Michael Reeve, Lachlan, TAS

Shoebox
Huon pine
225 h x 110 w x 370mm d

Materials
I work with Tasmanian specialty timbers; Huon pine, King Billy pine, myrtle, myrtle burl, black heart sassafras and blackwood but my preference is working in Huon pine because it is such a great carving timber and is unique to Tasmania.
The Huon pine I use is sourced from a local sawmill on the west coast of Tasmania, who specialise in salvaged Huon pine. The sapwood is pale, not susceptible to lyctus attack, heartwood light cream to yellowish with fine and closely spaced annual rings, with sometimes small black birdseye markings from branchlet traces. The timber is soft, even in structure, durable, smooth and oily and light in weight.
The wood has very small shrinkage, easy to work and takes a high polish. Huon pine is probably the most durable of Australian timbers, and logs which have lain on the ground for several hundred years are still being harvested and milled today. Traditionally, Huon pine has been used for boat building, but it is also used for joinery and is much sought after for turning and carving.

Method of Construction
The shoeboxes I make are on the lines of a basic bandsaw box. I start by sketching the profile on a single billet of wood. Using a bandsaw with a narrow, fine tooth blade I first rough out the shoe profile, then slice off the lid to where the box is to be located. I then slice off two sides, allowing enough timber on the outside to be manipulated once it is all glued up. The middle piece which is left over, I then bandsaw the hollow interior of the box.
The piece of timber that is left over from the box interior, I slice off a 3mm section off the top, this becomes the keeper for the lid which locates itself in the box section. I sand the inside only of the two side sections that were removed previously, to 400 grit paper, once this is done I glue the sides to the middle section and clamp together, putting this aside until the glue has dried.
I then take the lid section and sand smooth the bottom only, then sand smooth the keeper and glue and clamp the keeper to the underside of the lid. Once all the gluing has had time to cure properly, I unclamp the main body of the shoe and its lid with keeper in place. I then clamp the lid to the body of the shoe, this is were the fun begins. I now have a very bulky profile of the shoe with a small section were the box is located, I can now begin to sculpt the desired shoebox design with a variety of tools such as a mini-carver, carving chisels, sanding discs and sleeves, Dremel tools for different texturing, then sanding smooth to 1200 grit paper.
Once all sanding is done and I’m happy with overall shoebox design and texturing, these are then adorned with metal studs, spikes, rivets and so on and they are then finished off by lining the bottom of the inside box with mainly kangaroo leather.

Glues: Aquadhere PVA+ woodworking glue, Selleys 5 minute Araldite

Finish: Mostly the work is finished with Organoil interior clear finishing oil, worked in with 1200 grit wet and dry paper. In some situations where I use stains and acrylic paint to further enhance the design, I seal these in with diluted thin coats of Feast Watson satin proof clear finish, rubbing between coats with 1200 grit paper. I then apply a natural beeswax finish.

Concept
I have been making basic bandsaw boxes for some time now. I have always pushed to get away from what a typical box looks like and producing a functional sculptural item that no-one else was producing has always been my desire. I was motivated by an article written by Andrew Potocnic in AWR#48 ‘Box and Beyond’.
I was also influenced by great leatherworker Gary Greenwood and what he was doing with his series of leather shoe sculptures. This man was so ahead of his time, it blew me away! But at the same time, got my mind engaged to the possibilities of what I could do with wood.
I took pen to paper and started to develop some ideas of my own. After sketching some twenty odd concepts, I needed to see how these were going to come together and to solve some of the elements in actually constructing the pieces—cutting, gluing, sculpting, sanding etc. I then made a very small prototype, one-third scale, solving all the problems I could see, thus giving me something I could quickly scale up. Then, playing on a concept the Shoebox was born.The shoebox format has since evolved into hatboxes, beanieboxes, gloveboxes, bootboxes…
Photos: Michael Reeve