I, like millions of other people around the world, have proudly served in their country’s military. During my eight years of service I collected a number of pieces of memorabilia that when I became a civilian, were put away in drawer where they collected dust for several years. During the past couple of years, we have been re organizing, or to be current in my speech, repurposing the rooms in our home. What once was a bedroom became my office. And I was given the green light to decorate it the way I wanted.
One of the first things I did was gather those pieces of memorabilia from the drawer and built a proper case to display them. Now you may not share my beliefs about the military, and I totally understand that, but I think every one should have a place that they can display artifacts that represent important parts of their lives. So, while mine contains pieces that remind me of my years in the Air Force, yours should contain those items that are part of your memories.
This case is made of 4/4 Cherry, and consists of two pieces, the case and the door. The case measures 15″x15“ square, and is 3.5” deep. To start, I ran my cherry stock over the jointer
then made passes through my thickness planer to ensure that all of the stock was square, flat and at the same dimension. Then I cut all four pieces of the case to length. My next step was to cut a dado along the back side of each piece to receive a piece of ¼“ oak plywood. I chose to use the oak plywood as I had it on hand, rather then purchasing a special piece of cherry plywood for this project.
The plywood back of the case will not be seen from the front. Over the plywood, I installed a piece of ¼” foam board, which I covered with a piece of green felt. The foam board allows me to attach my military service pins, simply by pressing them into the foam board. The foam board, I got from a craft supply store, the felt came from the local woodworking supply store.
Once the dados were cut, then I cut 45 degree miters on the ends of the case top, bottom and sides. I glued them together and clamped them with spring clamps until the glue was set. Also, to help keep everything square, I installed the plywood back and tacked it in place with 3/8” pin nails from my pneumatic nail gun.
A couple of things about working with cherry. Take the time to select grain patterns that complement each other. In this case, I really didn’t want any of the wilder grains that you sometimes find in cherry. I wanted all of the wood to have the same colorations. Also, I have found that using darker colored glue, rather than the common yellow or white carpenters glue works better, your glue lines don’t stand out as much. Also, keep moving, cherry will burn very easily if you let it stop while it’s in contact with either a spinning table saw blade or a router bit.
For the door on this case, I also used 4/4 Cherry. I wanted to keep the lines of the cabinet simple so I choose to keep the stock flat, rather than introducing a decorative edge. The door over hangs the case by 1/2”, on each side. I cut simple dado along the inside of each piece to accept the glass panel. I cut these dados and the ones for the rear of the case with a ¼” straight router bit mounted in my shaper table. The ends of the four pieces that made up the door
were cut to 45 degree miters on both ends, and simply glued together. Again I used spring clamps to hold the mitered pieces together while the glue dried.
After I had assembled the door, I did some re thinking. It was too simple, or in other words BORING. To add some visual interest, I added a simple bead around the outer edge of the
door. I have a beading bit for my router/shaper, which will cut three parallel beads, in one pass. I used this to make up the beading for my door. I took some stock that was ¾” high by 1” wide and ran it across the beading bit. I used feather boards and push sticks to hold the wood down and in contact with the fence on the shaper table.
After I had enough stock made up, I took it all to the table saw where I cut the wood lengthwise, setting the rip fence so that one complete bead would remain untouched by the blade. I then took these beads and attached them to the outer edges of the door stock. In each corner, I hand cut miters. I was concerned about splintering the wood if I were to use the powered miter saw. I used my small nail gun to tack the beading to the edges of the door frame, while to glue dried.
To connect the door to the frame, I installed a piano hinge along the left hand vertical edge of the case. The piano hinge is 3/16” thick, when closed. I removed this amount of wood from the left hand side of the case. This allows the door to close flush. A small magnetic catch was installed along the right hand edge of the case. A small decorative knob was added to the door frame. I used plastic glass clips to hold the glass in place in the door. These I got from the same woodworking supply house that supplied the felt.
I finished the case with my favorite finish, a combination of Tung oil and Linseed oil for the first coat. Then a combination of Tung oil and Polyurethane and followed this with a coat of Polyurethane.
So what ever your memories are, isn’t it time to make a proper case to display those items that cause you stop just for a moment and recall that special times in your life.
For more help or tipc chrck out my main blog at http://www.sawdustonthefloor.com/
