While we're suffering a lull in international idiocy to inspire postings (and because Richard Bennett and John Weidner did it) I thought I'd take this opportunity to demonstrate that the HFP editorial staff is more than just a mad-cow-stricken couple of Moveable Type and Photoshop jockeys. Dan, for instance, writes novels. In crayon. About sad clowns who have to work as software engineers to support their families, until one day they win the lottery and get to smash their bosses in the face with bricks. I, on the other hand, have never felt comfortable with my grasp of the sad clown gestalt, and so spend my time fussing about in my garage, turning perfectly innocent wood into sawdust, shavings, and occasionally such items as this:
"Oh wow," you think, "a box." And that's where'd you be wrong, because it's actually TWO boxes, one inside the other:
Thus are made humidors, fancy boxes for storing cigars at a specific humidity. This particular one is Spanish cedar with bird' s eye maple veneer and edging of Brazilian hardwood called ipe (pronounced ee-pay). It has all the hallmarks of a great woodworking project:
Took much longer than planned. I thought I could throw this together in a weekend and a couple of evenings. Four weeks later, I'm almost finished.
Cost much more than anticipated. Build your own _____ and save big bucks, they say.. lies, all lies.
Spanish cedar for the box: $30
Maple veneer: $8
Nicer bird's eye maple veneer that I saw at the other woodworking store: $20.
Fifteen feet of decorative inlay: $18
Fifteen more feet of wider decorative inlay to conceals how badly I screwed up the routing for the first batch of inlay: $22
3/16 router bit to make channels for wider inlay: $13
Reasonably priced brass quadrant hinges: $10
Unreasonably priced gilded lock: $30
9/16 Forstner bit to made hole for lock escutcheon plate: $5
Pride in having done it myself: Priceless
Cost of a nice store-bought humidor: LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU
I blame genetics, being the son of a man who built a colour TV from a Heathkit, using his Heathkit oscilloscope and Heathkit signal generator to tune it up when he wasn't building a church organ from a kit or listening to his Heathkit radio or Heathkit stereo. In the meantime, his poor chldren had to watch Flintstones in black and white until 1973.
Has horrible mistakes that will haunt me every time I look at the cursed object. I may never allow another woodworker to get close enough to get a good look, lest I die of shame.
Involved a brush with death. The planer fired a piece of edging back at me hard enough to.... well, it tore my thumbnail up something awful. I'm going to have a purple spot on the nail bed for quite some time.
However, for plain ol' fashioned pretty, it's hard to beat bird's eye maple. And cutting Spanish cedar makes the place smell pretty good. And I learned a bunch of new ways to screw up nice wood. And it pushed off a little further that date when I complete my Master's thesis. So I'm declaring the project a big win. Should you wish to know more about humidor construction, the Fine Woodworking article I was working from is online here.
Coming up next: pictures of my vacation and spleenectomy scar! Also, a free jar of Happy Fun Plum jam to anyone who can identify the band that's the source of this post's title. And also, I really need to get a digital camera that doesn't have so much spherical distortion.
Posted by Steve at June 2, 2003 04:47 PM
Comments
Would that be "Two Live Jews" oh fearless woodworker?
You're being much too hard on yourself. This is GORGEOUS. I mean, really. It's beautiful. The inlay and everything. Wow. Although it won't come as a surprise, every sewing project has some little flaw that screams out to the world every time you look at the damn thing.
How's your thumb?
The Heathkit references had me rolling on the floor. Are there other kids out there who suffered a similar fate? Maybe you could have some kind of poll where kids whose dads were addicted to Heathkit could write in with their stories. It would be very interesting (to those of us in the know, anyways.)
By the way, the church organ was a Schoeber kit, presumably invented by a German who thought that North American men had too much time on their hands.
That humidor is beautiful. My only question is: Where's the hygrometer and humidifier? Personally, I suggest a lid mount, but that's just my preference.
I'm still trying to find a suitable hygrometer and humidifier... none of the local stores seem to carry anything that isn't crap or hideously overpriced (ferchrissakes, it's a little can with a sponge in it!), so I'm still looking around.
Me, I'm the efficient (lazy) type. My humidor is a Coleman cooler, with a homemade humidifier made from a Radio Shack project box filled with open-cell styrofoam. Hygrometer is a $29.95 Radio Shack digital unit.
But your work looks fantastic. I am envious. I thought about building a humidor once, until I looked at the plans for one. Then I gave up. I can't finish framing my basement, fercrissake.
But I do have to wonder how many google hits we'll get for 'gratuitous wood'.
That's just the sort of comment I'd expect from a guy with mad cow disease. Shouldn't you be seeing a some sort of bovine anger management facilitator instead of worrying about cigars?
Looks great but I hear that Kim Dutoit is heading over your way with some things to say and rounds to fire at that innocent wee humidor that has chosen to upstage his Gratuitous Gun Pics.
You may have recovered from the mad cow disease but what do you do about the mad yaapie variant?
Juris
The author suggests cutting the inner box to close tolerances, then letting it expand as it absorbs water to lock it into place. I ended up gluing it in, as my tolerances were, shall we say, not quite watertight.
What may make the one-sided veneering work is the coat of lacquer on the inner face of the outer box, which I expect would make the wood significantly less mobile.
I don't even know what a japie is, but if I did, I'd be quite certain that Mr. du Toit is not one.
(I'd assumed that "yaapie" was a misspelling of "yuppie", but it looks to be a slang term for a South African. Maybe "japie" is an alternative spelling? At any rate, people with more than one Mauser are not japies or yaapies unless they choose to be.)
It is really a well made humidor. I collect humidors and can tell quality. Good interior and nice veneer. I have made a few humidors myself and for those that do not know...it is a lot of work. It is like putting a puzzle together because you have to make the humidor airtight. Now just get a good hygrometer and humidifier and you are set. Oh I forget....the cigar and then you are set.
