Walnut keepsake box.

Hi everyone! It has been a while since my last woodworking project at home and I was very happy with how it all turned out.

For Christmas Katie's dad went to a blacksmith's shop and helped to forge two blades to make into knives. I do not know if any of you watch the show "Forged in Fire" on the History channel, but its one of my favorites, and hearing about how he hammered and shaped the metal was pretty neat. The Smith made handles and a leather sheath for the knife and they were then given to me and my sister-in-laws husband for Christmas. It came a small card with instructions on how to care for the knife. One of instructions stood out to me from the rest " do not store the knife in the sheath " this struck me as odd . I'm not supposed to keep it in the sheath? So what do I do with it?! I tried to follow the instructions as best I could. With 2 kids and nowhere to put it that I might not accidentally cut myself, I had to come up with a solution to safely store it while not putting it in the sheath. 

I looked around online at different knife storage ideas and decided that I wanted to make a box for it. Boxes are small projects in size but you can get really detailed with your design and have fun trying different techniques. I've had a piece of Walnut in the garage for a while and this would be the perfect project to use it on.  I also wanted a contrasting wood for a few accent pieces so I grabbed a scrap piece of beautiful Ambrosia Maple I had laying around . Maple goes really well with Walnut and the ambrosia in this piece was so pretty I decided to use it for my lid also.

• On a side note. The "ambrosia" in the wood is made from the ambrosia beetle.  It digs into the tree and a fungus on its legs discolors the wood. When the wood is cut it reveals the ambrosia pattern. Each "stripe will have a small hole where the beetle traveled through the tree. 

I did not have my camera with me when i was making this box but i took a few pictures on my phone. A lot of the things I did between these pictures are mentioned in the captions. If you want to know about anything I did that might not be shown just message me or comment below.

- In this photo you can see that i have cut all my pieces to size already. i have mitered all the ends and cut a groove for my bottom piece and for my lid to slide into. I recently made myself a table saw sled and was eager to use it. The majority of my cuts were on the table saw and the sled made a HUGE difference. The pieces are ready for the glue up. ( see if you can spot where i made a mistake )

- After i fixed my mistake i got all the sides together, everything clamped, and let it sit overnight. 

- In the morning i took off all the clamps and tape and i had a box! but no way to get inside yet...

- If you read the part about the beetle, this is one of its holes. See how it is in the middle of the "stripe", an easy way to fill these holes is with a little super glue and sand it smooth. 

- I decided i wanted to put a little more detail into this box, the sides were looking a little boring to me. I made a jig to slide on the table saw to cut the slots in each corner. I then took a piece of the Maple and made the splines to fit in those slots. Once i had them all fitting snug i glued them in, cut them, and sanded them smooth. 

- Using the table saw i cut the box in two pieces ( the lid and the bottom ). I then got to use my chisel to notch out where the hinges will be. 

- i used 2 coats of Danish Oil on the whole box, this really brings out the beautiful color of the walnut and protects the wood. 

- I used a piece of i found that had been used for packaging and cut out the outline of the knife and sheath i had gotten at Christmas. Now i can store my knife out of the sheath