While I was working on the Morris Chair project I got one of the thousands of e-mails from Woodcraft advertising specials and such. Normally I ignore ads. But this one had black mesquite on sale above the fold and I just loved the color and the grain. I bought some. This is the first time I’ve just bought wood with no project in mind. When I told my wife about it she joked that I was collecting a “wood stash” like her “yarn stash.” So true, I’m curating a lot of nice off-cuts and extra wood from two years of projects now. I think becoming enamored of your raw materials is just part of making stuff.
My wife has started playing role playing games again lately, Call of Cthulhu and MÖRK BORG with groups of friends over zoom. We actually started going out forty years ago shortly after an all night Dungeons and Dragons game. So, she has dice, actually lots of pretty dice, and she mentioned that she’d seen a nice dice box online and perhaps that might be something I could make? I almost immediately had an idea to try making an ornate box using various different woods that I had. The box she showed me online was hexagonal and initially I was thinking of perhaps just a square box. But after looking at a few videos of people making hexagonal boxes I decided to go for it.
I came up with a design and a decorative pattern for the top and bottom of the box. I used dice sized objects in my drawing to validate that it would hold enough dice. Also, she wanted the cover to double as a rolling surface so I designed a raised inner hexagon that the top could be set on to be used as the rolling surface. I planned to line the entire box in red felt that I had bought when I did the night stand project ( which we did in blue felt, so I have a fabric stash starting, don’t judge me).
I built the outer frame of the box from 3/4” by 2 1/2” black mesquite, lovely wood, actually denser than the quarter sawn oak I just used. I cut a dado for the top and bottom into it as well as a 1/2” dado across the center line where I would put in an edge to register the two halves once I cut them apart. I used 1/4” pine plywood for the top and bottom of the box, floating in the dado. I mitered the sides of the box at 60 degrees and using masking tape to clamp the sides together I rolled everything up with glue to create the initial box.
Using off-cuts of soft maple, oak, and black mesquite I re-sawed them into 1/4” thickness and 1 1/2” widths using my ( cheap-ass ) band saw and a 1/2” 14 tooth per inch blade. It did a remarkable job for such a low power, low precision machine. I mitered all the pieces to fit in concentric hexagons and glued them to the plywood substrate on outside of the top and bottom of the box.
Along side the band saw as hero machine was my sanding station on this project. Once the glue on the top and bottom was dry I filled any gaps with wood filler and then I sanded the top and bottom beautifully flush. I actually went through all the finish sanding with the box all as one piece. Then I did the scariest thing and cut the box in half horizontally on the table saw. It came out great.
I put an edge to register the sides together into the rabbet around the inside edge of the bottom. I then built another hexagon out of pine plywood (it was going to be covered by felt anyway) that was inset inside the base and higher than the outer edge so it would provide a pedestal for the top when it was being used as a rolling surface. I glued it into the center of the base.
I finished the outside with Danish Oil ( my favorite finish so far ) the Natural color version. I made a pattern of the lining and cut it out and trimmed it to fit. I glued it in using contact cement. I found some nice hardware online and used it to close the two halves to each other.
This was the most decorative natural wood thing that I’ve done so far and I’m very pleased with it. My wife likes it and it functions really well for holding her dice.
