The Woodshop Shed

Box for coping saw

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


After building the coping saw for the 2021 Shop Tool Swap I needed a way to package it securely so it would arrive in one piece.I measured the saw, and decided it would fit in a Small USPS Flat Rate Box (picture 6), but there wasn't a lot of spare room. I still had some ash left after building the saw, so I resawed pieces to about a quarter inch thick. I built a fairly standard mitered and splined box (the splines are hand-cut dovetail splines and are walnut), thinking I would figure out a lid later. The bottom was a piece of apple from the crab-apple tree in my yard in Minneapolis. I think I needed to fix a few cracks in the apple with CA glue.After getting the box built, the saw just barely fit into it, and the box just barely fit into the small FRB. My initial plan of making a lid that would piston-fit over the box wasn't going to work, so I went rummaging through my stocks and came up with a piece of padauk I had gotten at the Rockler store in Maplewood, MN a few years back, and had never figured out a use for.The lid wouldn't quite fit on the box as-is, since the saw parts stuck up a little, so I got out a chisel and hollowed out the board a little. Once things fit, I pillowed the top of the lid using a block plane and belt-sander, then attached it to the box with some hinges I had on hand. Add a latch, and there we are! Well, except for the finish.To finish the box, I started by putting four coats of shellac on the ash and apple portion of the box. Then I sanded the padauk lid so it matched the shape of the box below it. Sealing the ash first meant I didn't have to worry about orange-tinted ash. Then I sealed the padauk and began French-polishing the box. I think it was about a dozen coats of shellac total, followed by three or four coats of violin varnish.I stuck the saw in the box, put the box in the box, and sent it all off to Eric.

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