Walnut box...

Mike Stafford

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Coastal plain of North Carolina
Since Stu posted a turned box I decided it was time I posted another one myself.

Here is one turned from walnut which is not the best box turning wood. I always find it to be a little splintery and it does not want to turn crisp details without some chip out. This box is 2 1/4" tall and 2 3/4" in diameter although it looks like it is as broad as it is tall.

In the second picture where the box is open I have placed a dime to show the relative thinness of this box. It is pretty thin and this box is as light as a feather....
 

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Stu, hard, dry and dense wood turns best for boxes. Did I mention it should be dry, the drier the better. I do rough turn green wood and dry it with alcohol.

You can turn a box from any piece of wood with varying degrees of success. I have turned boxes from more than 80 different species. But the wood determines how much detail you can have and how well everything fits together.

My favorite box turning woods are any and all of the dense exotics (the rosewoods, cocobolo, etc.), bocote, verawood, Santos rosewood/pau ferro, hard maple, cherry, mesquite, bubinga, shedua, Masur birch, hackberry, to name a few.

Some woods I don't like to turn for boxes include wenge (like turning a piece of coal), most oaks although I have had good success with English brown oak, most of the softwoods, most spalted woods (I hate dealing with the punky areas which always seem to be at their worst near the flange area) and any other wood that is just plain troublesome. Life is too short to turn troublesome, ugly, soft, uninteresting wood.

There are two things to consider when choosing wood for a box. First is the side grain interesting and second is the end grain interesting? The top of the box is going to be end grain and just because a piece of wood has lots of curl it can be blah on the end grain. Curly maple is like this, beautiful side grain and nothing on the end grain. Sometimes the box is a winner just because of beautiful end grain. This walnut box has little in the way of interest in end grain or side grain.
 
Thanks Mike.

I had a turning buddy show up here today, he was in the area, so he stopped by. He is a really good turner, teaches and has recently built a school, but his main interest is in the more typical Japanese style of turnings, tops, and such, but he does good stuff. He thought my first box was good, he liked the fit of the lid, the pop it makes when you take it off was "Good" he said.

We got to chatting and he suggested that I make a "Chazutsu" which is the Japanese tea container, stuff like this.......

chazutsu1.jpg chazutsu2.jpg chazutsu3.jpg chazutsu4.jpg

....... you get the idea. Just to be clear, I did NOT make any of these, they are only example of the type of thing I'd like to make.

The inner and outer lid add another level of difficulty, but it should not be that hard to do.

They have fairly strict sizing for the real thing, the size determines how much tea each will hold.

Thanks again for the info! :wave:
 
Stu, I did not know the name of the tea container "chazatsu" but I have seen one before. Richard Raffan turns them in several different variations and comments about how the challenge is to have both the inner and outer lids fit to the same level of precision.

I would be curious to learn what woods are traditionally used for containers such as this. I may have to try and turn one of those. I know one thing for sure, they will be harder to do well than it looks.
 
Hey Mike, they use all kinds of wood, the most common are Sakura (Ornamental Cherry) and Keyaki (Japanese Elm) mainly for their wonderful grain, but other are used too.

I really understand that getting the fit for both lids will be a real challenge, but I figure that if they could do it 300 years ago, we should be able to do it now, with our much better machines, and tools (dunno about the skill bit......in my case).

How to go about it, well I figure you would make a box in the same fashion, but with some alterations, for example the lid is supposed to fit down on to the box 2 cm (3/4" ?) so that will be a real challenge, and the fit is such that is should be almost no taper, yikes hard to do! :eek:

From what I have seen the inner lid is a piece from the main piece the box is turned from, with the grain running the same way as either end of the box.

To turn the inner lid, I'd part off the box, and then make a jam chuck for the box, finish the bottom of the box. Then I'd put the lid piece back in the chuck, and turn the bottom of the lid, checking for fit on the box, once done, I'd than make another jam chuck for the inner lid, and turn the top of the inner lid. making sure the handle in the middle of the lid is not too weak, as the inner lid is supposed to fit really tight, to keep the tea fresh.

How does that sound?

Cheers!
 
Found some more info.......

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]This hand-crafted canister is carved out of a piece of wood called "Enjyu". It additionally comes with an internal lid keeps its contents moisture free. In Japan, there is a thousand year old craft called "Kijishi" carving round/cylindrical objects such as bowl and tray out of a piece of wood. They use a specially designed tool called "Rokuro" to create these items.[/FONT]
.......and pics......
chazutsu1.jpg chazutsu3.jpg chazutsu4.jpg

I'll have to do some more research to find out what "Enjyu" wood is, and the "Rokuro" tool..... :dunno:

Cheers!

PS, sorry for the hijack....... :eek:
 
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Stu, I might approach turning one of these in a slightly different manner than what you described. I believe I would turn the body of the box and the outer lid just as I would any other box. That way the lid and body grain alignment would be as good as it could be. Of course you would have to make the overlap large enough to accommodate the inner lid flange and the body flange.

After I parted off the outer lid and finished it I would make the inner lid from the stub that was left. Of course you would have to have planned for this to happen so there would be enough wood left on the stub to do that.

As far as keeping the lid flange parallel, I find that it is easier to do that using a square scraper with the left side relieved along the edge, tapered toward the bottom of the scraper. Then I have to check it frequently with my internal calipers to make sure the sides of the lid flange are parallel.

I may try one of these when things slow down so I have more time to plan it our and think about what is required.
 
Thanks Mike, I think that what you described is basically what I did........

inner_lid1.JPG inner_lid2.JPG

it worked fairly well, but one thing I had to do was take the stub off the lathe, the was the jam chuck for the inner lid, and drill a hole through it, so I could knock out the lid from the jam chuck, I was really afraid I'd pull the handle off the thing :doh:

Anyways, it works, I had to jam chuck the outer lid back up and make a bit more room inside for the inner lid, but I think I'll like doing these! :D :thumb:

Oh yeah, I did burn the inner lid to the body of the box, whoops..... one of my Japanese turner friends suggested this, but I guess I had the lathe going too fast :doh:

Cheers!
 
Looks like a very respectable job, Stu for your first one. I have not actually done one so I may have underestimated what problems we might encounter. I will try one as soon as I get time and see what it is like.

I am assuming the burn line is from the inner lid spinning in the box body? What kind of wood did you use for your first experiment. It looks like it was very hard.

As far as the handle goes you are right to be cautious because depending on how thick the wood is under your handle it can be extremely weak because it is end grain. As you turn more and more boxes you will find how weak end grain is particularly if you start turning fancy little finials and knobs. The relative weakness of end grain is why I stopped trying to turn knobs and finials that might be used to lever off a lid.
 
Thanks Mike!

VERY first box and VERY first inner lidded box, all in the same box, so a lot of first for me, and it is all a learning experience :thumb:

The wood is "Sakura" (Ornamental Cherry) it is VERY hard, and nice to turn.

The burn mark was from a mistake I made. I was told that to get a nice fit on the inner lid, with the bottom of the inner lid turned real close to the right size, then you are to take the body of the box and press it lightly against the spinning inner lid, to make a rub mark on the lid, then you turn this mark off and try again.......... my mistake was to have the lathe running way too fast.

Good learning experience, and, I want to do more of these, so that is not a bad thing........... is it......... :eek: :rolleyes: :D
 
Woo Hoo! Now you're cookin'! :thumb:

Nicely done, especially for your VERY first box. I guess I'll have to try one of these, too!

Pssst.... Let's see how long we can make Vaughan think boxes are too hard to make. The sooner he starts turnin' 'em, the sooner we have to get WAY better at 'em! (Just joshin', V! :wave:)
 
Woo Hoo! Now you're cookin'! :thumb:

Nicely done, especially for your VERY first box. I guess I'll have to try one of these, too!

Pssst.... Let's see how long we can make Vaughan think boxes are too hard to make. The sooner he starts turnin' 'em, the sooner we have to get WAY better at 'em! (Just joshin', V! :wave:)

Actually, I think that there is some kind of widget in the C-man lathes that does not allow boxes to be turned on them, some kind of positronic anti box switch of some kind...... :rolleyes: :D

Thanks Kerry, I've got to turn some more, they are fun!!
 
Stu, I disabled the positronic anti-box switch on my lathe, so that's no longer a stopping point. But I dunno...them boxes look like they need to be precise, and part of the appeal of lathe work is that I can make nice stuff without measuring or anything. :p

I do want to give boxes a try, but I can tell you it'd surely be quite a while before I'd be making anything on Mike's (and it looks like Stu's) level. ;)

I'm late to chime in, but that's another fine box, Mr. Stafford. :thumb:

Yours is no slouch either, Stu-san. :)
 
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