Stash those Stogies in a Pocket Humidor

A few years ago, I built a large humidor on commission that accommodated about 150 cigars. Besides something of a cigar aficionado, my client is also a businessman who travels a lot. So he asked me to come up with a version of a pocket humidor that could hold four cigars as well as the cutter and a small humidifier unit – and it all had to be small enough to fit inside a jacket pocket. 

Well, this was a challenge! But accepting the challenge paid off. Much to my surprise, the finished version of my pocket humidor won second prize for design in the 1999 Durham Wood Show woodworking competition.

This project is a great way to use up small pieces of figured wood that are too nice to throw out, but too small for most other projects. It’s practical to build two humidors at a time. While writing this article, I made four humidors: two of walnut and two of curly soft maple. The veneers are padauk, curly aniegre and pomele bosse. 

The humidifier units are factory-made of stainless steel, and the cigar cutters are available at better cigar shops. Both the cigar cutter and humidifier unit are held in place with sliding wooden retainers that allow for easy removal. The stainless steel tabs fixed to the retainers come with the humidifier units. The springs that operate these retainers are the ones found in ordinary click pens. If a spring should ever get lost, it can be easily replaced.