Heart Shaped Jewelry Box

Walnut and Maple

I decided to make this heart shaped jewelry box for a friend. I wanted to get away from rectangular boxes, and so, with this box, undertook something more complex, combining the curved heart shape with bevels so that there are no right angles in the box.

Each layer of the heart was cut out individually and then glued. Also, most of the hearts are made in halves first because they were larger than the width of my stock. I started by drawing and cutting the largest heart from walnut, in halves. I set the table of the band saw (and scroll saw) to 20 degrees and then attempt to keep the blade at a right angle to the tangent of the curve at any point as I move the wood. It wasnt very exact, but it worked.

As I would get the halves of one heart done, I would rough sand them to shape and fit (to each other and onto the growing box) on the belt sander. I then would semi-finish sand them and glue the halves together. You need to sand them pretty good before gluing the halves together or else its really difficult to sand the angle at the top of the heart afterwards. Then I would use the last heart I made as the template for the next, smaller one I was about to create. After I got all of the hearts for the box done, I glued the layers together and belt and hand sanded it considerably.

The inside of the heart also had to be sanded. A flexible rotary shaft attached to my drill press with a 1" sanding wheel worked well for that (and much of the inside and outside rough shaping as well).

The walls of the inside tray were made with the cutouts from the first (largest) walnut heart. They were already angled and so I cut them out then glued them together and used them as a template for cutting the base of the tray.

I also made my own "stop hinges" for this project. Stop hinges prevent the top from opening too far but are not commonly available. To construct these stop hinges I took the pins out of regular (inexpensive and easily obtained) hinges and bent back the middle prong on the half with three prongs so that it would stop the hinge just past vertical. They work pretty good, and I can get them easily, instead of making a special trip to a jewelry hardware store.