Chris Stott, from the UK I think, he is known for his 5 minute box. Small size, but about a 2 inch square blank, or less. Finish turn the outside. Put a parting tool to form the tenon, I use a 3/8 inch wide one, part the lid off leaving the tenon on the lid, and then hollow the inside, and done. I am not any where near 5 minutes on mine.... For the boxes I sell, I like the tenon on the bottom, and the recess on the lid. You can size your box so the tenon is the top of what the box will hold, but the outside porpotions just don't seem right to me. No matter how "dry" the wood is supposed to be, I rough turn all of them! Next step is to tape the ends together and let them "adjust" to having bulk, removed. For me, this is generally a month or two, but some times longer. This is especially true for larger diameter boxes, like anything over about 2 inches. I have done a couple that were in the 5 inch diameter range, and one did move a tiny bit after I finished it, and one did not, but mostly I keep them in the 3 inch diameter range. With the bigger boxes, to me, the idea is to make them from the same piece of wood. That way, when they do move, they should move the same amount which means you may not be able to spin the lid all the way around, but it will still come off. My "idea" of a "perfect" fit is a 3 to 5 second drop as in pick the box up by the lid and it takes the bottom 3 to 5 seconds to drop off. Sides of tenon and recess need to be spot on parallel. I have a dedicated skew/scraper that I use for truing up the tenon and a number of them for truing up the recess. A 6 inch ruler on the recess and tenon and then eyeball how close it is to being parallel with the lathe bed and you are close. It does take practice.... Just a tiny bit too much, and the lid is too loose. For these boxes, I am now doing 2 rough turnings. One for the insides of the lid and box, and now I am rough turning the tenon and recess. I do prefer end grain, and the straighter the end grain is, the easier it is to make the grain line up. With a lot of cross grain, it does leave a sizeable hole in the grain and they just never look right to me. Plus, you get a lot of tear out. I do consider boxes to be good practice for hollow forms too. Oh, I have been making mine not more than about 3 or 4 inches deep. Mostly because I need hollowing tools to turn the inside if it gets deeper than that. It is good practice for a skew, spindle detail gouge, and negative rake scrapers. On end grain, you can, eventually, get a surface that 400 grit abrasive roughs up. Oh, don't use solvent based finishes on the inside because the smell NEVER goes away. Also, I make my boxes all from one piece of wood. I don't do the bottom from one kind of wood and the lid from another. I would have to figure out how much difference there is in the 2 woods species, and that is too much work for me.... Richard Raffen and Tomislav both have videos up on turning boxes. I don't have one up, yet....
robo hippy
