Twin jewelry boxes

This is a pair of small walnut boxes I made for my wife as a Mother's Day present. They started life as one box but I didn't like the proportions. The math didn't work either - two boys, one box. The joke now is that my wife can use one box for the left earrings, the other box for the right...

The boxes are about 3 1/4 in. square and 2 1/2 in. tall. I cut the miters on the tablesaw using a dedicated miter sled. The boxes have plywood bottoms, glued in. The panels in the tops are (I think) yellowheart. Terrific luster and shimmer, and a great contrast with the walnut.

Everything was assembled at one time during glue up and then I sawed the tops off at the bandsaw. A little light sanding on the underside of the tops and the top rim of the boxes cleaned up the bandsaw cuts nicely. I'm pleasantly surprised at how close the line between top and box comes to disappearing. The tops are held in place with a glued-in insert underneath.

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Steven Kennard: Turning Blackwood Boxes

Steven Kennard is not an easy man to pigeonhole. Born and raised in England, where for many years he built furniture and restored antiques, he also lived for nearly a decade in France, where he turned wood and took photographs. Now he and his Canadian-born wife, Ellie, live in Nova Scotia and work in a renovated barn on their property.
Kennard's earliest woodworking included building sets for theatrical productions. Along the way he also built kitchens, French-polished pianos, and ran a successful business building portable tables for physical therapy and massage. In the late 1970s he bought a lathe so he could replace broken parts on antiques; within a few weeks he had turned his first box, and since then, he says, amidst the wide array of work he's done, one constant has been his passion for turning boxes.
These days, in addition to photography--a blend of fine art photos and shots of work by other artists and craftsmen--Kennard devotes much of his time to box turning. In this slide show, he talks about turning and presents several dozen of his remarkable boxes.

Kennard's work was featured on the back cover of Fine Woodworking #220.






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