Scroll saw box part 3

Hi All,
Carrying on with the scroll saw box, the next thing to do is fit a base. This is very easy, all you have to do is take the main part of the box, lay it on the wood that you are going to use for the base and draw a line around it. This can then be cut out using either a hand saw or a scroll saw. Scroll saws aren't the best tool in the world to use to cut a straight line, so I always keep the blade on the outside of the line. I could cut it by hand but I'm getting lazy in my old age.

For my box, the wood I used for the base was 6mm thick walnut. It is a nice dark wood that provides a nice contrast against the main part of the box which is made from maple. The dark of the walnut is also required to give me the opposite colour to the rose which I am going to inlay on the lid.

After the base is cut out, glue it onto the bottom of the main box and clamp it until the wood glue is dry. It's only a small box, but I use 4 clamps to make sure it is squeezed up nice and tight, I also use a couple of pieces of scrap wood between the clamps and the box to avoid damage and increase the area of clamping pressure.

While the base glue is curing I can carry on with the project by making the hinge posts. Here is a close up of one of the post so you can get an idea what it looks like.

To make the hinge post I use mahogany strips. I get them from Always Hobbies along with my other wood.

The strips can be used for other projects so a bundle is well worth buying. They come in bundles of 10, these are 457mm long x 6mm thick x 9mm wide and the cost is just over £6.

To make the posts, I stick a design on one strip and then stick it to another one by wrapping Cellotape around them both.

 This means that when I cut the design out, I get two perfectly matching posts. Note, I don't cut the post to length first, I leave the wood long so that I can hold it with my fingers well away from the blade.

Which reminds me of the old Joke about the man who rushed off to hospital after cutting all his fingers off on a saw.

The doctor said, "Have you brought the fingers with you so that we can sow them back on?"

"I would have done, but I couldn't pick them up," the man replied.

The old ones are the still the best. Anyway you never know when you might want to take up the guitar, so keeps your fingers as far away from the blade as possible.

Here are the two identical posts just waiting for a light sanding.

Right the next task is to attach the posts to the box and that will be the first step in the next post. Meanwhile, if you want to see what other people are doing in the scroll saw world take a look at this site .

It belongs to a chap called Steve Good and is a great resource for scroll saw plans. Even better, they are completely free although Steve does encourage donations. Anyway, it's well worth a look.