A Ribbon Box, and another, and another and .. have a look ...

Yep, 62 in total. 2 have managed to sneak away already. One more slated to go on Monday. The remainder for the daughter's baby shower favors, coming in mid January.

Woods used:
Cherry: box sides and top
Ash: white in ribbon
Walnut: brown in ribbon
Poplar: box bottom

Finish: Danish oil on the cherry and poplar, before attaching ribbons. Then General Finishes High Performance Topcoat, 2 good coats.

Thanks for looking.

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Thanks for the nice comments. Here is an overview of the approach (i have to get better at posting along the way). The order may not be exact but you will get the idea.
Sketchup file with individual component details
Resaw, drum sand and glue up the Ash and Walnut for the ribbon laminations:
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Resaw and drum sand the flat ribbon lengths:
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as you can see, I used a sled to bring them through the sander, about 1/8" in final thickness
made printouts of the bows and curved ribbons and glued on to the long, wide laminations (only have pics after the lengths were shortened up to make it easy to scroll saw) and then scroll sawed all the pieces:
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then sanded off the patterns and a little touch up sanding and these were ready to go ... put then all in a big box, kept them in order so they would look good and not have to worry about grain or color changes, etc.

Continued in next post ...
 
Now for the box sides. Cut the 4" high and 3/8" thick pieces in about 25" - 26" lengths as each side is 6" long, 4" high. Ran these thru the router table to put in all the grooves:
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you can see 4 grooves in each. One for the top, one for the bottom and two (on opposite sides) for where the lid fits onto the base. Bandsawed to separate the assembled box, more on this later.

Then cut/mitered to 6" length on table saw. Then cut the tops and bottoms to largest dimension and did the edge grooving on table saw/router.
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Then assembled the boxes, leaving the top and bottom to float in the grooves, only a dab of glue at the center points on the end grain ends
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More in next post ...
 
Then chamfered the top edges on router table and bandsawed the top from the base: only have pic of set up cut for chamfers
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Then cleaned out any squeeze out on the inside and put in the dados for the ribbons:
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Then branded the bottoms and applied the Danish Oil finish to the boxes:
P1010129.JPG only three rec'd the 2014 date as the others did not make 2014 as I missed by a day.
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more in next post
 
Then the tedious part, cut the flat ribbons to the proper lengths, with mitered corners and continuous looking grain. Once cut and fit, I used cyanoacrylate to put them in place. Then did the same for the bows and the curved ribbon pieces. Not know for sure if each box as dimensionally the same, I cut the flat ribbons to fit, one box at a time. I think the best I could do here was 20 minutes per box .. average was probably closer to 30 minutes .. lets just say days.
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Then did some clean up sanding, dust elimination and sprayed on the poly, inside and out .. about 2 hours/box total time
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Then just added some wax on the top/bottom seam ... and they are good to go!!

I hope this helps explain it all. All said and done, I am glad to be done but did enjoy it along the way. Now onto the nightstand and dresser to go with the previously delivered crib.
 
I tip my hat to you Sir, i dont know how you have the patience. Excellent box and amazing ribbon. Sorry i missed your initial thread somehow.

Did you spend much time sanding the ribbon pieces after scroll sawing?

Wondering if the cutting of the ribbon could be done on a band saw sufficiently decent that minimal sanding would be needed. After my Xmas experience making bandsaw sleighs and sanding them I really want to upgrade my scroll saw.

Thanks for showing us the process Robert. :thumb:
 
Awesome batch of boxes (or would that be a bevvy of boxes?)! Thanks for all the process photos, too. And congrats on the upcoming new grandchild. :thumb:
 
These are fantastic, never seen anything like this before.
As I'm a Brit, could you please explain what a baby shower is?
Thanks
Gerry
 
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