After cutting the sides and bottom to their final length
plus 1/32” (for post gluing trimming) the glue gets applied to the bottom three
quarters of the width of the joint. It
will be easy to clean the glue squeeze out off the bottom face of the box but
not so easy on the inside so I want to limit squeeze out there. A drop of glue is put on a scrap wood block
and application is done with a toothpick.
The white mark in the top center of the walnut bottom is my reference
mark for piece registration.
Here's what the clamping for the glue-up looks like. The reference mark gets matched up, the ends
get checked to make sure they are flush with the side and the bottom is flush
or just a tiny bit lower than the side.
That’s because it’s easier to make bring ¼” thick side flush versus
working on the whole bottom’s width.
Spacers cut from scrap get inserted at the top of the box help keep the
sides and bottom square. A check with a
square confirms that. Once the glue
cures overnight the other side will get glued on the same way. I choose to glue the sides on one at a time
to minimize the chance of getting something out of alignment during
clamping. 
The next day the clamps are removed then the bottom and
sides are checked to see if they are absolutely flush. Not surprisingly they need just a light touch
to bring them all flush. With that done
the ends can be cut and fitted so they are snug with a little clearance at the
top to allow the lid to easily slide through.
Here’s what the clamping setup looks like for them.
After the glue cures the end panels are sanded flush with
the sides as shown here. While flush the
grit on the disk sander leaves some circular scratches that will get sanded out
after the edges are rounded.
Rounding the edges is done on the router table with a
1/8” radius bit. Rounding the ends is
done first because during routing the end grain of the sides can splinter when
the bit exits the cut. If it’s not too
big then the flaw will get cut away when the long dimension is rounded
over. Since the ends are narrow a backer
board is used to assure the box stays square with the fence while also
providing additional support to the walnut edge when the bit exits the
cut. 
This is what the box looks like with the edges
rounded. The router does a pretty good
job except for the top four corners of the box.
The red arrows in the inset point to where two of them have been sanded
round. They weren’t routed as I was
concerned that the tiny corner would get damaged during the process. 
After final sanding applying a finish to everything is
next. The Christmas ornaments get three
coats of a wipe-on poly finish. I didn’t
spray them because I can’t get the spray gun inside the ornament and the inside
shape is too complex to try and spray it from the outside. Here are the completed ornaments.
Before spraying I was checking the refrigerator magnets
and one of them just didn’t look quite right.
The top part of the walnut, maple and cherry one looked out of
scale. It bothered me enough that I put
it back in the lathe and did more shaping until I was satisfied. This is not the only one that got
reworked. The cherry and maple one
started out with a raised top and the more I looked at it the uglier it
got. After expressing my concern and
sharing photos, the client agreed whereupon it got a haircut. Here are before and after photos of those
two. 
The refrigerator magnets get sprayed with three coats of
satin lacquer and are left to cure for a few days to let the finish harden
before installing the magnets and their cups.
Those with sharp eyes may notice that the walnut and turquoise one is
missing. That’s because it had a small
blemish in the lacquer that needed to be fixed.
The parts used to install the magnet are its mounting
screw, cup and the magnet all shown at the top. The cup goes in first and is
screwed in place followed by snapping the magnet in place. Once the magnets are in, they are in to stay
as it’s nearly impossible to get them out of the cup.
I had a little trouble getting the first magnet cup to
fully seat in its hole so used a clamp and a small socket to press the cup in
until its firmly seated.
Because the box lid has a gloss finish the box will get
sprayed with the gloss lacquer I used when building my Les Paul SG electric
guitar back in 2012. Here is a photo of
it showing the finish. Side note – I
have built two guitars; an acoustic and this Les Paul electric. One lesson learned is I should stick to
building and not trying to play them. 
It has been a long time since I used gloss guitar lacquer
and while it sprayed just fine it didn’t build quite as fast as the satin
lacquer that I now use. In order to get
the box finish to match the lid finish it took about six coats. When fitting the slot to the fit the lid I
worked to make it not so tight the lid would bind or not so loose that it falls
out. In order to keep the slot’s same
width after every other coat the slot required a little sanding to remove the
lacquer buildup. That’s done using a 6”
steel rule along with some 320-grit sandpaper.
At this point the outside of the box is completed but the
inside has one more step. To create a
nice luxurious interior all the inside surfaces get a black velvety
coating. Application is a multi-step
process starting by masking off the adjacent surfaces to keep the adhesive off
of them shown in the top photo. The second
step is applying a color matching adhesive to the areas. That’s not shown because once the coating is
in place the fibers need to be applied right away. Applying the fibers is done using an air pump
sprayer filled with the fibers that applies them evenly into the coating. 
When done the box and lid finishes match plus the lids
slides just right. Here are a couple
photos of the completed box.
With all the various finishes applied everything is set
aside to allow them to gas-off, cure and harden before shipping. I am happy with the way all the different
pieces turned out. Even though I have
made a lot of the refrigerator magnets additional ones always give me a chance
to explore different options. Same with the Christmas ornaments so who knows I might try some more variations on them in the future.
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