Building a watch case

Last fall I started building a watch case for a family member. 

I prefer to keep cases like this light, with the thinnest walls I can get away with so I started with a piece of rough sawn 4/4 walnut and re-sawed it to a little less than half an inch.

After a lot of planing and scraping I ended up with two nicely figured 3/8 inch boards to start the project with.

To avoid stupid mistakes I dry fit the case pieces as they were cut.

Despite my best efforts I made mistakes anyway.  You can see from later photos that the middle divider and the bottom of the top compartment had to be lowered because the original design did not allow enough room for the watch pillows in the top.

As the assembly came together I used painter's tape to hold the dry fit together.

To save walnut, the drawer carcasses, dividers and the bottom of the box are all made from poplar.

The face of the box and drawer fronts are book matched.

The top is mitered and rabbeted to drop into the case. 

To ensure clean lines between the lid and the rest of the case, the box was assembled as one piece and then the lid was cut off after glue up.

First fit with drawer slides in place.  The slides are maple glued to the side of the case, running in dados in the drawer sides.  A little paste wax keeps them running smoothly.

The photo below is after glue up, but before the lid was cut off.

You can see marks where I used a low angle block plane to clean up the corners.

Before glue up, I put a few coats of garnet shellac on the inner faces of each panel so I wouldn't have to do it in the small confined spaces later.

The lid was cut off by using a tenon marking gauge with a knife edge marker to mark the cut and then ripping it with a Japanese rip saw.

After cutting it off, the hinge mortices were cut.

The hinges are less than 1/8 inch narrower than the walls of the box which has caused lots of trouble during finishing.  I have caught the shellac rubber on the exposed corner of the mortice where the hinge pin sticks out of the back of the box and broken it more than once.  Super glue to the rescue.  Next time I need to use the narrower hinges, or a piano hinge.

The finish is several coats of brushed on blond shellac (Zinsser) followed by a lot of hand rubbed French polish using garnet shellac and linseed oil.

I used automotive scratch remover to do the final polish.

The drawers are lined with matte finish black bonded leather meant for book binding.  I used this material because it's really thin, doesn't require skiving and has a nice finish.  I bought it from Talas.

 

The drawer above is lined with 5 panels.  Each panel is made from a piece of photo mat board covered with 1/8 inch cotton batting and then covered with the leather.

The batting is held to the mat board with double tack mounting film.

After the batting is trimmed to size the leather is attached using Barge cement.

Once the cement has dried the board is laid on the leather with the batting facing the cement and the corners are trimmed.

I found that it's important to leave some margin at the corner of the mat board so that the leather covers the corner completely and the mat board is not visible.

Later the extra bit is tucked before folding the last edges.

I learned the hard way that the glue really works.  If the surfaces come into contact, the leather will tear when you pull them apart.

I fold the short edges first because they are easier to manage.  Note that the leather extends past the edge of the mat board.   This is where it will tucked unto the adjacent edge before folding.

The tuck is just visible in this image.  Use a bone (or teflon) folder to push the excess into the corner until it sticks.

After tucking the extra material at both ends, fold the edge and press into the adhesive with the folder.  

Use a small hammer to press the fold in the corner if necessary.

The dividers are 1/4 inch poplar, covered in batting and leather. 

The batting covers the two flat faces and the top edge of each divider.

There is a shallow notch in the midpoint of the face of each long divider for the short ones to nestle in.  

For now the notches are the only thing holding the dividers in place.  I do not see any reason to glue them.  The pillows will tend to keep them all in place.  

The notches that hold the short dividers in place are visible here.

Here you can see the long dividers after covering before the short ones have been covered.

To cover each divider, I put cement on the edges of the divider and the leather, then starting on the bottom, attach the leather to the bottom edge, leaving half the edge exposed for the other end of the leather.

Wrap the leather over the divider pulling it snug, but not tight.

And fold it over the bottom.  Use the bone folder to seal the leather to the adhesive.

This photo and the next one show the fold on the bottom edge.

Press the fold down with the bone folder.

Notch the long edge of the end at 45 degrees with a sharp knife.  Don't cut all the way to the wood, leave some material to make the tuck described above.  This will ensure that the corners look nice without a visible cut.

Fold the long edges in and press them with the folder.

Trim the corners, again, leave a little bit of material for the tuck.

Make the tuck and fold the end over.  After completing both ends, use the hammer to press the fold together and smooth it out.