Well, things have been a fairly busy, so I thought I'd take a break and share a bit of whats been going on in the shop. Haley and I had a great trip up to British Columbia at the beginning of May to attend the student/faculty/alumni exhibition for Inside Passage School of Fine Cabinetmaking. It was good to see some old classmates, meet new friends and share in each others work. I took the coffee table I had been working on since the last post, it will also be in the design in wood show in Del Mar California starting this week. I'll post pics of the table as soon as I get them back. After we returned from the BC, I started in on a small commission for a good friend back in Houston. He had an old coffee grinder that worked great, but the box it was in, was falling apart. I thought It would be a good break from the table build...doing something small, that didn't lack detail, but presented a lot less difficulty. I was able to use wood that was off-cuts from other projects, I like that, it feels a bit like a little life from other pieces is passed on to the next.

Here is what we started with,

These old boxes always have a way to get the grinder out, by chance the box fails, usually by screwing on the bottom. I didn't like the idea of not gluing the whole piece together and thought about the idea of just pressure fitting the back in. In the end, I decided to do a complete glue-up. Besides, I believe part of what allows these old boxes to fail..despite poor construction, is the fact that they are not one complete unit. So if the day ever comes (which it shouldn't) that the grinder fails, they will just have to use it for a nice little box with a drawer ... with a coffee grinder sticking out the top.

The drawer sides are from some left over Euro Sycamore and the pull... well that's the only thing not from scrap, it's Wenge.

I initially thought the old hardware might need to be replaced, but you just can't find ones that look like these anymore. I also liked the thought of some more old with the new.