to making the segmented front because I wanted to reinforce each segment with splines and inset the back part into the back two segments.  I chose the use of 8 segments to match the 8 segments used in the lid. I drafted the parts using my CAD program and established the necessary dimensions.  After cutting the first set of segments I realized I had to be very accurate with the thickness and width of the segments in order to get the 18″ outer diameter required for the jewelry box.  In the photos you will see two slots- one for the bottom to set in and one to make it easier to saw off the lid section with the band-saw.

Clamping and gluing the segments was fairly straightforward using Gorilla glue and Bessey band clamps.  The Gorilla proved to be a great choice because its long open time allowed me to glue all the segments and splines in one shot.  At first the back was not glued in, but was used as a support during clamping.  I needed to remove the back in order to band-saw and sand the inside curve smooth.

Once I had the inside curve smoothly sanded, I cleaned up the slot that will hold the bottom with a chisel.   I then cut out the bottom shape and test fit it into its slot.  With the bottom fitting good in its slot, I glued the back to the front segmented section.

This concludes the main steps to making the body of the giant clam jewelry box.  Tune in soon for the surprise interior parts!

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″ wide.  Since I didn’t have much in the way of 9″ wide lumber, I decided to glue up three 3″ wide boards to get the 9″ panel width  (this also added more of a segmented look to the lid and its really pretty). The photo of the rosewood lid above doesn’t do it justice.  Wait till you see the finished box!

Cutting the pieces of the pie went fairly straightforward.  I knew coming off the miter saw that I would get some burning and slight inaccuracies, so I set up my edge sander with a fence stop and cleaned up the pieces of the pie.  I put 4 pieces together and used a 90 degree square to check for accuracy.

Next came the glue up.  Originally I thought I would glue all 8 pieces at once to make the half circle, but I found it difficult to clamp the pieces in perfect alignment.  I decided to glue  up 4 pieces at a time and that worked great!  Then it was  easy to glue together the  two 4-piece sections to make the one 8-piece lid panel.  Gorilla (polyurethane) worked out great for the rosewood and Critical Bond worked great for the maple.

Sanding the lid flat was a piece of cake with my 16″ wide belt sander.  I  sanded both sides with 60 grit and only the bottom with 100 grit.  The lid will be sanded again on the bottom, after it is carved, to 180 grit.  From experience, I know the lid will move a little bit after it is carved and allowed to sit a day or two, so sanding again will be necessary.

The next step was to carve the clam relief with my Shopbot.  In order to hold the lid panel down I created a custom vacuum pod that runs off my air compressor.  Originally I thought I could use a 3/8″ bit for this, but the detail wasn’t coming out in the part where the rays come together at the back center of the lid.  I switched to an 1/8″ bit.  It took three times as long to carve, but it looked great.

More will be coming with this  jewelry box. What are your thoughts?

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.   The jig slides against a fence which I clamp to the table top and is aligned so that the finger pulls will be centered in the body of the box.

I use 2 grits, a coarse 60 grit sleeve followed by a fine 150 grit sleeve.  The size of the finger pull is a judgment call;  too big and they’re ugly, too small and they won’t function.  The key is not to go too deep with the 60 grit so that the size can be properly adjusted by eye with the 150 grit. Practice makes perfect.  The finger pulls are later sanded by hand using 220 grit.

It’s also possible to cut the finger pulls using a cove bit in a router table, but I think the sander looks better (hint:look at the diameter of the sanding spindle verses the diameter of a standard cove bit, it’s much larger) and avoids the possibility of tearing out the wood.

The first thing I do when making a new batch of leaf boxes, or any project for that matter, is to look through my previous notes. I then prepare my tools and make sure they have everything they need; such as, sanding belts/discs, router bits, finishing supplies, hardware, etc.  That way, if I don’t have something I need, I can order it early in the process.

Next, I dig up all the wood. Looking through my racks upon racks of wood is not my most efficient process, but I love doing it.  Often times, I’ll find boards I’ve had for over 15 years, but just had not found the right project for them.   As for the leaf, I’ll look for boards that are are a minimum of 3″ by 12″ for the body of the jewelry box.  They can also be multiples of that dimension, such as, 6″ by 12″ or 3″ by 24″.  For my needs, the best size is 3″ by 24″, as that size can be held down on my machine effectively as it’s being routed.

Since most of my lumber is in the rough form, (ie. how it comes from the saw mill), the first thing I do is chop the board down to size with my Makita chop saw.  I then face join one surface with my Inca joiner/planer.  Next, I surface the board to 1″ thick using my Delta 13″ planer, or as thick as I can cleanly get the board.  I then sand both faces with 100 grit belt using my 16″ North State wide-belt sander.  The board is now prepped and ready to be routed.       

More on making the leaf box next time.