Another Tea Box

Lately I've been working on some old tools that I've found at garage or estate sales.  I found myself in need of building something - anything!  So I though I'd make another tea box, similar to one I made a couple years ago.

This one is made from red alder, which can be a really beautiful wood.  Some boards that I've seen have white streaks, and I'm not a fan of that, but the wood for this project was very nice.  The back and left side even have some figure to them.

The sides have a 3/16" deep rabbet that will hide grooves at top and bottom

First corner dovetailed and fitted

All four corners dovetailed

After leveling the top and bottom rims, 3/16" x 3/16" grooves are run

The top and bottom are identical.  All four edges get a 3/8" deep x 3/16" wide groove.  I was unable to do the end grain edges with the plough plane, so I used a saw and chisels.  Something was not quite right with the plough.  I suspect the iron and wedge were not properly fitted - the iron was not forced against the steel skate and that resulted in poor performance.  I need to look into this some more later.  After the grooves were cut, the inside face was cut down about 3/16" on all edges.

Fitting the bottom into the grooves in the main box

The short divider is housed in 1/8" deep dadoes.
The long divider is half-lapped with the short one and its length
is fitted to the assembled box interior length.

I didn't show it, but the box sides are curved using an approximate 10 3/4" radius.  This makes the top and bottom edges of each piece about 3/16" to 1/4" thinner than the middle.

Here's a test fit without the lid

I pre-finished the inside surfaces of the box with 4-5 coats of
shellac followed by 0000 steel wool buffing and then wax

The box is glued up without the long divider installed

After the glue dried and the joints cleaned up,
the lid is cut from the bottom

I used old plastic cards as spacers to fill the kerfs when clamping in the vise

Then clean up the saw cuts on bottom and top, and correct any twist

Adding hinges

I mortised in a small piece of wood for a handle

Outside was finished like the inside: 4-5 coats of shellac, then wax

The completed box

I added green felt to the bottom

The box is intended to hold tea bag packets - four compartments for four types of tea.  This one took a while - I went kind of slow on it.  But it felt good to make something again.