chosing wood for small boxes

[Dan S]

I've decided to try my hand at making boxes. I'm going to start with a "lift-lid box" as seen in Doug Stowe's Basic box making book, and Brian Meeks Extremely Average blog. What I"m having a hard time with, is choosing complimentary woods, Thus I'm interested in hearing what others would do. Opinions please?

I have the following woods in my shop at the moment:

Suitable for making lids:

• quarter sawn white oak
• flat sawn black walnut
• flat sawn red oak
• flat sawn honduran mahogany
• flat sawn poplar
• splated maple
• quarter sawn teak
• quarter sawn sycamore
• book matched hard maple (would need to be joined to make a top)
  
  • quarter sawn white oak
  • flat sawn black walnut
  • flat sawn red oak
  • flat sawn honduran mahogany
  • flat sawn poplar
  • quarter sawn teak
  • quarter sawn sycamore
  • flat sawn splated sycamore

Suitable for making sides:

[mlehikoinen]

I think it's all open to interpretation. What some like, others will not. I personally like using contrasting woods. Others may disagree, but I would probably stay away from woods that are close in shades if you're trying to make one stand out. I recently made a box from Ash (sides) and walnut (top) and the contrast is outstanding (still finishing, so no pics yet).

IMHO, if you're not doing anything to the lid to make it stand out, go with a figured wood. If you have to glue up the top, book match or slip match the pieces depending on what looks better. If you're going to do something like inlay on the top, then use a fairly straight grain to not overwhelm the focal point unless you have a piece that will accent it rather than drown it.

You could get 100 different replies and I don't think any one of them would be wrong

If you want to experiment, lay a couple of pieces next to each other and dampen with mineral spirits to see what they would look like when finished. What looks pleasing to you is really what you should go with.

[Bombarde16]

Agreed first off, there's potentially no wrong answer here. All of the above are delightful hardwoods to work with and will provide a.) hours of practice and skill building plus b.) plenty of keepsakes to give to your friends.

I say potentially because there's one wood that to my eyes doesn't play well with others: Oak. Maybe it's the pores, maybe it's the flecks (visible in both quartered and on edge in flat stock) but it presents an extremely busy face. It also speaks to me of yang-ish ruggedness--square corners and mission furniture, I guess--that doesn't jive with the more yin act of combining fine, contrasting hardwoods. FWIW, the Schwarz also dismisses red oak as "...an ugly weed."

One of the more sophisticated things I've seen done with oak, though, was T-Chisel's blanket chest in which the panels were hit with relief carving. Somehow, that piece managed to reconcile the massiveness of oak with the intricacy of the carving. (The fact that he was copying a piece from the 17th century certainly helped.) Perhaps one of these little boxes would be a good chance to try your hand at carving.

At the least, I'd start by using the red oak or poplar to practice techniques and fabricate any jigs you plan to use.

[Dan S]

I think I'm going to try white oak for the sides, walnut for the top, and walnut for the keys. I'll post some photos when done.

for those that are interested here is the lift top lid excerpt from Doug's book.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/FWNPDFfree/99928091.pdf

He used:

top: spalted pecan

sides: white oak

keys: walnut