Fine Wood Jewelry Boxes Blog

In my experiences, you can’t go wrong buying jewelry for a gift. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary or holiday, the first thing that always pops into my mind when I’m buying a present is jewelry. In fact, I’ve probably gone to that well a few too many times.

For my wife’s birthday this year, I wanted to break the cycle of tennis bracelets, diamond pendants and gemstone rings. But thinking of a gift that wasn’t related to jewelry wasn’t getting me anywhere. Suddenly it dawned on me that she didn’t have any means of storing or organizing any of the other pieces I’d got her, so I settled on a solid wood jewelry box.

Part 3: Cutting out the box, starting with a single drawer jewelry box by following the steps below.

1. You should have your band saw ready to cut by placing a ¼” band saw blade on your band saw and checking to see that everything is properly set-up, check your manual for instructions. Safety is important and you should be wearing non fog safety goggles to protect your eyes and a dust collecter attached to your band-saw.

2. Making sure your pattern is traced on the front of the box with the sanded bottom down, set your guide to ½” and slice off the back side of the box. Sand both halves of the box, then set aside the back for later.

3. Change the band-saw blade to a 5/16” skip tooth (4 teeth per inch). Following the pattern on the front of your box, carefully cut the drawer out, the drawer only, following your pattern closely. This blade is for scroll cutting and can snap easily, if you apply to much press on the blade around corners, its gets bound up or if the blade get snagged on a knot in the wood, when this happens, stop the machine and what for the blade to completely stop. Back out of the cut a little bit and re-start the band-saw again, then continue cutting out the drawer. After cutting your drawer out, you will need to sand it, before going on to the next step.

4. Next, you will need to glue the back of your box, back on and set aside to dry. Be sure that the wood grain matches up before you glue the back on. It will take an hour or two for the glue to set up before you can scrape the excess glue from the inside. We use clamps to hold the back on while they dry.

5. Next, you will need to set your guide to 5/8″ and cut the front off your drawer and then set your guide to 3/8″ and cut the back off your drawer. All parts should be sanded evenly, then set the front, back and center of your drawers aside, until the back of your box has dried completely. Join me next week for the continuing series, part 4 cutting out the inside of the drawer and cutting out the box.

Small decorative boxes are a great way to keep valuable items. A handcrafted jewelry box in particular helps to accentuate the beauty of your most treasured collections.  Jewelry on you looks like a gorgeous adorning, but jewelry strewn upon a desk just looks careless and unkempt.  Taking care of your jewelry will add more value to it as a whole.  Get a decorative box today.

Look for one that brings out the sparkling qualities of your jewelry and displays it to the visitors that you have at your house in the best possible light.  Eventually this valuable collection could be handed down to your progeny so they too can experience true luxury.

Part 2: Choosing your pattern and laminating your wood to form a solid block. Choose a simple pattern at first, one with smooth lines and only one drawer that is more oblong that will sit flat when you take the drawer of the box as you will need to master the band saw before moving on to the more complicated designs. After you have selected your pattern for your jewelry box, here are the next steps to follow.

1. Say your box is 5” high by 7” long or wide by 4” deep you will need to buy your wood at lease 5 ¼”-5 ½” wide, four quarter wood is usually 7/8”-15/16” thick and five quarter is about ¼” thicker but more expensive, but can be worth it. Measure the wood carefully before you buy, measure twice, cut once. You will need to buy enough wood to allow for cutting (1/8”-1/4”) the boards to correct length, adding the same to each boards length, for ex-sample your length is 7” cut your board 7 1/8”-7 ¼” long x 4 or 5 boards depending on the width of your wood and then, cut the boards 7 ¼” long.

2. Sanding your board flat on both sides, this can be achieved with a hand sander or a belt sander; which ever you choose is easier. You will need to laminate the boards to form a solid block of wood; wood-bonding glue is available through most wood or hardware stores. Use a hand roller to spread the glue evenly on one side of each board and allow to dry for a minute or so, then stack the boards with a zig-zag end pattern for an interesting look, then clamp the boards tight, using a strip of wood under each clamp with protect the block of wood from obtaining clamp marks. Set aside for about an hour or so, then remove the clamps and sand the bottom of your block flat.

3. Draw your pattern on the block of wood by placing carbon paper under the pattern and tracing the pattern on to the wood. Join me next week for the continuing series, part 3 cutting out the boxes drawer.