Building a Box with Barrel Sides: Part 1

I have got a pretty cool project here. And to be honest, I stole some of this idea, actually, from my son's woodworking class. Here's what we've got going. It's what I'm calling a Barrel Sided Box. And I'm calling it that, cause if you look at it this way, we've got a curve in the sides.

And then if we look at it this way, curve in the ends. And then even if you look at the lid, the lid is domed, in this direction. And then if we come this way, the lid is domed in this direction. When you look at it, in this three-dimensional state, like it's sitting here, it looks like this could be pretty complex. How do I do joinery in these round sides and make all this happen?

And the answer to that, is that, we're gonna put the box together as a rectangle. After the whole thing is glued together. We're gonna create the barreled sides. So, the stealing part of this, was for my son's Tech Ed class. He had to make a box.

He did a lot of the work, here in my shop. Then once I was looking at the box, I was thinking, that's pretty cool, but it'd be neat to make it, just a little more interesting, a little bit more complex. And that's what led to the Bandsaw Work, that creates a Barrel Side. The other thing that I think is a really nice touch, is the Stripe. In this case, we've got Cherry.

with a Maple Accent, and I'm gonna show you, how to do that. That's the first step. And, once we've got it in the box, I think it really adds a nice detail and it looks much more complex, than it really is. I've had a lot of people, see this kind of thing in my work and say, how do you do that inlay? And especially in this case, a rounded side, with a curved inlay.

Well, It's not an inlay, it's a Stripe we're gonna put in first. So, let's take care of that. You're gonna see a variety of woods get used here, because I've got different components made up, ahead of time. So, we're going to start with cherry maple, just like we did, on the finished box. And here's the deal with that Stripe, like I said, it's really pretty simple, but noisy.

I've got a couple of pieces here, ready to go. This was a piece of cherry, large enough for my project. And I'm gonna give you those dimensions, the project dimensions in just a sec. What I did is I went to the bandsaw and I cut this, gentle sweeping curve. Couple of things are key to that cutting, one, we wanna blade in the bandsaw, that is, quarter inch.

Three eighths, would probably be okay. Four teeth per inch. The thing with the curve is. don't allow it to curve real sharp. Because, we've gotta be able to bend, our accent piece, to whatever curve you make.

So, if you overdo the curve, if you make it too dramatic, you're gonna have a hard time, getting your Stripe to go into it. The other thing that's really important is that, notice, we have a concave area, a concave area. What's important about that, is that when we squeeze the pieces together with clamp pressure, they'll kinda grab each other. They tooth into each other. If we don't have curves, if we just kinda do an angle, from one end to the other, when you go to clamp this, they're gonna tend to slide past each other.

So, because we've got a convex, here, going into a concave here, they're gonna stay close. They're not gonna, creep past each other, when we do that step. Now, there's some bandsaw marks on here. That's just fine. You're not gonna see those, in the finished project.

Do not go back and drum sander, the bandsaw marks off, because if you do, you're gonna change the shape, and they're not gonna make back together. For this step of the operation, we're just gonna use conventional Yellow Glue, and we need to get it on both edges, because of the Stripe that we're putting in between. All right. Now, a lot of times when I close this, I have to close it, in two stages because it takes quite a bit of clamp travel, to get it completely closed. Let's see how this one goes.

I can do a little bit with hand pressure, though that's going really well. The maple I'm putting in, is about a 16th, of an inch thick, a surface sander, a drum sander, is a really easy way, to produce those thin pieces. It's gonna depend for you, what tooling you have, as far as, how you're gonna make 'em in your shop. Notice that the maple, is just a little bit thicker than the cherry or the maple is wider, then the cherry is thick. And that's just fine.

We'll take that off with a sander or a planer, after the glue is dry. All right. We've got the joint closed. Squeeze out on both sides. I'm feeling underneath to make sure that, my inlay strip is all the way down to the bottom of the cherry.

That feels great. Another piece here, set to go. Now, I've got pieces, I already did this to, so that we don't have to wait for glue to dry. We can keep moving on the project, with the pieces that are already, ready. So, let's have a look at those next and talk about project dimensions.

Before we do any more assembly, let's talk about the dimensions that are relative to this project. For thickness of material, you can do this with three quarter inch stock. The thicker, you can work with, the thicker material that can work with, the more dramatic a barrel, you can get in the side. So, I started with four quarter, full one inch roughs on, and I took off, just enough to get the two faces clean. That's gonna let me get the most dramatic barrel.

But like I said, if you're, if I have a three-quarter stock, it'll work. Box dimensions, are five by five by eight. So, when this whole thing, is put it together like this. We are, five by five, on the end. And then, in this direction, five by eight.

The joinery, is very simple. I just did rabbit joints on the corners, so that we can close against the ends. The rabbit joints are cut, a quarter inch deep. We really need rabbits there, as opposed to a butt joint, to give us a good, solid joint, but we don't need to go any deeper than a quarter inch for this small project. Notice that, there's no accommodation at this point, for a bottom, we're gonna take care of that later.

Now, when I watched my son put his box together, which was made just like this. I noticed I was really trying to help him, not get squeeze out in the inside corners, because that's such a pain to deal with. And part of the answer to that, can come from glue selection. This is, an exceptionally thick glue, hence the name. So, what I found as he was doing his, was that, still gotta be careful with the glue, but because it's so thick, it's less likely to ooze in, to the inside corners of the box, as we put everything together.

And that's good, because then we don't have to worry about, trying to get in there, to clean up. All right. Now, in go the ends. Now notice I'm kinda, putting it into the inside corner and then closing it. That helps push the glue to the outside, into the inside corner and close it.

And then up here, I'm gonna make that happen by cocking it out, and closing, cocking it out and closing. Kinda rocking everything into place, helps push any squeeze out, toward the outside. I'm gonna stand that up. Now, we need to do two things. We wanna close against the shoulders of the rabbits.

So, I'm gonna clamp this way, gently. And then I'm gonna also clamp in this direction, after I make sure, that my tops are nice and flush. I'm gonna work all my clamps at the same time. Okay. Now, once I know that everything is closed, I can rob this clamp, off.

And come, this way. And I'll do the same thing with that other clamp. So, get the box assembled. This wraps us up, for now, for part one, then we're gonna come back in our next step. So be sure, you make sure, you catch part two.

In our next step., we're gonna get the bottom put on. I'm gonna talk to you about the layout that we need for the bandsaw to create the barrel shape. And we'll have a look at the bandsaw work.