hello everybody,

On this instructable, im going to explain to you how i made the reprodution of thi box possible.

Step 1: Create Plans From the Original Box

Before explaination , let's talk about this box :

This box was sold in a auction house in france last year and we found it's image on the web.

The commisaire in charge estimated the box from the XIII th century but the lock is from the XVI th century, at some point , it must have been changed.

The particularity of this box it's that the head is made in one piece of wood

Dimensions from the original :L 32cm x l 23cm x H 21cm

Origin: france

Wood: chestnut

Now , with all of theses elements, i did the plans and lets go for step 2

Step 2: The Head of the Box

So, the original was made in chestnut, but in France today, it's simply impossible to find a piece of chestnut that size, so the idea was to use elm .

This kind of work can only be made by hand:

first step using scisels is to cut out the inside of the head , clean it and sand it.

second step, using hand saw, the outer part of the head was cut.

Voila !!!!

Step 3: Assembling the Box Itself

Now that's the easiest , assembling the box and the head.

step one: cut the board and give them the right angle .

step two: glue all together with wood glue and the box is done

sanding and finishing

Step 4: Dyeing Step

Now it's dyeing time, looking back at the original, the idea is to use tincture, with different try and mix, to approach the color of the original box

Step 5: Creating Templates for the Metals Parts

The idea is to glue the the part of the plans wich corespond with metal part on cardboard (cereal boxes for exemple )

and then once i got the templates, i put it on the metal plaques and spray paint it.

Thickness : 1.5 milimeters

Now start the longest work.....

Step 6: Making Angle Irons and Hinges

after cuting all parts with the metal hand saw ( jewlery hand saw ), all the paterns where made using metal file ( needle file )

and believe me , it take time !!!!!!!

Step 7: Bending All Metal Parts

for this step what you need to know :

In order to have the iron angles at the proper angle , you need to bend it and then re-open it, for that the parts must be heated at each step of the bending.