CROTCH WALNUT TEAKWOOD BOX

I wet sanded and buff/polished the above box out on 07-10-19.

Heirloom, Secretary/letter boxes and Lacewood candy dish above made for my bride!  I had first dibs on the crotch walnut raised lid teakwood box, but decided to give it to my bride instead.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 07-10-19.

TEAK WOOD BOARD HISTORY

I sent pixs to a woodworking/musical instrument making friend and others, of which no one knew what the wood species was for sure.

I asked Robert to ask his Dad aka "Daddy Rab" who is also named Robert about the board.  Robert told his Dad that he had given me one of the boards and Robert's Dad said, "Ugh, that is expensive wood."  Robert's Dad stated it was teak wood and he purchased a beam for about 30 dollars way back when and using his homemade horizontal bandsaw sawmill, got several boards from the beam.  The person he got the teak wood from has since passed away and doubt we will ever know exactly what the teak wood beam was used for since it had some large nail holes in the board that I received. 

I asked Robert to send me a few pixs of his Dad's homemade sawmill from his new Obamaphone to one of my email addresses, but the Obamaphone technology is ahead of him at the present time......grin if you must.

DADDY RAB'S SAWMILL

Robert Webster got around to sending me a few pixs of his Dad's homemade sawmill.  The sawmill had the blade removed, drive belts removed and the gasoline engine covered with tin.

The track has a chain drive controlled by a slow rpm motor; forward and reverse and there is a cable winch that raises/lowers the saw for the thickness of cut desired.  The sawmill might look a little rough, but it sure does render nice boards from logs.

In the background, there is a slab pile no doubt home for a few venomous reptiles and other vermon....grin if you must!

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-25-19.

PERSONAL SAFETY AND LIABILITY ISSUES

My goal will be to keep Safety paramount because hand and power tools can do serious bodily harm and death if not used properly, therefore these pages are solely for entertainment purposes only from a personal liability standpoint.  Please read the Legal Stuff page for additional information concerning liability issues before going any further.  Safety glasses and hearing protection is a must, although I do forgo the hearing protection many times; my bad

BOX CONSTRUCTION

I have detailed instructions on making the secretary/letter box, therefore will not reinvent the wheel.  I give Mike's Heirloom Boxes credit for the design of this box, I only implemented what was already there.  Copying/imitating someone is one of the sincerest forms of flattery there is and pay the person a genuine compliment!  I made a few minor changes to the construction, but everything is nearly identical to the reference secretary/letter box hyperlink. 

A FEW PIXS TAKEN ALONG THE WAY

According to the date/time stamp on the digital images I took, I started this project around June 13, 2019 and finished the construction and sanding phase on June 22, 2019 and will spray a few coats of lacquer when the weather is conducive; e.g., no wind and less than 65% relative humidity.

One thing I learned very quickly about teak wood; it is tough on your saw blades and this is due to a high content of silica.  I used a rip blade and a crosscut blade which was fairly sharp and the wood would literally smoke if in the least bit of a bind which slowed the travel speed down into and through the saw blade.  The forty-five (45) degree miter edges showed some burning near the end of the cut due to the miter sled runners too tight in the table saw miter slots due to the humidity which slowed the cut speed down.  I coated the wood miter slot runners with Johnson's Paste Wax and it slicked them up pretty good; after the fact!

I found a nice piece of crotch walnut large enough for one of the lid raised panels and band sawed (ripped) a 1.5 inch thick piece of black walnut and made a book match panel for the second box lid raised panel.

INSTALLING HINGES AND FULL MORTISE LOCK

This time around, I routed a mortise 3/4 inch deep in both the lid and the box base for the support arm of the quadrant hinges to rest in which worked out great, instead of routing the deeper mortise slot in the box base!

I drilled the screw pilot holes in the teak wood using a 5/64 inch diameter Speedy self-aligning drill bit and then used a tapered 7/64 inch diameter drill bit set to a depth of 3/4 inch.  I used the supplied steel screw provided by Brusso and waxed the threads and cut the threads in each hole before installing the # 4 brass screws of which I also applied bee's wax to the threads.

I did the same thing for the installation of the full mortise lock.  My full mortise lock jig works ok, but I am thinking about making a separate jig plate just for the striker plate and the lock bolt cut out because it is a pain to recalibrate the jig after doing the mortise for the selvedge plate and lock body.  The problem is a clamping issue, but it is doable.

BOXES READY LACQUER 

I plan to do some recon and see if there are any special prep to the teak wood prior to finishing.  I have some small pieces I can shoot some lacquer to see if the wood "bleeds" any.  I will wipe the boxes down with lacquer reducer to remove any surface oil from the teak wood.

These teak wood boxes are serial numbers 75 and 76.

SCRAP AKA UNALLOCATED TEAK WOOD

The following is a pix of the left over teak wood.  There was just enough wood to complete two secretary/letter boxes....not much room for error on this one.

Web page created by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-22-19 and uploaded on 06-25-19.

FIRST COAT OF THINNED LACQUER

I sprayed a thin coat of lacquer onto the boxes and trays on 06-24-19:

The rotary carousel fixture is working out pretty good for these boxes.

I modified the rotary carousel fixture where I could get my fingers underneath the box to remove it from the fixture after spraying the lacquer without touching the outside surfaces of the box.

I made a stand off to place the box on after lacquering which allows the fingers underneath the box without touching the outside surfaces of the box.

I am claiming dibs on the box above......grin if you must!

NOTE:  The lids rest much flatter and parallel than in the pixs...have the lids scotched open to keep the lacquer from "gluing" the lid to the box.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-24-19.

THIRD COAT OF LACQUER

I applied a third coat of lacquer to the teak boxes.  The pores in the crotch walnut raised panel lid above has some pretty heavy cracks aka open pores in it and will probably wait a few days and lightly sand it down and apply a few thinned coats of lacquer to hopefully fill the pores.  The book matched walnut raised lid box will not need additional coats of lacquer.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-26-19.

DROP FILLED THE PORES/CRACKS

On June 27th, I drop filled the open cracks/pores in the crotch walnut raised panel lid using a toothpick and applied small droplets of lacquer.  I lightly sanded the panel the next day and sprayed a total of four (4) coats of lacquer, waiting at least one hour between coats.

On the 28th, I lightly sanded the panel down with 320 grit paper and applied four more coats of lacquer.  On the 29th, I drop filled again the pores that still needed additional lacquer to level out the finish.  Come Monday July 1st, the Lord willing of course, I will again lightly sand the panel down and hopefully it will be level enough.  I will then, apply four (4) more coats of lacquer and let the box rest between 10 to 14 days and wet hand sand the raised walnut panel using P800 wetordry grit paper and then 1200 grit and buff and polish the box. 

The box is small enough where I can use my buffing arbor with the cotton flannel buffing wheels and will use a dry buffing compound; medium and fine which should render a good mirror finish.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 06-29-19, 06-30-19, 07-02-19 and 07-10-19. 

UPDATE

Both teak wood letter boxes not too long after being finished, the left front portion of the lid started raising upward leaving a gap between the lid and the box body.  I don't have a clue as to how and/or why this happened.  The center portion of the lid is more or less free floating and not glued in place.  A possible cause could be the splines in the corners causing the warpage, but just a guess at the best.  I did a black walnut box with basically the same construction and the lid stayed flat to the base.

I removed the lid from one of the boxes and it was in fact the lid warpage being the problem and attempted to level the entire lid using two sheets of 60 grit sandpaper double sticked to my table saw top, however,there was too much warpage to have the lid making a perfect fit as when originally finished.

Web page updated by Bill aka Mickey Porter on 01-17-2022.