WALNUT AND SPALTED MAPLE BOXES

A nice but inexpensive gift idea.

SHOP OWNER: Luc Lalonde

LOCATION: Milton, Ontario, Canada

This Christmas I decided to make nice gift boxes for my relatives. Money is tight and it was certainly a good option to save a few dollars. I picked up a few pieces of spalted maple a few months back at the last wood show I attended and was just itching to use them on the right project. This was going to be the perfect project for the spalted maple.

I started by making the bases out of solid black walnut. I used a locking box joint router bit for the corner joints. I find this is a simple and easy way to assemble these boxes. Next, I resawed the spalted maple so that the tops would consist of two bookmatched halves, glued together, and pressed against another piece of maple.

To get a darker look for the walnut bases, I applied a coat of stain. I topped this off with three coats of hand wiped Tung oil and one coat of wipe-on polyurethane.