HCJ: Chuperjirow

Finally, last week I finished the Pennsylvania Spice Box.

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I decided to build this project because I liked the design and proportions, it also interested me because its a reproduction from an 18th century spice box. But the main reason I was motivated to build this project was that I noticed a few techniques that I don't know. So I had to search for info, learn about and work on it in order to complete this project: Resaw wide boards, hand cut through dovetails, hand cut half blind dovetails, ogee bracet feet, mouldings and a nice double arched door was new stuff for me. This project was a challenge for me, I enjoyed it, and I learned a few new techniques...

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PENNSYLVANIA SPICE BOX

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I decided to use mahogany for this project because I don't have acces to curly maple. Here in southeastern Mexico I can find a lot of native exotic wood species, they all are so beautiful and relatively cheap but in most cases they are so dense and work with them can be tough, (specially if you are learning new techniques). Mahogany is easy to work with, so I decided to go on mahogany. But I'm a little sorry I made that decision, by the end I'm just a little dissapointed about how the color and grain turn out, specially if I compare my finished Spice Box with the one showed at Popular Woodworking Magazine.

For the hand cut through dovetails that join the main carcase I did some changes. The original plan by Glen Huey indicates to lay out the tails on the sides and the pins on the top and bottom and I'm sure that that is the right way to do it, but that configuration results in a boring series of rectangles on the upper show face. If I'm going to dedicate time and effort in dovetails I would like to show it off, so I decided to lay out the tails on the top and bottom so I can say very proudly: Look at my dovetailed joint!!!.

There are 11 drawers wich means 22 half blind dovetail joints at the front and another 22 through dovetail joints at the back of each drawer. All of them made by hand. Dang... that was a time consuming task. It took me around 2 days to complete only the half blind dovetail joints for the fronts of the drawers... then I gave up myself and cheated on the joints for the backs. I power up my table saw and my router table and joined the backs and the sides of each drawer with a locked rabbet joint in just a couple of hours.

To cut the arches for the double arched door I looked for my biggest hole saw but it was 1/4" smaller than the size in the original plans. I had to choose between a right sized -but not perfect- semi-circle with my scroll saw or a smaller semicircle with my hole saw. I choosed the smaller and perfect semi-circle with the hole saw.

I have a set of frame-and-panel router bit and it ocurred to me to use the "female?" router bit from that set to cut the slot for the panel and the moulding at once. (in several light passes, of course)

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I have already described how I dealt with the ogee bracket feet in this previos post.

Mouldings: I followed Glen Huey's directions from the article in the magazine to cut thicker mouldings from a smaller router bit and everything worked fine but...

When I went to the hardware store to buy the router bit I picked up the wrong one. It doesn't make any sense to spend more money and buy another router bit just to match the identical profile like the one used by Glen Huey, so I used the one I have already bought. By the end my mouldings are... mmmh?... just a diferent model.

Uh, may be it's not a secret anymore... ups.

(The drawer is upside down...).

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The whole project took me three weeks. The first week I dedicated only a couple of hours a day after my office job, but after that I got two weeks of vacations, so I had plenty of time.