Question for you wood workers....

[Fuddyduddy1952]

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[ljjhouser]

Nice work. Maybe Rosewood.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Question (background first)

I've been (carefully) going through this bible. There are obituaries in there dating back to 1898 and births noted in there going back to 1886. This is on dedicated pages in the book to commemorate these events.

I then have some loose papers, maybe a newspaper obit that was cut out or something. Not a lot of them but it's interesting to look at this stuff.

One to my question.... I'd like to keep all this together without sliding all the loose papers into the Bible itself. That got me thinking.

Maybe make the base say, two inches tall..... inside the base, have essentially a drawer that would slide out and in the drawer, lay the papers. Now they're all together but not stuffed into the Bible itself.

Which brings me mechanically to how would I cut the drawer out? My vision was it would be cut out of the base so it would be perfectly matched wood. Don't think I could cut (for lack of better word) a "slot" that the drawer would slide into. Maybe I could take say, TWO ONE inch pieces. Cut drawer slot out of one of them then sandwich pieces together and now have a drawer opening. I suppose I'd have the cutout piece that could be routed/machined into being at minimum, the drawer front.

Just for kicks, imagine the base part having to be about 16x20. The drawer would be pretty thin... maybe 3/4 to an inch in depth (there are not a lot of papers with this) Otherwise, able to handle 8x11 sheet of paper.

How to approach making a drawer for this.....then, how to latch it. I was thinking put a simple hook or maybe hide it by putting a threaded brass rod in one side, passing through and threading into a receiver on other side. This way the drawer (hopefully) won't just slide out if tilted in an errant direction. Meantime, casual eyes might not realize there's something hidden beyond the brass knurls.....

Side note, it's amazing how creative my wife can be in coming up with projects for "us" to do. Heck, I hardly had time today to mow the field but for some of her items. No moss grows on her, she never stays still. She will probably be one of my larger challenges to deal with to get some time to focus on doing this box!!

Me, I'd probably want to wear gloves something that old.

 

[dstig1]

Making a drawer front continuous like this is pretty easy. Start with a board that is wider and longer than final dimensions for the box. Also helps if it is thicker. Rip a strip off the top and bottom leaving a wide strip in the center for the drawer height. Then cross cut that center piece on each end to give you the drawer front. Now glue the rest of it back together: the thin strips on the top and bottom and the 2 end cuts from the center.

The key is to put alignment marks on all the parts prior to cutting, so you can line them back up perfectly. Then clean up the surface to get out any imperfections in the glue-up with a plane or planer or sander. Trim the drawer front slightly to fit as needed and with whatever gap you want. Trim the glue-up as needed.

Finally make a box for the drawer and attach the front onto it.