Gun safe boxes

Wildthings

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Kind of a follow up on a post I made earlier on these boxes Previous Post

My son just purchased a gun safe for his house and said he needed a keepsake box to keep his gold and silver in. That tickled me cuz I know the only gold and silver he has is trinkets and quarters. He sent me this picture and said something like this box he found online

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I thought it would cool to use some wood we got from his aunts, my sister's, place in Wimberly. Walnut and cherry from a couple trees that went down in a storm. Cherry for the sides and walnut for the top and bottom and accent features. Jointed, resawed and planed the cherry for the sides for two boxes. Left the cracks in them and filled and stabilized them with black CA glue.

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When you resaw them into book matched pieces, you can lay them out sequentially and get the grain to wrap around the box, Cut the 45° miters and make a dry run as how they'll match up

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Now to process that rough chunk of walnut for the tops and bottoms etc. I actually found another piece of walnut with better figure in it for those and I'll use this walnut for some other little features I had in mind

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Aha Marc!! Take that!! see what I did there?


Next I finished the inside of each box sanding to 240 and applying multiple coats of lacquer. Taped up along the miters on the inside since I wont be able to wipe up any glue squeeze out and put it together

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Next I cut and added miter splines made from walnut. Then on one of them I got this smart idea to add cherry splines inside the walnut spline. Neat idea unless you cant get the second spline cut centered. Geeesh I ended up filing most all the splines to some extent and adding 1/8" cherry splines with 1/16" walnut spacers

Look at the first one which I got right then the last one you can see the same size cherry spline but needed to add the walnut also

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Ok enough of all this I'm starting to feel like woodtickgreg writing up tutorials!!

I cut the tops off, added hinges and latches on one of them, the other I added walnut linings to the inside and made the top a friction fit.. Then with the extra straight grained walnut I milled from earlier I made some trays for his silver and gold. On one box I left them straight walnut on the other box I flocked the inside with blue to make sure you could see my flocking. I learned a lot doing these and am already making a couple of styles. He is pretty happy with his boxes made by his dad out of auntie's trees


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Steve in VA

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Those are fantastic and the story of the wood will ensure they are a keepsake for generations.

Great job and thanks for the tutorial and all the pictures!!
 

Tom Smart

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Very nice, Barry. I like the idea of 2 tone splines, those came out really well. I’m not at the point of adding more complexity to boxes yet, but I’m gonna put that in my memory banks. Did you use the box trays for the friction fit lid on box #2?

Oh, and don’t worry about becoming ‘Tick Jr. His lead is well secured.
 

Nature Man

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The new dimension splines are ingenious! Where did you source your hardware? Chuck
 

JR Parks

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Good job Barry. I like that Escarpment Cherry. Seems a little more dense than eastern cherry.
 

DLJeffs

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Great boxes Barry. I agree with others - the two tone splines are cool. Gonna file that idea away for future use.
 

Wildthings

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Did you use the box trays for the friction fit lid on box #2?

Oh, and don’t worry about becoming ‘Tick Jr. His lead is well secured.
I made 2 different types of trays. The larger single tray goes with the double splined box with hinges. Then I made a couple of small single trays, that I flocked, for the friction fitted lid box


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Here's another look at the splines

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DLJeffs

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Barry ( @Wildthings ), can you explain how you cut the spline notches for those double splines? Do you set up your saw with a wider blade, set the fence for the desired location of your spline and then cut those splines rotating the box on all four corners. Glue, trim and sand the first spline. AND then change the blade to a thinner blade for the inside spline, set the depth of cut, and without moving the fence cut the inside spline? I'm trying to figure if that gets the inside spline centered or off to one side.

The other way I could see doing this is to cut, glue and sand the first splines, taking care not to move your fence. Then switch to the thinner blade, reset the depth, and stick a shim into your spline jig so it moves the box a hair farther away and then cut the inside splines.

Or the third way, just re-adjust everything (blade, depth, fence position, etc) for the inside splines and make a test cut. I'm going to try to make those double splines on this myrtle box and wanted your advice (and anyone else who's made double splines.
 
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Wildthings

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@DLJeffs
I'm not that meticulous for the first 2 ways. I cut the first notches with my dado blade set at 1/4" width (2 outside blades). Installed the splines and rough sanded them down. I also made sure I had a couple test pieces done. Then I reset my blade to 1/8" (single outside blade) and centered it by adjusting my fence and using my test piece. I then cut all the middle slots. What I would suggest is to cut one middle slot and before cutting the next to check the setup on each before cutting!!!!!

Something was wacky on mine... box out of square, fence off, spline jig goofy but it doesn't show up on the initial first cut cuz it's mynute. But on the second cut, I set up on one corner only and cut them all without checking and probably 7 of them were off. To fix them I glued in a 1/16" piece of walnut and then, using a small file, sanded the slot down where the spline fit. Don't be a WildThing! take my advice on this. If you look closely at my pictures you can make out the differences.

Then again if you have good equipment and jigs forget what I said!!
 
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Wildthings

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I do mention above and show a three set of pictures where I'm adding the cherry spline and have to add walnut to make up for the slot being off

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Wildthings

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Oh and the reason there are double splines on the friction fit top box is not because of a design decision but rather a screw up and then I went with the flow!! Box on the right, the lower splines
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