Steak Knives Part 7 - Display Boxes

After spending 7 posts worth of effort making these, they really needed a good display box. And, so we have this break from knife making to discuss the making of mitered boxes with a sliding lid.

The boxes are ambrosia maple with danggai, afromosia, or walnut trim. The construction of the box itself is just four 45 degree mitered angles and a groove for a 3/16" thick bottom. That holds the structure of the box together well. I needed to cut a second groove for the top to slide into. Also, to provide clearance for the top to slide in, I raised the blade from the depth of the top groove to cut all the way through the front piece. That, combined with clipping the the front corners of the mitered sides gave space in the front of the box for the top to slide.

The top itself is a 1/4" piece of wood with a tongue cut to match another groove in the sides. This allows the lid to slide in and out of the box to close it. In order to make the front of the top wide enough to cover the opening I cut, while the majority of the top narrow enough to slide into the box itself, I added a piece of decorative trim. Also, because the slides were pretty tight, I added a handle. I matched the handle to the same species as the front trim.

The inside is stained in General Finishes Black Gel Stain. I did this so that the knives, which are the real stars of the show after all, would stand out against the background.

Also, to provide a stable place for the knives to sit, I cut four parallel mitered slots into a couple blocks of wood, and cross cut them into strips to provide a means of holding the blades in place. Doing so actually lifted the tips up, so I needed to elevate the spot for the handles to rest, so another piece of 1/4" wood accomplished the task.



For finish, I started with Zinsser Seal Coat Dewaxed Shellac  (which is hard to do well) and put a final coat of Formbys Tung Oil Finish (mainly to help fix how poorly I applied the shellac).