Bandsaw Box Group

Welcome to the

Bandsaw Boxes Group

History

I started making these boxes back in September of 2001 as you can see from these photograph, my first box out of a piece of scrap wood that was exotic. I read an article in one of the woodworking magazines that describes this process of creating bandsaw boxes, even though it took several steps I decided to cheat and use the single block to get it done quicker. It didn't really work form an outcome point of view but it did get me through the basics of how to do it. The article was published by Lois Keener Ventura who also published the next thing I bought, her book: Building Beautiful Boxes with Your Band Saw. It is a great book and I think one of the only books published on the topic (an idea). The box in the article is actually not in her book, although she does have a number of good designs.

Needless to say I got hooked on creating and making these boxes, much like someone who gets hooked on turning (lathe). There is something about creating a shape that is curved out of a natural substance, it represents a different kind of art. 

How They Are Made

All boxes are made with thoroughly dried and very select woods, I literally search through the boards looking for the perfect grain pattern and color. The basic work is done on a bandsaw (surprise) but the final shaping is done by hand using a whole combination of tools from scrapers to rasps to sandpaper, in most cases these shaping tools were custom developed by me. There are no two boxes that are the same, this is because of a combination of hand shaping as well as the combinations of woods that are used.

The boxes are created according to a specific pattern and associated template, the rough cuts are made on the bandsaw then reassembled using wood glue and a generoud supply of clamps. Once the components are cured th hand shaping begins, typically I rough out the shape using a combination of a belt sander and an oscillating spindle sander. At this point I break out the rasps and start shaping the details and contours of the box, this takes some time becasue the grain pattern affects the shaping. Once shaping is complete the final step is scraping and sanding the tool marks away and preparing the suffice for finishing. 

All of the boxes have lined drawers, it is blown in using a quality flux material and glue. The boxes have a clear coat put on them (BLO, Poly, etc), three coats in fact. The finishing work is all done by hand rubbing and then finishing off with a buffing wheel. A coat of wax is applied as a final protection, this is buffed out using the buffing wheel.

All boxes are branded with my logo and the authentication serial number. In addition, each box comes with a certificate listing the branding information, serial number and all of the individual woods used in the box. If any of the wood used has a known history (it usually does) that is documented as well, this includes things like narrative, location, age, previous life, etc.

Ordering and Delivery

There are several variations of each box that I offer, these variations can be configured at the time of ordering and generally include options like wood varieties used and the finish. If the item is not in stock, and they generally aren not, it will take between 4-6 weeks for delivery.

Custom Orders

If you have an idea for a particular design or would like to modify an existing let me know and I'm happy to do it. There are other cases where you might want woods that aren't available in my listing, no worries as I can get practically any wood within a few miles of my home or it can be oredered, in either case I can handle the request. In some cases I'll already have the wood on hand as I have a few 1000 bdft of dozens of varieties. Another request has been using hardware for the drawer pulls instead of my custom pulls, this is typically because the customer wants the hardware to match another piece of furniture. This can be done but care needs to be taken since the hardware can be disproportionate given the size of the drawers.

Whatever you decide, I'm glad you stopped by and took a look.