One More in Castelo Boxwood

Similar box. I posted a picture of the prior boxes on reddit and reddit is not exactly a site for much average depth – it’s a sign of the times…well, a decade ago when people started moving to devices vs. PCs. However, folks are usually positive there, except there’s often one or two people who are critical. I think they are Fred critical. Fred is an esoterica name in my parent’s sphere, a term for someone who can tell you the right answer for everything, offer an opinion, imply comparability with accomplished people and disappear if having to prove anything.

Freds on internet forums, reddit, whatever, are the folks who drop in on threads and disagree about something, get upset if you challenge them to offer a relevant suggestion or show something they’ve done. In my parents’ sphere, Freds also often like to tell you ahead of time you shouldn’t bother trying something because it won’t turn out well or whatever you might do will cause problems, so don’t bother.

You don’t know the Freds we do, but we know more than one person named Fred who has these qualities. Thus the name. Freds are fascinated with what you may have wasted money on (wood) or wasted your time on (making things with wood), offering unsolicited coaching as you’ll often find. People who talk the most about wasting time with something are not atypically the same folks who do nothing useful with theirs.

So…

Being notified that these boxes are a waste of time and money, it makes me want to make something more elaborate. I did want to first use stock nicer than the other wood I’ve used- which was cherry, padauk and walnut. Nothing wrong with those, and the padauk under varnish has surprisingly pleasing color. But I wanted something less common looking:

This box houses a stone that has been on a shelf in my bathroom – it’s an oilstone, but I have used it only on razors. It’s a nice burr chaser, maybe as fine as any natural stone I’ve ever used, but it’s slow cutting. I don’t think stones like this were even really used much for razors – they’re a little too slow for even that – but this one would be excellent for engraving tools or chasing burrs on profiled tools. That’s a little beside the point other than to describe why it doesn’t make it to the shop – it’s too fine for anything other than perhaps as a base for 0.5 or 1 micron diamonds.

The wood is castelo boxwood. Gilmer wood sells it on a regular basis and it’s a relative of lemonwood. It’s not cheap, but there are more expensive woods and it is divine to work. After planing the first of two blanks I bought years ago, I bought 5 more. Surprisingly, this billet has some brownish stuff in the middle, but not at the edges, so that kind of dictated the orientation of the grain here. I’d rather not see the stuff you see on the bottom at all, but on the ends is better than on the front and top, so it’s flatsawn looking on the side and at first glance, looks a little like maple.

The box is plain, I think done well enough that I want something a little more challenging in terms of uniqueness and that’ll mean difficulty.

The Freds of the world would declare it’s a waste of time, and I’m not the accomplished type who turns out something never seen before on a continuous basis – more the type who quickly responds “what have you made lately?”

Sweet Spot

I can make tools well enough now that the tools would have some open market value. But I think this box adventure has been sort of the sweet spot of what I like to do. There is no “make one” and it should be perfect sort of internet idea, nor is it something I want to do just kind of half shitty half OK in one example and move on. this box makes it five of the type with a carved bottom after what I really started out with was making several plain flat boxes to use oak that my dad had milled long ago. They left me feeling like I could make something nicer because it’s annoying for me to just make things and not think much about it other than fighting a power router or something. The difference between me and the difference between me 15 years ago wasn’t so much skill as it was tolerance to figure things out. I guess there is a lot of trivial knowledge gained, but the mindset is more important. If I was less talented, I’d make less nice things. If I was more talented (and pretty much every pro and lots of amateurs are more talented), I’d make much nicer things than just plain boxes like this. But I would be just as happy either way.

I’ll get back to chisels and cutting tools soon – it’s still nice to make those. I think I can do things more interesting – maybe subtly – and better than what I’ve done so far.