Adventures in Box Making (The Conclusion: part one)

Adventures in Box Making (The Hiccup)

I took everything I learnt from the earlier box-making and did it all differently from that attempt. Consequently, things went much better this time round. I was more methodical in my approach and plan better on how to approach the problem, thereby creating a better design in the end.

I decided to reuse the wooden bases and tops from the previous boxes as they were still in pretty good condition. All I had to do was fill the holes with some wood filler, give them a quick sand down and apply more linseed oil. I used boiled linseed oil on all the wood to protect it and bring out the grain. I re-drilled the holes for the rods making sure they were slightly smaller in diameter than the rods for a snug fit. I decided to cut new rods for both boxes using the thicker ones for both boxes this time and hammered them into the bases.

This was how I was able to build a hexagon template using a ruler and a compass: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hexagon.html

I took measurements of the distance between the rods and drew up the dimensions for the sides of the boxes and the hand-holes one of the pieces of black mounting board with a 5mm margin between each side to allow for clean cutting. I then cut off the surplus card and stuck double-sided tape to the back surface of the drawn up board. I also applied double-sided tape to the middle layer for the sides and then sandwiched the three layers of card together so I could cut them all the hand-holes as one. I cut the holes with straight as opposed to curve lines this time as it left a neater finish and was a lot easier. Once the holes were cut I unstuck the layers and drew up the lines I wanted to cut out of the middle layer to accommodate the stocking material.

Now I could start on gluing the layers together with wood PVA this time round. The solid walls were easy as I glued all three layers together as one; piled books on top of the layers and left them to set for 12 hours before cutting. For the sides with the holes, I glued one of the black layers and the middle layer together and did the book thing again. I then diluted the PVA with a little water to make sure it soaked into the stocking fully. I then glued the stocking to the black layer so that it was flush with the middle layer. I had to use little map pins to stick the stocking to the card so it didn’t lift. It took forever to dry because I had put a bit too much water in the PVA and used too much PVA. I ended up buckling the card a little with the extra moisture. After this had dried I glued on the last layer; booked it and then cut it when dry. This worked out to be more effective than the way I had previously done it.

I added some paper fasteners as latch fasteners for the door on the object’s box. I decided to do an all card design and because I was attaching the card to the rods using thread it meant they had enough move-ability  for one of the solid walls to act as door. Better looking than the wood one. For the door I also used a metal bar thingy as a handle by cutting a small hole out of the door, screwing the bar together and gluing the back of it to the inside of the door. I decided on stretchy rubber jewellery thread to secure the door to the box, so that all that the user needed to do was pull out and up to get it off the paper fastener.

I drilled holes down the sides of the walls for the thread and proceeded to attach the walls to the rods using waxed black thread. I had to attach all the walls on loosely before tightening up the thread because the space between the rods and the edges of the walls was too small to fit a needle through without breaking the needle in the process. Once this was done I could hammer the tops of the boxes on, obviously using a piece of scrap wood as buffer and only hammering lightly. Then I stuck the heart in the object box.

I took a different approach to putting the heart in this time. Instead of attaching the brass rods directly to the base and top, I attached them to a couple of small blocks of ply and then epoxy glued the blocks to the top and base. This meant I could make the brass rods slightly shorter than the height inside the box and by sliding one of the ply blocks further down the brass I could then add epoxy to the base of it then push it up to join with the base.

Adventures in Box Making (The Conclusion: part two)