Oilstone Box

To make the oilstone box we used Tasmanian Oak which is a hard wood. I used a single piece of wood to make my box. I first dressed it using the thicknesser and buzzer, I then docked it to length. After that I marked out whereabouts I wanted to clear out for the oilstone to fit inside of the box. Once it was marked out I used the drill press to drill out as much of the excess wood as possible, before using the router on the jig to remove the parts around the edges that the drill missed. This then gave a reasonably tidy rectangular shape taken out from the center. I then used a chisel to tidy up the corners and make sure that the oilstone fit in nicely. I did this for both the top and bottom of my box. Once I was happy with the fit of the oilstone I then found the center of my timber and cut it in half so the lid could then be placed on top. As I had excess wood on the end of my box to allow for any mistakes I then had to use the drop saw to tidy up the ends of the oilstone box and cut it to the correct dimensions as shown on the plans. This gave me a tidy finish to my box.

Once this has been done I then marked out where I wanted the beveled edge on the lid. I used a legit Stanley number four plain to plain off the beveled edges. I made sure the blade (iron) was really sharp to make sure that it gave me a nice smooth finish. Even on the end grain.

The final thing I had to do was the scallops on the base of the box. These are added in the design to make it easier to pick up off benches. I used a spoke shave to create the scallops.

My oilstone box is practically finished but I gave it a light sand after everything else to remove any small imperfections or marks on the timber.