Sunday, April 13, 2008

Animal Box

Animal Box

A box I made for a friend rests atop a real-life pedestal in my backyard. I was inspired by the boxes I'm making for the Tunisian wedding. Incidentally, those are working out great, and I have perfected the use of stencils.

This box, unlike the wedding boxes, had mitered corners. This proved a bit trickier, as the cedar is too tall for my chop saw. Thankfully, I have a compound miter saw, and the head can be tilted at a 45 degree angle. Still, it's a bit of a hassle, and makes accuracy a touch harder.

The best part of all this is discovering how easy it is to have a custom stain mixed at Home Depot. It's a hair more expensive than the regular, but it will last a lifetime. I think I could get almost 100 boxes out of a tiny quart!

Be sure to always look in the Oops Basket for cheap paint. I happened to find the exact turquoise I need for the wedding boxes. 1 quart will run you a buck, whereas a gallon costs $5.00.

After finishing the stain, I quickly ran the completed box across the table saw on each side. Move the fence a bit; run it through again, and you've added a nice decorative element. It might be old-hat for veteran wood-workers, but I just discovered it!

I'll be constructing more of these, where I'll go for a more dilapidated look; possibly adding decoupage and stencils combined.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the box. The stencil and colors are great. But, why did you have to go and tell about the oops paint? What is the first rule of oops paint??

Mike C. said...

er . . . never talk about oops paint!

yeah, so, it's way in the back by those big bags of little white rocks for the garden. Just move those bags around for a number minutes. Now, better get a move on, they probably don't have the color you want anyway!

Anonymous said...

Nice idea on cutting a dado after the stencil. I wouldn't have though of doing it that way.

You can try stacking 2 saw blades for the same effect or buy a stacked head dado. It's a series of different width blades to get different widths of groves/dados.

BTW, I have a wobble dado that I'll give you next time. I bought the more expensive stack set years ago.

Dan

Anonymous said...

the boxes are really nice, mike. the animal design is super cute & clean. nice composition. i may have to order a few...