I was asked to make a "quick and easy" presentation box. I'm not exactly sure what that means, so I simple set about, with the objects that I had, and made something suitable. I was give a bottle of spirits and a couple of Irish Coffee wine type glasses. Rather than simply make a box that these would be hidden in, I wanted to make something that would make them stand out, after all, it is a presentation of some sort so the box or case would should have some kind of a wow factor. After measuring the glasses, I knew the approximate size and I had an idea in my head that I wanted to try out. I wanted to make a small mini 2-door display box and lucky for me I had just received a box of veneers from Oak Wood Veneers.
This is the first time I have seen their veneers and the quality is simply outstanding. More on this later ... for now I needed to make a carcass or box that fit the spirit and glasses, and that when transported would not crash around and break.
Because this is a smaller box, I opted to us 1/2" maple material that I had on hand. The box would be approximately 14 inches square and 4 inches deep, and because there is a fair bit of weight I decided to use box joint corners to make sure the structure was good and solid.
After cutting the corners and leaving the glue to dry, I set about making the doors. I used a utility knife to cut a square of the birds-eye maple veneer to the suitable size. There are different ways of attaching veneers to substrates or bases and I am luck to have a vacuum press, but with the variety of veneers from Oak Wood Veneer, you could also contact cement and they even have a "release version" which means they apply a special sticky back, and all you have to do is cut it, peel the paper off the back, then press the veneer to the project you want to finish. Wow, that's an amazingly easy way to veneer. We were so impressed with them we are passing along links because we think others can benefit from their products and instructions, they are the veneer pros. Check out their YouTube Channel too.
The sides of the doors also wanted to be 1/2 inch material, but I only made they 1 1/2 inches wide in keeping with the smaller structure. All the components of the doors needed to be pre-finished because otherwise you could not do a good job of finishing the rails and stiles that are different to the panel. I pre-finished the components, let them dry and assembled the doors.
The next challenge was to make holders for the bottle and the glasses so they would not crash around during transport. The bottle was easy, I simply made a small platform and inset a couple of suitable dowels, then at the top, cut a hole in a scrap piece of wood and glued that to the inside top of the box and presto, the bottle is firmly seated and will not move around.
I decided that looking at how wine glasses are stored would help me make a proper holder for the wine glasses, and it did, by doing a bit of testing with some scrap wood I managed to make a small holder that held the glasses upside down, but with the doors to cabinet closed, the glasses were firmly held in place.
After finishing the box with shellac and installing the doors, I realized that we still needed some sort of a catch on the front. The quickest and most effective would be to make a simple garden gate latch, but make it out of purple-heart wood and attache it with brass screws that matched the door hinges.
All in all this was another fun build and the client is delighted with it, much more than they expected and it's sure cause the wow-factor on St Patrick's Day, which was our whole purpose.
Copyright - Colin Knecht
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