Whisky glass box from barrel staves
Background
My father has whisky glasses I liked. He gave me the same ones for my birthday: Krosno “Pure Whisky”. They come in a cardboard box that doesn’t hold up well. I wanted to build something more durable.
At first I thought I’d use a hardwood – beech or oak, whatever was available. Then I started wondering whether you could buy individual barrel staves. When I found an online retailer for garden décor that had them in stock, I changed the plan. That made everything more complicated and multiplied the effort considerably – but it was worth it.
The staves come from former whisky barrels. Which distillery they came from is unknown. The charred interior is original and untouched – the same surface that once matured the whisky now surrounds the glasses.
Realisation
In November 2025, a friend scanned one of the glasses for me. Based on the scan I drew up the construction in Fusion 360. The dimensions – 30 x 18 x 10 cm – came directly from the 3D model of the glasses and the clearance needed inside. Hinged lid with a latch.
Barrel staves are curved – they were part of a round barrel. Before CNC machining, the staves had to be cut to length, assembled from multiple pieces and then face-milled flat. For the face-milling I designed and printed a clamping system in PETG: toe clamps that hold the workpiece from the side, leaving the surface completely clear. They worked on the first try. The staves also needed to be brought to consistent thickness.
The available material was tight. The staves varied in width, and the part layouts had to be positioned very precisely. There was almost no room for waste – the material just about covered everything.
All parts were milled on my self-built CNC router, using a 25 mm surfacing bit, a 4 mm single-flute end mill, a quarter-round bit for the interior radii and a chamfer bit for the 45-degree faces. The corners are joined with box joints. The outside received four coats of water-based acrylic lacquer, clear. The charred interior was left untreated.
The lid contains a holder for a pipette. When adding water to whisky, a single drop too many can mask the character of the dram entirely – the holder keeps the pipette accessible at all times.
Obstacles
A screw snapped while tightening the latch. I chiselled out the affected section, removed it, fitted a piece of matching wood, sanded it flush and refastened the latch. The latch covers the spot completely.
Result
The box has been finished since April 2026. The glasses sit securely, the lid closes cleanly. I’ll be using the toe clamps again for future projects involving curved or otherwise difficult-to-clamp material.
