TIE Fighter

I designed and created the TIE Fighter Box for a Star Wars themed art Exhibit that happened in May. For those that don’t know May is Star Wars month (especially May 4th…May the 4th be with you).

I turned the main body out of hard maple. I first turned a rough cylinder and added all my layout lines. I made a fixture to hold the cylinder for drilling the 1.25” drawer hole. After that it was back onto the lathe for turning.

The wings were made by creating a 3-ply plywood out of hard maple and black walnut. Their size meant I had to resaw the maple and walnut and book match the pieces to create a large enough panel. The finished panels were around 3/8” thick. Once the wing blanks were all glued up and dried I cut them to shape. I made a wing routing fixture using 1/4” thick baltic birch. I set the depth of the 1/4” upcut spiral router bit to cut just through the maple ply exposing the black walnut below. I smoothed the areas out using card scrapers and sanding. I chamfered all the edges of the wings on the tablesaw. I went back to the lathe to turn the end caps for the wings.

The black walnut drawer front was turned to the correct diameter on the lathe. I cut it to a rough length and placed it into the body. I used rasps to shape it and make the curves blend into the body. The drawer was made from curly maple and I used birch dowels to strengthen the joints. It is lined with black velvet. There is a small dowel on the back that protrudes out of the back of the body through a tiny hole. You push on the dowel to slide the drawer out.

The TIE Fighter box is 8” x 7.5” x 9.375”. It was finished with four soakings of Danish Oil. The body got waxed twice with the final one being a satin wax. The drawer got waxed twice with a high gloss wax.

The TIE Fighter box is in a private collection.