I've made a lot kumiko panels in the last year, and folks seem to like them quite a bit. I'm thankful for that. I'm also glad that other woodworkers are interested in making kumiko, too. I thought it would be helpful to answer the questions that I am asked most often, and have them available here on my website. So, here goes.
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• Is there a book or article I can read to help me get started? I believe that the best introduction to kumiko is Mike Pekovich's article in Fine Woodworking #259. Not only does Mike explain the process very clearly, there are great drawings, and his jigs for paring the infill pieces are the bomb, because they have stops to control how long the infill pieces are. You could then get Des King's books on kumiko. They are very good, too, but his techniques are grounded in hand tools, and I believe you'll have more success as a beginner using Mike's process. However, King's books are a great resource for other patterns, and the techniques for making them. I also enjoyed reading Toshio Odate's book on shoji.
• What tools do I need? There are two answers to this question. First, the bullshit answer: a backsaw of some sort, and a chisel. Now, these are tools I use the most when making kumiko, but the truth is that before I get to the saw and chisel, I've used my jointer, bandsaw, planer, and tablesaw. So, the second and more truthful answer is "pretty much the same tools you need to do any woodworking." You'll also need some guide blocks so that you can pare the angles onto the ends of the infill pieces. There are other ways to do this (specialized planes, for example), but for most folks a chisel and guide blocks make the most sense because you aren't making enough to justify the expense of specialized planes, or the hassle of making jigs for a tablesaw to cut them (if such creatures are even feasible).
• What species of wood do you use? I always use basswood, because basswood has very small pores, almost no visible grain lines, and is generally consistent in color (a lovely pale cream). Also, basswood is soft, so it compresses easily and this allows you to get a tight fit with less fuss compared to hard woods like maple. Moreover, it pares extremely well. It has just enough meat to it that it doesn't crumble and tear like white pine can, but it's soft enough that you don't need Popeye's forearms to work it over the course of several hours.
• Where do you get your kumiko stock? I make it. I buy rough-sawn basswood and go from there. There is a lot of milling involved. Get ready. If you're planer produces any snipe at all, make sure to cut it off. All of the stock you use to make the frame and infill pattern should be the exact same height. Areas affected by snipe will be shorter, and it's not worth the time and effort it takes to bring the taller stuff down to the shorter stuff.
• Have you ever used contrasting species in the same panel? No, and neither should you. And for the love of all things subtle and elegant, don't mix maple and purple heart. I'm being a bit dramatic, except about maple and purpleheart. I know that someone else can use multiple species in the same panel and it looks wonderful (like those huge panels that are like paintings, or a land or seascape). It's just not what I do. 
• How many hours does it take to make a panel? Depends on the size and shape of the frame. Square frames are made quickly. Hexagonal frames take longer. The asa-no-ha pattern in a square frame takes longer to make than the asa-no-ha pattern in a hexagonal frame. Also, the more infill there is, the longer it takes. All good things take time, so relax and enjoy the ride. And if you plan to sell kumiko panels, make sure you charge enough to cover your expenses, time, expertise, creativity, and profit.
• You must have a lot of patience. That's not a question, but yes, I do have a lot of patience.
• Will you post a video of how you use the chisel guides? I'll gladly make a video, edit it, and post it to Instagram for all the world to see when you send me suitable payment. I'm kidding--sorta. I do plan to make a video about kumiko, as well as videos about other woodworking techniques, and post them to YouTube, but that won't be until after I get my shop completely set up.

I've made a fair number of kumiko panels now. I am not an expert by any means, but I have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of the art. Here's something that I've figured out. The technical challenge kumiko presents, at least the patterns you're most likely to start with, is not that great. The frame parts can be made quickly at the tablesaw with a finger joint jig. The pieces for the infill pattern are not tough to make either. A set of guides ensures that you pare the correct angles on the pieces' ends. But this doesn't mean that you can be thoughtless when making kumiko. In fact, you must be insanely focused, because the simplicity of what you are doing can lull you into sloppy work. The challenge of kumiko isn't a matter of skill or technique, but of precision, and that just doesn't happen when you're giving your work all the care of a goth teenager doling out frozen yogurt for a summer job.

Certainly, there are things you can do in terms of technique to improve precision, but I've found that even the best technique falls short if you are not patient, and do not give your work attention. In this way, making kumiko is no different than making furniture (and so many other meaningful activities we undertake in life).

What does it mean to be patient? I think it's allowing the work that you are doing to dictate the pace at which you do it. There's a cadence, a rhythm to all the work we do in the shop. To be patient with your work you must consider each individual task and distill it, so that you see it's essential components, so that you understand where you can work quickly, and where you must slow down. You can cut tails very quickly, for example. Get that backsaw humming and knock them out. However, when it comes time to transfer the tails to the pin board (only savages cut pins first), you must slow down, get the boards aligned properly, hold the pencil or knife just right, and make a careful stroke. So, patience is always moving at the correct speed for the work you're doing.

Attention is just as important, and it's not just a matter of being focused on the work at hand. You also must have a clear mind. If you're thinking about how your mother-in-law always smells like cabbage, your thoughts and the actions that flow from them will be muddled. When you are paring angles on the infill pieces of the asa-no-ha pattern, there should be nothing in your mind, but your hand and how it holds the chisel, how it pushes the chisel through the small part beneath your fingers, the resistance the wood gives or doesn't give, the sound made as its slices through the wood, etc. That level of attention enables you notice the smallest hiccup in the process, to notice minute blips that affect the precision of your work.

So, the big question is how do you go about acquiring patience and attention? Attention is probably easier to develop. When you go into the shop, don't start working right away. Put away the tools you left out last time. Sharpen a plane blade. Clean up your bench. Sweep the floor. Give your mind time to leave the world outside your shop. Patience comes through work. To truly understand a task like cutting dovetails or making tiny little boxes, you must cut dovetails and make tiny little boxes. And then do it some more, and, then, do it some more again. There is no shortcut here.There are no tricks. Perhaps that sounds daunting, but look at this way. You get to spend more time in the shop making furniture, boxes, spoons, bowls, or whatever. That's a good thing. The world's a better place when folks are using their heads and hands to make useful things.

Random thoughts:

1. One of my best decisions during the last year: Buying a pair of prescription glasses with green frames. Liberating and fun.
2. Another great decision: buying a bottle of Aberlour 16 on a whim. Also good: it was significantly less expensive than it typically goes for.
3. You're saying definitely maybe. I'm saying probably no. Courtney Barnett rocks.

I made one of these boxes during my 52 boxes project. It was box 11, which was based on some boxes that I had made before I started my year of box builds. And those original boxes where inspired by the round barn at Hancock Shaker Village. Like the barn, the boxes have three levels, the pull being the analogue of the cupola. But they're not a strict interpretation of the barn. The lid sits in a rabbet rather than overhanging the sides to mimic the eaves. And the pull shape is quite a bit different from the straight sides of the cupola. The box is a stylized and modern interpretation of the barn. I don't know if the barn is painted with milk paint (I once asked, but can't remember the answer), but the fact that it is painted is why I used milk paint on my boxes.

The Shaker inspiration aside, it's a simple design, but there is something about it that's also rather elegant. I think the elegance comes from the the slightly tapered diameter. The boxes are just a hair bigger at the bottom than at the top. It gives them a touch of lightness. The lines are very clean, too, which helps. The pull is a shape that I've been making for years. It varies a bit each time I make it, as you can see in the photos, but at its heart is a curve that I make by testing to see when the pull fits comfortably between my thumb and pointer finger. I like how using the human body as a guide for a pull's comfort, a chairs height, etc. results in beautiful work.

There are three different sizes of the box, the largest being about 3 in. diameter. The smallest box is perfect for holding a ring. I use one the size of the largest to hold spare change on my dresser. As for the woods and colors, there are two woods (cherry and walnut) and three colors (Federal blue, Marigold yellow, and a green that I make by mixing the other two colors). There is diversity in the boxes, but also they are nicely tied together by the limited wood and paint choices. I like the walnut box with Marigold lid box the best.

OK, that's it.

I started to make this box at the beginning of September, when I was teaching a class on kumiko at Peters Valley School of Craft. It was just something to work on at night, after the class was over. It's 2 in. tall, 3 in. wide, and 8 in. long. The sides are 1/4 in. thick. The liner inside is about 1/8 in. thick. That's a bit irrelevant, though, right? This box is all about the kumiko panel in the lid.

I don't think this is a real kumiko pattern, but it is based on one. Each of the rectangle patterns is one half of a square asa-no-ha, or hemp leaf, pattern. I like it because rectangles work better than squares with the shape of my boxes. The kumiko pieces are just 1/16 in. thick. That's very thin and a bit tricky to work, but it's proportionally right for the size of the box. It took me a while to settle on a fabric to put beneath the kumiko, but I think I got it right in the end. The challenge is to find a pattern that's small enough to repeat within the panel, but also not so busy that it's distracts from the kumiko pattern. I tried many floral prints, but none were quite right. This abstract patter does the trick, and the blue is a great background color for the creamy pale color of the basswood.

Why two little leaf patterns instead of one? Partly because the math just doesn't work for one. The height of the individual leaf patterns is one half the length. To get a single long pattern into the lid, the box would need to be wider. However, the box's proportions would then be all wack. And nobody wants wack proportions--me least of all. More importantly, there is something nice about the pattern repeating. I'm not sure what it is that's nice about it, but it looks right to my eye. A single pattern would not be as pleasing.

Here's something that I've learned about kumiko: I like making it. I love the precision of it, but what I really like is sitting at my bench, cutting angles onto the ends of the tiny pattern pieces, and getting them all to fit together, with naught but friction holding them in place. It takes focus, the type of focus that liberates you from all your other concerns. There is a rhythm to the process that is almost hypnotic, and you certainly loose yourself in it. The chisel becomes an extension of your hand. What you think, it does. And what it does, you feel. There are times that I feel every fiber as it is cut by the chisel. There is a powerful control in this feeling. There is also a deeper connection to the wood in it. When it is all going just right, a clarity comes to my mind, one in which I understand what I am doing at an intuitive level, and I can make the small adjustments that are sometimes needed without thinking about them, and without trial and error. I make the change and it's spot on. This, I know, is bordering on the rapturous, but this is not what I intend. If I were to describe in philosophical terms, I'd say that its a state in which one's epistemtic, emotional, and tactile connection to the world align, and the boarders between them begin to disappear. There is almost a change in one's ontological status. (Hmmm. Maybe I've had too much rum tonight.)

Here's a few random thoughts:

1. This is some pretty nice cherry. Great color, tight grain.
2. Look at the tiny little pin knots at the corner. Perfect.
3. The edge of the bottom is painted with a green milk paint that I mixed up. It looks good.
4. I love a sharp chisel.

I was teaching at Peters Valley Craft Center in early summer 2015, and was asked to participate in an upcoming gallery show that would feature work inspired by Peters Valley. I asked if I could take a big, weathered chunk of oak that had been sitting of the wood shop's front porch for years. I think it had been used as door stop. My plan was to make a box from it. Unfortunately, when I cut into it, I discovered that it was still too wet to use. So, I just cut it into about 6 perfectly quartersawn boards and stickered them in my shop. One year later, the boards were dry and I set about to make something from them. Based on the size of the boards (5 in. wide, about 5/8 in. thick, and over 30 in. long), I figured I could make a small wall cabinet with a few drawers and a door.

This cabinet strikes out in a new direction for me, and I took it primarily because of the wood I was using. Oak, with its bigger pores, has a much rougher texture than cherry (the species I use most often). It's a texture that's not well-suited to the minimalist, clean, and modern aesthetic I've developed. So, I incorporated a few details that I stole from Mike Pekovich (who primarily works with quartersawn white oak). I inset the door and drawers, and used two vertical dividers to break up the lower door panel. I also used butt hinges instead of knife hinges. The hinges are mortised into a hinge strip, a brilliant and necessary detail that allows the inset door to swing fully open on butt hinges. I don't know if I can explain why these small changes make the cabinet better suited for oak, but they do. Still, they don't override my own aesthetic. It looks like a cabinet that I made, instead of one that Mike made. This is because of my sense of proportion, which is different from his, my penchant for having two rows of drawers with the top row being dividing unevenly, my love for flush dovetail joinery, and my stripped down take on kumiko. Of course, the fact that I used this style of pull doesn't hurt to mark the cabinet as mine. In the end, I think I ended up with a cabinet that is clearly mine, but tailored for the wood species used.

OK, a few words about this red oak: It is amazing. It starts with the cut of the grain, quartersawn. There are no ugly cathedrals. It's nice to be your own sawyer. Perhaps there's a sawmill in my future. I think it also helps that this is Northern red oak, as opposed to Southern red oak. The Southern one is that nasty super red stuff used to make a lot of manufactured furniture. Oak from up North is brown, but still has a red cast. It's a lovely color. Finally, there is some nice variation in the color. Take a look at the side that's facing the camera. Notice that it's darker at the front and then transitions to a creamy brown. I like this.

I guess the most interesting thing about this cabinet is the door, which is nice, because that's what I intended. When designing the door, I knew that I wanted a kumiko panel up to and a solid wood panel beneath it. I sketched out some ideas, fooling around with their sizes in relation to one another. Having the kumiko panel smaller looked the best, and I chose to divide the door into thirds, with the bottom panel and middle rail taking up about two-thirds of the door. The kumiko panel isn't a traditional design. Why? Because I have some kind of clinical obsession with using rectangles and squares to create patterns. The kumiko is basswood set on top of a plywood panel that's covered with Chiyogami paper. The inside of the door has a similar kumiko over the same paper. I'll still use fabric, but I'll also begin to use Chiyogami and other Japanese paper more often. As I was looking for paper to use in this cabinet, I waded through dozens and dozens of internet pages. The hardest thing to judge was the size designs printed on the papers. As with grain and fabric prints, the paper needed to have print that was proportionally right for the door and cabinet. I think I did alright.

The two vertical dividers were an addition to the door after I assembled it dry. The panel just looked blah and too big. The dividers work, because they echo the kumiko pieces above them and also because they break the panel into smaller panels. This is where design really happens: In the small details. I wish I had foreseen that a single panel would look horsey, but at least I caught it in time.

One last thing before I get back to the first day of the college football season. (Hey, I grew up in the South.) Here's how I arrived at this kumiko pattern. I like kumiko, but I don't like it when the kumiko is the thing on display. I like to use it to create a pattern and give emphasis to the color, fabric, or paper behind the kumiko. So, I designed the kumiko to have big open spaces in the middle. This puts the cool Chiyogami paper on display, framing it. 

At any rate, on to some random thoughts.

1. One of the primary reasons I prefer riftsawn to quartersawn lumber, regardless of species, is that the edge grain of quartersawn boards is flat sawn. Looks nasty. The edges of a riftsawn board are also riftsawn. Lovely.
2. The interior is basswood. I like the inside of a cabinet to be bright, and a light-color wood creates brightness. It makes it easier to see whatever you keep inside. It's also a nice surprise when the door is opened. You know me, I love to play with color.
3. Something you can't see: The back is plywood covered in shopsawn basswood veneers. It's 1/8 in. proud of the cabinet's back edge, so that the cabinet sits off the wall. This creates a nice shadow line. I also painted the back's edge with green milk paint.
4. September Gurls. Stroke it Noel. Thirteen. Love me some Big Star. Thanks to my friend Aaron DMC for putting me onto them back in college.
5. One more, for a dude in Jersey: Hey glad girls, only wanna get you high. And they're alright. (GBV does Big Star.)

Box 52. Done. And that's all I have to say about that.

Kidding. I always have plenty to say. This is another stacking box, like box 49, but I changed the shape from rectangle to square, taking box 48 as my starting point (I really like box 48). I think box 49 is too tall, so this time I made the sides 1 1/4 in. tall instead of 1 1/2 in. I know it's impossible to tell from these photos, but the lower height is an improvement. I also like the square format for the boxes. (I'm actually excited about designing more square boxes in the future. I can't believe I never tried a square box until No. 48.) The biggest benefit of the square is that I had more latitude in dividing the boxes into compartments. For the top box, I used the same arrangement as I did for box 49. For the middle box, I added a compartment. For the bottom box, I added another compartment, but not another lid. A square compartment in the middle of a box with others wrapping around it: I've had this arrangement in mind for years. I finally said fuck it and gave it a try. It wasn't as hard to do as I feared. I did not use a lid for it because I wanted a pop of color in the middle and I thought the fabric would be cooler than a painted lid.

Here's something I don't like: Dumb figure holes on the two lower boxes. They suck. As I was working on this box and running through all the different ways I could make a pull for them, I was getting bummed out because I thought that I just wasn't able to design a good pull for them. The problem is that the bottom of the box above sits on the lid of the box below, so the pulls on the box bellow must be flush with the lid. That's a tough constraint to work with. However, I realized that the problem wasn't really a design problem. It's an engineering problem. I needed to change how the upper box sat on the lower box. I've figured that out now, and the next time I build a box like this (soon, I think), I'll be able to have pulls that are at least a bit proud of the lid. Then, I'll be able to design a lovely pull for the lower two boxes. So, some progress was made.

I think that's all I have to say, so let's here are the customary random thoughts.

1. The inside edge of the finger holes are painted with green milk paint. The underside of the bottoms on the top two boxes are also painted with green milk paint.
2. I am happy to be done with the 52 boxes, but I'm also bummed. I loved being in a constant state of design and build. I need some time to reflect on what I learned, but I do plan to write at least one blog about the project as a whole.
3. I have many more box designs that I wasn't able to make. I'll be making them.
4. Choo choo everybody! (That's for you, LH and BE.)

I really wish this was box 52, because it brings together so much of what I've been doing for the past year that it's the perfect culmination for the 52 boxes project. This is certainly the best box I've made so far. (Actually, box 52 is already done, so I think it's the best of all the boxes, too.) Hell, it's almost certainly the best piece I've ever made. But it's box 51, so let's skip the overwrought nonsense and get doing what needs to get done.

The base is a good place to begin. The idea for a base like this one came to me one day while Mike Pekovich and I were driving back from lunch (sushi, I think). If I remember correctly, we were talking about kumiko and all the things you could do with it. Out of nowhere an image came into my mind, and I said, "I could make a box with a tall base and have kumiko wrap around it." I'm not sure what I had in mind then, but I was confident that it would look cool.

OK, so what was I thinking when I got around to developing the idea into an actual box? Well, the first thing I tackled was how tall the base needed to be in order to get a nice looking kumiko pattern into it, and how that would affect the size of the case on top of it. I sketched out rectangles stacked on top of one another and experimented with different heights for them. A base that was slightly shorter than the "box" on top of it but as taller or taller than the uppermost "box" looked right to my eye. (How's that for some solid design advice? Well, actually, it's pretty damn good. Sketch, mother fucker, sketch.) What you end up with is a base that is tall enough for some nice kumiko to fit into it, but not so tall as to dominate the piece as a whole. There's a harmony between the three levels even though the base is visually striking. That's what I'm always after: Something that has a lot of graphic punch but that isn't unbalanced.

So, after I figured out that business, I sketched out ideas for the two rows of drawers. I wanted a space on the right hand side for a tea pot or some such thing, so I made the top row just a single drawer. The bottom row, I knew from previous experience with thin parts, couldn't be a single drawer. Thin parts like these tend to sag when they're longer than about 10 in., so I split the bottom row into two drawers. The wider one is 10 in. and the smaller one is about 7 in. wide. This told me that the top drawer should end in line with the wider bottom drawer. (Sometimes I think that I should explain how I knew this. I suppose I could by saying that it just looks better than if the top drawer were not as wide or wider. But this explanation doesn't cut the mustard with the philosopher in me. After all, why does it look better? Then we must get into a discussion of beauty, the roll of proportion, symmetry and asymmetry in beauty and all manner of abstract nonsense. Fascinating for sure, but definitely not practical. But then again, I have a gut feeling that it's just instinct.)

Oh, I suppose I could explain that the width of the drawers are a result of determining how much space I would need on the right side to put a small tea pot or some other little piece of pottery. Based on some pieces that I own, I figured 7 in. would suffice. Some sketches told me that 10 in. on the other side would look nice. From there is was a matter of determining how tall the bottom drawers needed to be so that they could hold loose tea (left side) and tea packets (right side). The top drawer is for pennies, acorns, and tales of adventure (hat tip,  Saint Orange.)

OK, so what about the kumiko pattern? I wanted something geometric but not so crowded that it would obscure the fabric behind it. That meant a lot of negative space. I wanted two horizontal kumiko pieces between the frame and spaced them asymmetrically (more space between them than at the top and bottom) to let the fabric show through more prominently. The vertical pieces are done in pairs, because, well, I knew that it would look better than to do them individually. (Of course, there was some sketching involved, too.) The vertical pattern for the front/back had to be different that the pattern for the sides because the front/back aren't a multiple (in length) of the sides. So, I started them the same on the ends (a pair of vertical pieces 1 in. from the ends and spaced 5/8 in. apart), but the sides just have two single pieces between the pairs at the ends. I divided the space between the two pairs into thirds because there are three pairs of verticals between the two end pairs on the front and back. How did I figure all of this out? Magic 8 ball and rum. Or was it rum, then magic 8 ball? And that's magic 8 ball, not magic 8 ball.

There is so much else I could say about how I designed this box, but I need more time to dissect and then organize my thoughts. I will say that all of the cherry for this one came from a single 12/4 board. I resewed it to create 3/8 in. thick boards from the edge grain. I then glued up three of these new boards to create the panels for the sides. These boards ending up being mostly quartersawn and heavily figured. Hell, the entire 12/4 board was heavily figured, even on the flat sawn faces. I hate figure. It's a pain to machine and plane, and can be distracting. And I think folks lean on figure as a crutch to make otherwise shitty design somewhat attractive. It works OK here, though, because the design is good. (When it comes to ego, the Egyptian pharaohs had nothing on me. I'm better looking than Clooney, too.)

Well, I'm beginning to wander, so here are some random thoughts.

1. I really had no idea what to write about this box. I was tempted just to post the photos. With this box my design aesthetic has sublimated (I mean this in a vaguely Hegelian sense) into something beyond my expectations. I look at the box with astonishment and wonder how it came from me, but only for a moment, because I then remember each decision that got me here and think "Fuck Yea! I did this! I can do it again!" It's an intoxicating feeling of power. Next step: Take over the moon!
2. This box has brought home a hunch that's been developing in me for quite some time. It's tremendously difficult to dissect what goes into good design and present it in a linear fashion. Like nature, design is a web of connected points. You can pick one as a starting point, but it's really just one point in a inextricably bound set of non-linear decisions, all of which are needed to explain any particular one.
3. I think I managed to say a lot about this box without really explaining anything.
4. One day I'll start a new life with my valuable hunting knife.

This one feels like a big deal. It's box 50, after all, but I also think it's important because it's a refinement of a box that I've been making for several years: my old friend, the two compartment box (right). It has smaller overall dimensions (1 1/2 in. by 3 in. by 6 in. versus 2 in. by 5 in. by 8 in.), has one compartment instead of two, uses a more stylish pull, and has thinner sides and top. These differences make the box simpler and more delicate, but what makes it more elegant is the inward sloping sides and milk painted edges on the top. These are subtle things, certainly, but they make a big difference. However, I'm kicking myself a bit because had I used a slightly different pull, a slimmed down version of the one I used on box 46, this would be a perfect little box. I guess I'll have to make it again in the near future, just not before I finish the 52 box project. That's quickly coming to a close. And I already have the last two boxes designed (in fact, box 51 is just about done).

The inspiration for this box came from the second box I ever made (many, many years ago). We still have that box. It sits on my wife's dresser. It's at least 1 in. taller, and is closer to square in width and length. It also has sloping sides, but I made them by starting out with thick sides and planing the slope into them after assembly. This box has 3/16 in. thick sides. There are compound miters at the corner that result in the inward slope. As I did for boxes 13, 14, and 15, I used a "wedge" to cut the compound miters, the rabbets, and the top and bottom edges. I like the technique because the wedge guarantees that all of the angles will be correct. As a result of the more refined construction, this box is more elegant than the original.

I'd like to say that a lot of careful thought went into the design of this box, but that wouldn't be true. I looked at the older box, asked how I would make it now, and the answer came to me quickly. Make is shorter, make it a rectangle, and use compound miters at the corner. I also used the bottom to create a shadow line at the bottom. And the pull is similar to others that I've used. What I did, in other words, was take design details that I've been using this past year and put them together in a new way. In a way, there's nothing new hear, but in truth its a very new box. And it's one of favorites. I love its delicacy, elegance, and the beautiful fabric inside.

I don't think I have anything else to say about this one, but you're more than welcome to ask questions if you have them. Here are a few random thoughts.

1. All of the cherry for this box came from a single board. It has a warm, reddish-brown color, tight grain and just enough pitch spread about to make it interesting. It goes very well with the green milk paint.
2. This pull was one of six that I made for box 48. I needed six because I actually made two identical boxes, giving one as a gift to a friend's daughter. The pulls did not work with that box, but it certainly works here. I like that the little feet are the same green that I used around the edge of the lid (and around the edge of the bottom, too, but you can't see it in any of the pictures).
3. I know that I already said this, but it's amazing what a few small changes can do. Here it's just the angled sides and smaller proportions, but man does it make for a nicer box.
4. Holy fuck, I've made 50 boxes. That's a lot of boxes.

I made this box and the last box to experiment with a few ideas before bringing them together in a third box, which will be one of the last two I make for the 52 box project. With box 48 I was working on how to join two thin dividers. Here, I’m testing a theory on how to stack boxes. Perhaps you can decipher where I’m heading, but I won’t say anymore now. Let’s get to the box at hand.

Unless your vision is as poor as my friend from the North, Bubbles, you will have noticed by now that this box is actually three boxes that stack one on top of the other. The idea for it came from a conversation I had with Mike Pekovich some time last year. He was telling me about a box (for lack of a better term) that he had seen at a museum. It was carried by a samurai. There were a few boxes that stacked on top of one another and were held together by leather (or fabric) straps. It hung from a belt and was used to carry coins and other stuff. I suppose it was something like a stacking bento box. It sounded very cool and on the spot I decided to make a set of stacking boxes. I just had no idea how to do it. A short time later I realized that many of the boxes I had been making in the 52 box project lent them selves to stacking because I was using a rabbet in the top and bottom of the sides to hold the lid and bottom. If I made two boxes with the dimensions and cut identically sized rabbets on the top and bottom on both boxes, the lid for one box would fit into the rabbet on the bottom of the other box. And the lid for the lower box would capture the box on top of it, holding the box in place. This is how these three boxes stack.

Of course, me being me, there had to be a shadow line between the boxes. So, the top two boxes have very thin bottoms, but not so thin that the box sits on the box sides beneath it. The lid of the lower box holds the upper box about 1/16 in. above. And there’s your shadow line. I like the shadow line here because it reveals that there are three boxes stacked rather than a single absurdly tall and narrow box. But that visual break between the boxes does something else, too. There is no grain match as you move up from one box to the next. I didn’t cut the sides from a wide board, in other words. This lack of match would have been noticeable had there been no space between the boxes, but it’s really not with the shadow line there. That’s a good thing.

When planning this box I knew that I wanted each box to have a different number of compartments, but before I gave any extended thought to this, I kicked around different proportions for the boxes themselves. I finally settled on a rectangle that's twice as long as it it wide. To keep the stacked boxes a reasonable height, I made the sides 1 1/2 in. tall. After deciding on a fairly narrow rectangle, I knew that a divider along the boxes length wouldn't be practical, because it would create two long and very narrow compartments. So, all of the dividers run across the width. After that it was a fairly quick trip to a box with one compartment, one with two compartments and one with three. The compartments for the top box are not all the same size. The one in the middle is narrower. Why? Because cutting dadoes for the dividers in exactly the right location to end up with three equally sized compartments would be crazy hard. But cutting dadoes to make the two outside compartments the same size with a smaller (or larger) middle compartment is a snap. So, that's what I did. (I know this leaves a big question—why is that true and how the hell did you do it?—hanging unanswered, but I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.

There was also the decision about which box would go on the bottom, which in the middle and which on top. There is an argument for going three, two, one from the bottom up. However, a box with one compartment is a solid foundation because it's unbroken. So, it went on the bottom. The box with three compartments looks like three little boxes next to one another, so it went on top. And that's all I have to say about that.

Once again, I've blathered on. Here are your randoms for the week.

1. I love this fabric. I love that you can see it through the finger holes in the bottom two boxes.
2. About those finger holes: They're too big (at least on the two lids of the middle box), but I've already figured out what to do about them next time. I did paint the inside walls of the finger holes with the same milk paint that I used on the edges of the lids.
3. In the past, when I've made boxes with compartments, I used a bird's mouth joint to join the divider to the box sides. I did not do that here. Instead, I cut a dado in the sides that is as deep as the rabbet. This is very easy to do and it's no trouble to fit a divider to the dado and then cut it's rabbets. This technique is way easier than fitting a divider to the bird's mouth joint.
4. Boxes 50 and 51 are already underway. I am going to finish. I am going to finish. So says the little steam engine that most probably could, I think.

I made a two of this box. One was for the 52 boxes project and the other was for the daughter of a friend who has given me a lot of great lumber over the last few years. When he gave me some wonderful vertical grain Douglas fir recently, I decided to use it to make a box for his adorable little girl. The boards were left over from a sideboard he'd made for her room. He and I have very different styles, but the fact that the box and sideboard were made from the same boards holds the two together.

I know that doesn't say much about the design, but it's a part of this box's story. In fact, the wood is the origin of the box. I normally design and then pick lumber, but this time I was starting with the lumber and needed to develop a design that played to its strengths. I also needed more vertical grain Douglas fir, because what my friend had given me was really only enough for one box. Fortunately, I once found a 3 in. thick, 6 in. wide and 12 ft. long piece of Douglas fir in the corner of a lumber yard. I bought it without a second thought. I'm glad I did, because it's got some figure to it, a lovely, warm color, and super tight grain that's a bit wavy. (I used it's end grain to veneer the drawer fronts on this cabinet.)

At any rate, I was designing with vertical grain Douglas fir in mind. What I wanted was a box that emphasized the tight, straight grain. This is no trouble on the sides. Make them rectangular, with the grain running the length. The lid is a different story. I knew that I wanted the box to have at least three compartments, because the three corresponding lids would allow me to play with the fir's grain. However, a box with overall rectangular dimensions limits the shape, size and arrangement of the compartments. So, I went square. I think this is the first square box I've ever made. It's 6 in. square, to be exact. The narrow, full-width compartment is 2 in. wide, or one third of the box's overall width. The smaller of the two 4 in. long compartments is 2 in. wide. The larger one is 4 in. square. These divisions make for compartments (and lids) that are well proportioned in themselves, in relation to one another, and in relation to box's overall dimensions. 

At the risk of putting even myself to sleep, here's a more detailed explanation of what's going on. The basic dimension of this box is 2 in. The sides are about 2 in. tall when you take the bottom and lid into account. The box is 6 in. square. That's three times the basic dimension, so there are three compartments. The dimensions for the compartments are all multiples of 2 in. My good friend Charles Hermann helped me work all of this out. He has a beautiful mind. (Get thee to Google to decipher this reference, my friends.)

Back to the grain. The division and orientation of compartments allowed me to use the grain more boldly. It runs in one direction on the left side, and 90 degrees to that on the right side. Yet, because the grain is subtle, there's no uncomfortable tension created by this redirection of the grain. Somehow it's a dissonance that creates a harmony. I can't explain why this last statement, which makes the philosopher in me suspect it as Grade A bullshit, but I'll think about it some more and see if I can come to a meat-and-potatoes explanation. I wonder if my old friends, the Pythagoreans, might have something to say about this.

Well, that's a lot of talk about grain, proportions, and patterns. Let's talk about something else: the pulls. This is the second time I've used this pull on a box. What I like about them is the play between the circular mortise and the thin, rectangular pull. Combined, they create a nice visual set against the background of the tight, straight grain of the Douglas fir. The depth of the mortise allows me to use a pull that's very low but still gives enough grip (the pull extends down into the mortise). And before you ask: No, I didn't use the same technique that was recently feature in Fine Woodworking magazine. (Everyone reads Fine Woodworking, right?) I don't mortise for the pull. Rather, it's T-shape and the horizontal bar fits over the lid.

OK, I've written a lot, so I'm going to stop. (Don't worry, I've addressed the major design points of this box.) Enjoy some random thoughts.

1. The green milk paint is a color that I mix myself. It seems to go with just about every species of wood. (It even goes with some non-wood species. It looks particularly good paired with platypus and field mouse.) What I like about it here is that it's a nice compliment to the fir and cocobolo, and it's intermediary between the two colors. You have the fir lids with green mortises, and the green mortises hold the cocobolo pulls.
2. I love the fabric on the inside of the box. I know it's not manly for me to like fabrics with flower prints, but I don't care. I use quilting squares and there's something cool about take a material that's meant for a very traditional craft and using it in a very nontraditional way. (Hmm. It's the same story with me and milk paint.) I also like the feminine touch they give to my boxes. A masculine exterior with a feminine interior. What? Our hour is already up. Ugh. Can we start here next week?
3. Counting the primary color of the fabric, I've progressed to included four colors into my boxes (this is the first time I've done it). This is a good step forward. I think it works because the fourth color is hidden inside the box. Four colors on the outside would probably be too much. Which reminds me: If you ever get the urge to make a box using every scrap of figured and exotic wood in your shop, don't. It will be ugly, and your spouse will say she or he likes it only because she or he loves you and wants to spare your feelings. I don't love you, so just burn that crap. I choose my lumber carefully, and I'll quickly cut up a larger board to get to the grain I want. Be deliberate with every choice, from initial design to finish.
4. If you're still having trouble with that Charles Herman reference, chuck Paul Bettany into your Google-foo.