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I wanted to try working with juniper and I wanted to rough saw my own. I collected a sample from the Nevada mountains. (with permission from the property owners of course).
Some was still green and not ready to be used. Other parts were naturally dried by the intense desert summer heat.
Using the band saw I was able to hack the trees into manageable and somewhat straight pieces. The table saw squared up and made boards almost.
The jointer cleaned up the surface and exposed beautiful grain and color. It is a fairly hard wood but very workable.
Risking divorce, I used the kitchen oven to quickly dry my rough cuts. 24 hours starting at 150F and working up to 200F ensured all bugs were dead and the wood was well dry.
Juniper wood has short, almost random pattern grains, with lots of shake. Through out the milling process I was clamping and gluing boards to hold the thinner flat boards together. My goal was a style popular with mesquite; I added putty and filler to fill the voids left by the shake and gaps in the natural juniper wood.
The inlay-ed letters on the top and the trim are hard maple recovered from discarded industrial dunnage. The putty was applied in layers some dyed dark others left lighter. The entire box was assembled with finger joints. The joints ended up tight enough glue was optional.
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