For may years I had the rather strange notion that boxes were square or rectangle. Some had lids and others didn’t.. And, many dictionaries agree with me. There was, of course, the round hatbox but they were only seen in the movies (well, mostly).

For woodturners, a box is round!, Even with a lid. The simple and undeniable truth is that one cannot turn a square or rectangle on a lathe. They can have straight sides, sloping sides, curved sides or a combination of any or all of these. They can have holes from natural defects in the wood. But they are still round.

The lids can be many and varied. The purist woodturner insists that the lid should slowly glide from the body as the air pressure allows. This is really a touch of arrogance as it requires a high level of turning skill and patience. The user just wants the bloody lid to come off easily.

The purist turner insists on thin walls and bottom – again a touch of arrogance to show off a high skill level. I prefer a bit of weight so a thick sides or bottom is quite OK – wood is a natural, strong and tactile material. It deserves to have substance rather than being some diaphanous lightweight

Yellow Box (Eucalyptus Meliodora) & Grey Box (Eucalyptus Microcarpa)

Salt Container

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Redgum ( Eucalyptus camaldulensis ) & Grey Box (Eucalyptus Microcarpa)

Redgum is prone to natural defects such as splits and checks and also to grub tunnels. Grey Box, although a very hard wood can be a little brittle and subject to chipping with tools that are not extremely sharp. This piece shows natural checks in the redgum body and a natural unevenness in the side of the grey box lid. While I often fill these defects with epoxy resin I decided to leave these in their natural state.

London Plane Tree (  Platanus × acerifolia)

London Plane trees are huge, deciduous European trees with very large leaves that provide dense shade in summer. They are used as street trees in many Melbourne suburbs, particularly the ‘leafy’ eastern suburbs. The wood for this box was scavenged from a nature trip after a trees was ‘pruned’. Note the unusual grain of many very small vertical ‘flecks’.

Yellow Box (Eucalyptus Meliodora)

I started this box about 4 years ago and it sat in the ‘pending’ section of my shed since them. I dusted it off recently and finished it.
The figuring is because the grain is running vertically as in spindle turning. The hollow centre is cut into the end grain – always a challenge wit Australian hardwoods.