I made this box out of Aromatic Red Cedar. I found lots of this wood on the outskirts of a local horse farm. The farm's owner had a cedar tree taken down and was happy to spare me a few pieces.
I saved a lot of the larger pieces that had particlarly interesting grain to be turned into natural edged bowls, but most everything else was processed into blanks of all sizes. I've been planning a box for some time now, but I didn't want to use just any wood. This box is intended as a gift for a friend and this wood seemed special and perfect for the turning. I hand-picked some pieces out of the pile to be cut down.
Using my chainsaw, I crosscut the pieces into more managable sized pieces to cut up on my bandsaw. Once I had that done, I took them to my bandsaw where I cut them into square stock. Cedar is very soft wood and since this was green, it cut very easily. I would start the bandsaw cuts by halfing the log along the pith. Then I would cut out 3"-5" wide pieces out of each half. After that, I set my bandsaw's rip fence to the width of each particular piece in turn and cut them to a square.
I don't intend on making more boxes and other projects from this wood right away because it is very green and needs to dry for a while. To prevent cracking during the drying process, I brushed on Anchorseal End Grain Sealer to the ends of all my pieces. From here, all the blanks will need dry and season for some time before they're made into anything. However, I did use one of the less spectacular pieces to make a practice box. This one may warp or crack, but that's alright...There's plenty of this cedar to go around :)
