A Little Pill Box

[Bill Arnold]

This is a pill box I turned for my wife's mother. She sets up her pills for the day on the kitchen table, so I made her something a little nicer than the plastic box she's been using,

This box measures 1.75" across the base of the bottom and 1.75" high. The bottom is cherry; top is spalted maple.

I knew the spalted maple was a little soft on the corner I cut off to make this top, so I took it easy as I started turning into it. Sure enough, it got a little more pithy the more I turned. I grabbed my bottle of thin CA and started dousing it until it had soaked up a fair amount. When I started turning again, it felt much more solid, so I had no problem completing it.

A couple of coats of tung oil (real stuff) gave it a nice appearance. After letting that cure a couple of days, I hit it with several coats of rattle can lacquer.



'Shrooms, anyone?

 

[Bill Arnold]

Photos for my post. I'm not authorized to edit or delete my post.

 

[endacoz]

I'm curious as to how you had this on a lathe.

 

[turncrazy43]

Looks real nice, Bill.
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Everyday I'm vertical is a great day

 

[Bill Arnold]

I'm curious as to how you had this on a lathe.

For the bottom, I started with a longer piece of cherry than I needed. I hollowed out the inside and shaped the outside down as far as I needed, then parted it off the remainder. To clean up the bottom, I wrapped the top part with some rubber padding, put it in the chuck and finished the bottom of the base.

I turned the inside of the top first, then shaped the lower part of the outside. Next, I put a piece of pine in the chuck and turned it to act as a jam chuck. When I got a good fit using a small bit of paper towel as a pad, I finished turning the upper portion of the top.

 

[kludge77]

Those look great!!

 

[Old Codger]

Bill...that is a great little pill box! Much nicer than my current one, and if you don't mind, I'd like to copy your design in one that I use every day! Nice finish although, I've never used cherry... I've heard that it easily 'burns'...is that true? Again, thanks for sharing and safe turning to you always!

 

[Bill Arnold]

Bill...that is a great little pill box! Much nicer than my current one, and if you don't mind, I'd like to copy your design in one that I use every day! Nice finish although, I've never used cherry... I've heard that it easily 'burns'...is that true? Again, thanks for sharing and safe turning to you always!

Thanks!

No problem copying this. Everything we make a post is out there to be copied.

I've used lots of cherry over the years on large flatwork projects and have burned my share of it. I haven't had any burns on cherry I've turned, except in one case where I used a piece of wire to burn a detail in a bottle stopper.