Hi every one I just happened to find Paulownia few weeks ago! It’s actually a cutting board at Daiso but I wanted use Paulownia so I’m happy with it They also had a craft board, too. If you don’t know what’s Paulownia, it’s a common wood species for Japanese Sashimono woodworking and I’ll explain what Paulownia is as you see this video. And here’s what I made! This was gonna be my tool box but somehow it became a sewing tool box for my wife but let’s see how I made it! Yes, of course I started by cutting the cutting boards. Paulownia is supposed to be hardwood but it’s so soft and light weight like balsa wood and it’s really easy to cut.
The difference is, Paulownia is pretty strong. Well, the weight is actually the reason my wife wanted this box as her own tool box. Yet, the down side is, the surface is soft and it can easily get dents and scratches but you can fix it with a wet cloth and iron. Let me show you how you do it. This is the common wood repair technique in the US and it’s also common technique to repair Paulownia furniture in Japan. Now the box joints but as I wanted to insert a tray inside the tool box, I first cut a rabbet on the end of the boards before making box joints. For the beginners, box joints are actually achievable and a good saw and chisel exercise so I do recommend to try it.
I still suck at cutting the wood especially when I cut the left side of a marking line. All I care about is not to go over the line and be sure to make some relief cuts. When it comes to chiseling, please do not chop out the big chunk of the waste close to the marking line. It’s not the thing limited to Paulownia but when you handle softwood, it breaks the fibers and joints get weaker.
You have to slice it a little by little. After this, I made another rabbet on the board edges. Yes, I finally got a rabbet plane! I should’ve made a $30-40 investment on this tool earlier… it makes thing so much easier. Though, I still cleaned the edges by a chisel. This is always the safer way. Moving on to the bottom of the box, I’ll make a groove on the side panels and insert the bottom board there so again, I needed to make a rabbet on the bottom board. This time, I roughly cut out the rabbet by chisel to create a guide wall and then used the plane. And now, I cut the grooves by a router plane. The joint length is weirdly long because I originally measured them in the wrong length but I’ll anyway trim them so it’s okay. Here, I fit the bottom board to glue it. Oh but like I said, I cut the side panel in the wrong length and the rabbet was slightly under cut for the tight fit, and now that I shortened it, there will be a gap in the joint.
Therefore, I actually glued thin shavings to fill the gap before gluing the joint. It won’t be noticeable. Anyways, the bottom is done. In the next morning, I roughly trimmed the joint and the excess. Since the board was a glued boards and the grain orientation was pretty messed up, it confused me on which direction to plane. After this adjustment, I will put a top on the lid.
Oh, let me introduce another feature of the Paulownia. Paulownia barely expands or contracts over many years so you don’t have to consider the wood movement. You can even see a bottom of a huge Japanese paulownia drawer is just attached without consideration of wood movement. It was surprising to me. Now I got to make a tray that will sit in the box as well as small boxes to organize tools so I cut lots of strips from what they call a craft board at Daiso. I get in a production mode but it still took me like 1hour to prepare all wood. Here, I will have to cut out the box joints again but I’ve already shown it so at this time, let me try doing a Japanese narrative so you can have something Japanesy feeling. Please enjoy Japanese vibes… Did you feel Japanese? Hmmm, I just said, I had Whopper from Burger King for my lunch. With Coke, oh it’s fantastic. I felt power of America from inside my stomach. Anyways, once I finish gluing the joints, I then made small boxes. I thought I don’t like a miter joint but I can’t hate it for how easy and quick it is to make a box.
Now I dryfit the box insert but I realized I made it in the wrong size… I told my wife I liked the balance of the dividers’ position and it’s going to look good on YouTube as an excuse. For the bottom of the tray, just like the lid, I glued one piece of a board. It’s almost there and I cleaned and aligned all parts.
I really don’t know what I was thinking but I miss calculated a lot in this project and this tray was also 1/8” taller than I designed so I had to shave it a lot. Finally, I work on the main box body. Now the lid and the bottom are flush even when you change the lid orientation. I know it’s super long but here’s where I really messed up. I wanted to use wooden nails for the lid like real Sashimono style but as I can’t have a certain type of wood for the nails, I went with dowels and it was the wrong choice. let me tell you one of the features of Paulownia again. When it gets moisture, the wood swell and grain pores closed so tight.
That actually protects the stuff inside of a drawer from having a moisture damage or even mold so Japanese keep nice expensive Kimono in a Paulownia drawer back in the days. Well, how does it relate to the dowel? I surely felt the dowel was super tight by moisture from the glue and here…. I think that’s why they use a wooden nail instead. So, I just decided to shave the tip of the dowel like a wedge shape nail and just drive it into the hole without glue and then rub the nail top with glue mixed water. Ok, this is the real last step! And let me tell you the rest of the features of Paulownia that I know of. It’s strong against mold and its autoignition temperature is over 750F according to Paulownia Germany, which is quite a high temp.
Ok, let’s see the final product! You may not even consider this is a legit Paulownia lumber but This is my first Paulownia project and I enjoyed it! You know, I feel kind of bad about buying all cutting boards from 1 Daiso because someone may need it so I even went to 3 different Daiso to buy few cutting boards and craft boards from each store. I can say the effort paid off! But this tool box isn’t mine and that’s it for today! Thank you so much for watching! I would be happy if you liked the video and happier if you subscribe to this channel.
If you have any suggestion to my video, it’s also welcome. See you!.