This is a handmade box designed around one of Jackie Hipkiss Avery's tiles. The tile is about four by five inches with only one corner approximating a right angle. This presented a number of challenges in building the box, although the hand-worked nature of the project may have been an asset rather than a liability here. Since the corners were sawn on a miter box and cleaned up on a miter trimmer, any angle within reason can be made with approximately the same amount of effort. Measuring the angles and understanding the implications of this geometry were more difficult than actual construction details.
The box is formed from hand-resawn walnut. It is lined with maple veneer, and keyed with curly maple on the corners. In addition to providing visual interest, the keys are particularly necessary with this box since they provide additional strength to the mitered corner joints. While the joint itself approximates a normal miter joint in strength, clamping jigs are really designed for 90 degree corners unless they are custom made for each project. Even a band clamp as used here has corners meant for 90 degree applications. Thus, the keys provide some additional reassurance about the structural integrity of the box. The tile constitutes the "roof" of the box and is set into a groove plowed along the inside walls. Similarly, a thin piece of maple plywood (chosen for its dimensional stability) forms the floor. Neither is glued in place; instead, they float within the restrictions of the sides of the box. As is traditional, the box was glued up with the top and bottom in place, forming a cube. It was then cut open (a thin Japanese ryoba saw was used for this purpose) to form the top and bottom parts.
Small brass hinges were inset into hand-cut hinge mortises on the left side of the box. These were not my first choice, but proved to be the most workable solution to the geometry requirements. A finger hole was made in the right side using a Forstner bit. As it turned out, I felt the box was too tall as originally constructed. I lowered the height of the base part somewhat, which reduced the bottom half of the finger hole by a considerable amount. It is barely present in the bottom part of the box. The appearance of the hole is somewhat unusual - but so is a box with only one square corner.
The finish is orange shellac mixed from flakes using denatured alcohol as a solvent. Two coats were brushed on, then fine sanded to reduce the grain-raising effects. Four more coats were wiped on with a pad (the actual number of coats varies, with the sides getting the most). The finish was then fine sanded with mineral oil and 600, then 1000, grit wet-dry paper, with the finish rubbed out using rottenstone and mineral oil. I would have liked it to have a bit more curing time, but I was working to a deadline and had to do the best I could given the time restrictions.
