Intermediate Bee Jewelry Box

Machine Type:

OpenBuilds LEAD Machine

Software:

Vectric's Vcarve Desktop

Electronics:

Other Controller

Machine Time:

2.5 hours estimate

Bit or Laser Size:

multiple

Feeds & Speeds:

2500 mm/min profile cutting with 8mm endmill, 3000mm/min with both 8mm ball nose roughing (40% stepover 4mm DOC) and 3.175mm ball nose finishing (10% stepover)

Materials:

Oak pallet salvage

A while back I was looking on Etsy for some jewelry box STL files to make as gifts. One of the files I chose this “Bee Box” for a co-worker that also raises bees. I got the file here: Bee jewelry box. So far every file I bought from this shop has been great and came with included cutting instructions (though i modified a few).

I also had some old oak pallet wood from way back when I was a kid. My dad had me knock them apart and pull the nails to salvage them for cabinet building. I now (about 40 years later) have a lot of it sitting in my garage. I had some thicker pieces that had lots of cracks in them so I salvaged what I could, then glued them up into the sizes I needed. After glue up, I surfaced them (both sides of both the top and bottom) with the CNC router so they had the thicknesses listed in the pictures below. The bottom was a single sided job. I then rounded the base over with a ¼ inch round over bit in my router table which was much easier than setting it up as a two sided job to get the same rounded over effect. The lid had to be a two sided job.


One thing that I have found with really hard woods like oak is that doing a profile tool path where a majority of the profile is removed prior to the finishing path seems to work best. In the past, I have broken several 3mm diameter ball nose when it has plunged down the edge of the model into thicker material. It also gives room for the chips to fly. You can see I left enough to firmly hold the work piece in place while cutting deeper than the finishing endmill will need to go. The last profile path will use tabs to hold the piece in place.




After sanding, I applied hemp oil as the finish. There are some defects in the wood grain, but since it was salvaged wood neither I nor the recipient are complaining.