Making a Coin Box

This page was created to illustrate one way to make a brass coin box. This is not the only method that can be used. It is merely the way I decided to make this custom coin box set.

A magician asked me to create this set to go with some beautiful oversized silver coins that he wanted to use in his magic. These coins are much larger than U.S. silver dollars and quite "hefty". They really are beautiful coins.

The first step in creating the coin box set was to measure the coins.

Since these are coin boxes which need a slightly loose fit, calipers were deemed accurate enough for the task at hand.

I usually use a dial or digital calipers for such non-critical jobs.

After this measuring, I sketched out what I would be making, added dimensions, and cut the required brass.

I needed three pieces of brass for the "boxes" and one for the lid.

To hold the boxes as accurately centered as possible, I wanted to use a specially machined "pot collet".

This type of holding fixture has excellent repeatability so that the

brass being machined may easily be removed and reinserted into the collet - still centered.

Such collets are machined to hold the project being done.

This is the collet that I machined for making the custom coin boxes.

Notice that it is "stepped". This is so that I can use the same collet for gripping both the

boxes and the matching lid during machining. This gripping of the metal is critical in turning items on the lathe.

The brass for the boxes was 1 3/4" in diameter.

The lid was turned from 2" diameter bar stock.

I milled a center hole to get things started.

Then metal was removed as needed.

The work progresses.

Depth is measured as needed during the machining process.

The "fit" was checked with the actual coins to be used with the box.

The finished interior of the "Boston Box" looked like this.

The outside of the box was next machined to the desired diameter.

The box was reversed in the collet chuck and the "Boston" cut into the bottom.

The same techniques were used to make a regular Okito Box and a solid plug "box".

The completed boxes were buffed to a nice finish and the final results are shown below. One lid fits all three boxes.

Here are the boxes without coins and with the coins:

This was a custom item. I do not regularly make these. The coins just begged for nice boxes - so this job was accepted.

To see some of the other magic items that I design and manufacture - click here.