After getting bit by the cigar hobby I found myself needing a humidor. Humidors are wooden boxes. I'm a hobbyist woodworker, so why purchase something I could make myself? And while I'm at it, why not make 4 or 5 of these babies, and give them away as gifts? So I did. It took me about 130 hours to create the 5 humidors (I am not fast) but they are beautiful, aren't they?
To start, I referenced the classic Fine Woodworking article (I think authored by Daniel Marshall) and watched some videos on how to do corner banding. I designed my own version, bought some nice African Mahogany, Spanish Cedar, and Wenge lumber, dug out some quilted maple and a bit of 1960's walnut paneling from my woodpile, and went to town.
The external dimensions ended up as 14"W x 9-1/4"D x 5-7/8"H. It'll hold maybe ~60 cigars, though ~40 seems to be the best for consistent humidification and crowd control. The quadrant hinges are from Brusso and fully 1/8" thick solid brass; I built these humidors to my usual bench-mark: They must last 200 years. Once finished and seasoned with the Bóveda seasoning packs, I put one into service for my own infused sticks and it's holding dead-on at an rH of 65%.
In some of the pictures you'll notice one of the humidors has a 1960's panel top instead of quilted maple. Large sheets of this paneling were removed from the living room of a good friends' home during a remodel earlier in 2015. I took some of that panel and worked it into the lid of his humidor as a Christmas present. He was of course amazed. "Why is it called 'Uvezian Vault'?" he asked, to which I replied: "The 'Uvezian' part is to honor the cigar that awakened me to the hobby -- a cigar you gave me -- the Avo XO Notturno. The 'Vault' part just sounded cool."
So there you have it; hope you enjoyed the woodwork porn.
And guess what?! I have one humidor remaining to sell at cost (plus shipping). Full disclosure: It's flawed. I mistakenly installed a lid magnet upside down (reversing polarities) and it had to be fixed. I used rare-earth magnets because I abhor those weak rubberized magnets used for sticking travel chotskies to refrigerators. See pictures below for details on this humidor. If you use that magnet for your hygrometer or humidifier, you'll never see the boo-boo. (In the humidor I kept for myself, I use a 5x7 sheet of Heartfelt's bead material held in place with a couple extra magnets; it works very well to hide a similar f**k-up I did on that lid. I'll be happy to include the sheet and extra magnets with this humidor if you like.) PM me if you are at all interested. I've got 27 hours into this thing and nearly $180 in materials. it's fully seasoned, and I'd like to know it's being used and passed on to grandchildren instead of sitting in my closet gathering dust. On the other hand, I suppose I could fill it with more cigars....
(Um... I used the same method to add images to this reply as I did in the original post, but for some reason the new images don't appear here in this reply. If anyone knows why, I'd appreciate the schooling.)
Gorgeous Humi's!
Gorgeous, man. Good luck with the sale!
nice
Great work!.
Those are beautiful! Nice job!
Real nice work. :thumbsup:
Beautiful work :bigthumbs:
Beautiful work.
Looks like great work, I like the attention to details and the different wood essences. One thing is certain, you are a handy hobbyist. Your workshop must be full equipped, I think I'd be jealous.
I'd jump on this one if I wasn't 3000 miles away, and if it was a little bigger. I'm imagining how nice that 2500 ct Tower you'd create for me would be :shy: :biggrin:
Thanks for sharing the porn and the cool story.
Nice looking humidors. Well done.
gorgeous!
QuoteMojo66 - 1/15/2016 5:37 PM ...I'm imagining how nice that 2500 ct Tower you'd create for me would be
...
So much this! :bigthumbs:
The lid magnet idea is very cool!
Beautiful humidors! You are very talented!
Outstanding craftsmanship!
Thanks, Brlsq!
The magnets came about because I found that most commercial humidors have a thin piece of sheet steel built into the lid, and most smaller humidifiers and hygrometers have flexible mounting magnets so they ostensibly stick to the lid. All my trials using this method caused the humidifier (especially when fully charged with water) and hygrometer to slide down the lid to the bottom each time the lid was opened. I couldn't stand that, so an alternative had to be implemented.
Quotec9belayer - 1/16/2016 2:47 PM
Thanks, Brlsq!
The magnets came about because I found that most commercial humidors have a thin piece of sheet steel built into the lid, and most smaller humidifiers and hygrometers have flexible mounting magnets so they ostensibly stick to the lid. All my trials using this method caused the humidifier (especially when fully charged with water) and hygrometer to slide down the lid to the bottom each time the lid was opened. I couldn't stand that, so an alternative had to be implemented.
Awesome workmanship on the humidors!
I recently had a friend build me one using wenge and it turned out very nice, but yours are over the top
I used 3M 2 sided tape to secure the magnets for my hygrometer and a puck of Heartfelt beads and it has worked fine for me
Thanks for posting the pics
Gorgeous humidors! I too am a woodworker, but don;t have the tooling for flat work stuff. I do quite a bit of turning stuff. You do great work, wish I could flat work that well!
E