Shadow Boxes – My First Commission

Earlier this year, I was given the task to build a pair of shadow boxes for my neighbors' young boys. The boxes would display the boys' Harry Potter magic wands.  I believe on of the wands was Dumbledore's and the other was Voldemort's.  The boxes were to be skinny but long, with a hinged hinged door or lid with a glass pane, a felt trimmed interior, and hooks to hang the wands upon.

I used a cherry plank I had kicking around left over from when I built the bed last year.  It is a very stable board because of how long it had been sitting around adjusting to my house's climate. I got a pane of glass from a hardware store and a glass cutter.

I needed a way to hold the back into the box, so I rabbeted the back edges of the box sides.  This meant that I needed to conceal the rabbets so they were not visible from the outside of the box.  To do this, joined the box together with mitered corner dovetails.  I cut one dovetail and a straight tail at each corner.  To cut the miter, a 45° line is marked on the edge of the board from the inside corner, where the baseline meets the inside face, to the opposite corner, where the face of the board meets the end.  I purposely cut a tiny bit away from the line, so that the joint errs towards not seating all the way and then I saw the corner away until the joint seats.  I'll try to make a video of this process next time a project I'm working on demands this joint.

The lid uses miters to hold the corners together, which I reinforced by cutting a kerf into the corner and gluing veneer into the kerf.  This edge grain to edge grain glue joint is a very strong bond.  The lid pieces are grooved in their edges to hold the 3/32 inch thick glass panel.  

The bottoms of the boxes are lined with colored felt which corresponds to the house colors of each wand's owner.  Dumbledore, as I learned, is from the Gryffindor house, and the box for his wand is lined with red felt and gold hooks hold up his wand.  Voldemort is from Slytherin house, and the box for his wand is lined with green felt.  

These boxes were finished with a 3:1 mixture of mineral spirits to polyurethane varnish.  I love this finish for cherry for a number of reasons.  Cherry usually starts out a pinkish-orange color, and turns brownish-red with age.  This finish brings out the deep, dark cherry color I love almost immediately, and it only gets darker and warmer with age.  I have used a varnish and mineral spirits blend on a number of other species, but it works wonders for cherry, and not as much for the other woods I have tried it on.  I applied several coats of varnish to the boxes, rubbing it down with grey scotch brite to get rid of any dust particles stuck in the finish.  This process produced a semi-glossy surface, and very smooth.  I decided to leave it at that and not add any wax because I was satisfied with the surface quality, and they won't see a lot of wear, so the wax's protective properties aren't required.  I truly enjoyed this project.  It was a great first commission because it was manageable, yet challenging.  I am very grateful to my first customers for giving me this opportunity, and I look forward to more experiences like it.