More Wooden Ring Boxes

Since the previous beefwood wooden ring boxes I made turned out quite good I decided to build a few more. I had some ideas on how to slightly improve the design and I also wanted to work with different woods, so I got myself some pieces of Blackbutt, Wenge, Queensland Maple, Red Ironbark, and Merbau and set to work.

I started by making a dozen or so wooden hinges out of different woods I had lying around. I wanted to get this step out of the way as quickly as possible since I wanted to focus on the box designs instead. The hinges are easy enough to make if you have a box-joint jig which can be used in conjunction with a router table or table saw. A thickness planer can also be very handy for sizing the stock to a good thickness for the hinges – I made these ones around 12mm thick.

Next I squared my pieces of wood at the table saw and cross cut them into cubes which will become the boxes.

A groove which will take the hinge was then cut into the back of each cube at the table saw and then cleaned out with a chisel. Next the top was cut off each cube which will become the box’s lid. Finally after sanding the inside of the lid and the box, the hinge could be glued into the previously cut groove.

I left the boxes to dry overnight and the next morning I started shaping them. The rough shaping was done at the bandsaw and then the spindle sander was used to smoothen out the bandsaw cuts for the concave shaped boxes.

The inner hole was then drilled out and everything was sanded to 320 grit. Then the finished wooden ring boxes were wiped down with mineral spirits to remove the sanding dust and they were all given a few coats of danish oil to bring out the colour.

For more pictures of the finished ring boxes check out the photo galleries here and here.