Isreal Martin describes making a special box from an old European walnut tree
Detail of the European walnut trunk
A few years ago, after a really windy week, an old European walnut tree fell near my neighbour’s house. It was blocking the street so I cut all the branches for firewood for my neighbours and left the big trunk there for them to use. However, they thought that I would be able to make better use of the big old trunk than they would, so they gave it to me. That tree had been in the same place in the village for over 100 years, so I decided I had to make something as a tribute to it and also to give thanks to my neighbours. I wanted something that didn’t hide the wood, so a very simple design. I came up with a small box with secret mitre dovetails, and I made the lid from shop-made plywood, to emphasise the beauty of the wood.
Continuous grain carcass
In order to make the grain run continuously all around the box carcass, I cut a board thick enough to saw in the middle. After sawing it in two, I made the four parts. I then planed them to the desired thickness and used secret mitre dovetails so the grain is continuous in the corners. I made a rebate to fit the lid.
When laying out the dovetails, it is important to have in mind the place where the grooves for the bottoms will be and also the place for the rebate. They must go on the mitre section at the sides, and if you leave them very small it will be more complicated to later make the lid – this has happened to me more often than I would like!
After gluing, I planed the sides smooth. You must take care with this and never plane too much because you can ruin the mitres. I first planed from the mitres to the centre and then chamfered the edges and made passes all the way on the sides to make an even surface without worrying about the mitres. I normally use my No.164 bevel-up smoothing plane with a 43o micro bevel, so I can plane against the grain with no tear-out.
Making a stable lid
For the lid, I selected a nice piece of the walnut, with the sapwood. The contrast between sapwood and heartwood in European walnut is very strong and, for me, very eye-catching.
I made a core for the lid out of quartersawn pine, for stability. I cut and planed it to the desired thickness (about 8mm) and also made two veneer pieces of walnut, about 2mm each. I glued them together, with the grain of the walnut veneer crossing 90o with the pine core grain, so it won’t move. When everything was glued, I made four sticks out of figured walnut sapwood to glue on the lid sides. Then I made a rebate on the sides to fit the rebates in the carcass.
Finishing
I use shellac as a finish on almost all my furniture. Over the years I’ve tried several methods to apply it and now what I do is just a mix of all of them. Normally I apply two or three coats of shellac over the piece, and I softly sand in between coats with a 1,000-grit sandpaper for metal. After the last coat of shellac I use pumice, and then I use the cloth with only alcohol until I have a shiny surface. Then I apply several coats of shellac with another cloth, always running the cloth along the wood grain.
I normally don’t apply any finish to the inside of my pieces if they are secured with joinery, carcasses for example, and just leave them with a mirror polish surface with the smoothing plane. But I do apply finish on panels, to balance the gain and loss of humidity.
