Installing barrell hinges

Glen asked:

I have a question for you. Although I do not commonly use barrel hinges, I have a need now. I have always used the 10mm hinges in the past and used a (shimmed with masking tape) 3/8" dowel center to locate the correct position on the lid. I have a project coming up in which I will use 3/4" stock and will need to move up to 14mm barrel hinges. The problem is the dowel centers. I can find none larger than 3/8". Any suggestions?

I use a drill press and story stick method, and avoid the dowel centers which tend to be less inaccurate. Cut a story stick the same length as your box and lid. Use a stop block on the drill press fence When you drill through the story stick, prior to drilling the parts of the box, it can be simply flipped over to locate the position for the stop block on the other side. Once the stop blocks are in place, the holes for the barrel hinges can be accurately drilled so they align perfectly. I describe this in a couple of my box books.

Story sticks are amazingly accurate and require almost no measuring in the conventional numeric sense.

Circle Inlay

Reader, John Thomas sent the photo below showing his circular inlay. Interesting juxtaposition of color and line. I assume that John inlaid the circle of spalted wood first then routed another circle inside for the walnut inlay to fit. I like that he oriented the inner circle at 90 degrees to the surrounding wood rather than trying for a perfect alignment of grain. That creates interesting contrast of line as well as color.