Trinket/Shadow Box (Iraq Display) #3: Finally completed my first box!

Well after many frustrations (or as I tell my airmen, “learning situations”), I finally finished my Trinket/Shadow box. Now, I look at all the boxes on this site and I realize that I have got a loooong way to go before I catch up to many of you box-builders. But, for my first box, I am happy with it.

Now I have learned a tremendous amount from making this box, and if I were to do it again tomorrow, it would be a lot different. There are many obvious flaws that I see and that I think I could do a lot better. But I guess we all have to start somewhere. This has definitely been my hardest project to date, but on that same hand, it has also been the most rewarding for me to finish. Well, enough of my blabbering, on to the pictures:

This first pic is of the front and the top of the box:

This picture is of the top/lid/shadow box portion. Inside you see my brasard (the piece that says “FP” on it). I wore that on my shoulder/arm in Iraq. The FP stands for “Force Protection” and the Arabic writing says “Military Police” (probably not a literal translation, it could say bu**-head for all I know). Also in this picture is my Iraqi campaign medal and two squadron coins I received from from out commander and our chief.

The third picture is showing the dovetails on the side of the box. Now if you notice the grain difference from the front of the box and the side of the box, it is because I used red oak on the front and back, and I used poplar on the sides.

The fourth picture is a front view. You can see the brass clasp I chose and the little brass feet underneath.

This picture is just showing how I mortised the hinges on the rear of the box:

This picture is to show you the inside of the opened box with the friction slide, velvet on the bottom, and the mortised hinges again. As you can see, I did not stain the inside of the main part of the box. Since I made this box for myself, I left it unstained so I could reference the different woods both stained and unstained at a later date for future projects…

And this final picture is just kind of an overall shot showing the front, side, and top all in one pic:

And that does it for this project. Right now I have a knife display case to build for a friend, but when it is done, I plan on building many more boxes. They are very challenging and this one has taught me many woodworking skills I may not have acquired otherwise. I hope you all enjoyed!

-- Sgt_Lobo -- Aurora, CO