'vapour lock'

I did promise in my last post to tell you about a vapour lock. A vapour lock

"is an old car mechanical term from way back when. It's when the gas line in your car would overheat and turn the gas into vapor which would automatically stall your car, dead in it's tracks because of lack of fuel. They did something in auto technology to correct this problem as I have not experienced it in over 20 years"

(thanks to John Hodur in the States who enlightened me on that)

And the connection to boxes? It happens to me all the time - I get stuck on a little problem and until it's solved I can't go forward. I can't go around it. I have to solve it and go through it. 

The last time it happened was with the magnets for some treasure boxes.The 3mm magnets were about 2.9mm and were a bit sloppy in the holes and the 4mm were fine but a bit too big and I'd have to send back the 3mm that I'd bought...

I'm slacking

The funny anomaly about writing a blog is that the greater the time gap between entries, the less there is to say.
I think I've been doing work that I've spoken about before, and I've had a birthday, and... I've run out of excuses.Well - the only way is forward...
A little batch of 'treasure' boxes was finished yesterday - next time I'll tell you about a vapour lock...

HMS Victory Box

I'm making more trays! This time for a box made from oak taken from Nelson's flagship HMS Victory

photo tipette

I am a box maker. I am not a photographer. Nevertheless in the spirit of blog writing which I think in my case means writing what I do all day I thought I'd include a photo of how I take my photos!
A roll of photographic paper hanging from the ceiling, one small flash unit with a soft box, an infer-red trigger on the camera and a reflective board. ( sorry, that's not in the photo - I'd taken it away). Camera set to manual with the flash off and that's it - job done!
It did take me years to get to this point though...

sharpening - today's tipette

After I've hammered in the pegs on the sides of the boxes they are faceted - I think there was a photo of this a lttle while ago.
A sharp chisel for this is essential so I thought I'd show you how I sharpen.
Two stones, one medium and one very fine - almost slate like, an eclipse jig and a couple of pieces of MDF glued up to make a measuring jig.
One side of the jig is for plane irons and the othe for chisels.

complete

Just to finish off - here's a couple of pics of the jewellery box finally complete!

Velvet

High time I finished this box!
I attach the velvet to card before lining the jewellery box. Copydex is great for this but it does have an almost magical ability to jump from the container to the face of the velvet. Once it's on the pile of the velvet there's no way it will come off. Take it off and start again. You would think I'd have learnt after all these years.