I made this box for my wife. It’s made of white oak with an antique gel stain and high gloss poly. I made some half blind heart style joinery for the front and back. Inside the box, I covered it in textured bright red felt. This box measures 5 1/2” tall by 8” deep, 8” wide.

I learned a lot when I made this box. I don’t normally do boxes with specialty joinery. It was trying at first, but then became easier as I progressed.

It’s also the first box I made where I used felt for the inside. I had spray glue all over the table, the project, my hands, and my left knee. Don’t ask how that happened, I couldn’t tell you (I was blinded by the glue… lol). I enjoyed the process, though.

My wife came to me and wanted some brightly colored birdhouses to put around our back porch. She didn’t care what size, or what they were. So, I just put together these simple ones to let her paint on. Each birdhouse is made out of pine. The smaller ones took about 30 minutes each to make, and the larger one took about an hour. These were really satisfying to make, because they were so quick (and I didn’t have to apply a finish!!).

I made this box for my Dad for Father’s day. He wanted a Bocce Ball set, so I bought one at Wal-Mart. I was thinking that it would come in something that would be a little more classy than a bag and a cardboard box, but couldn’t find anything better. So, I made this finger jointed box out of 3/4 oak. The lid has a 3/8 runner and slides open. There are no mechanical fasteners or hinges in this box, just glue. I just rubbed in two coats of low gloss tung oil to seal it up. I may spray it with a glossier poly yet, I haven’t decided.

I learned many important tooling “set up” lessons on this project that would have made it a project that would have taken less time to complete.

I made this box in about 3 hours. I stuck in a dummy finger where the lid slides out to keep the consistency of the finger joints. The lid rides smoothly on just paste wax. The finger grip for opening the lid was made by a raised cove router bit. The bottom is held in by a 3/8 rabbet all the way around. It’s 5 1/2” tall, 16” long, 9” deep. Hopefully, Dad will get good use out of it.

Thanks for looking….

—Steve

About 5 years ago, I built this oak box that gets seatbelted in the back seat to hold my paperwork. We have too much other equipment in the trunk to hold the paperwork! This pic is from today, so the box is about 5 years old. It’s been beat half to death from the ciminals that set in back with it from their kicking, screaming, and spitting, but the box has held up really well. It’s made from 3/4 white oak with a solid piano hinge. I chose to screw the sides together at the time with some glue, and wood plugs to hide the heads… simply for durability. The inside of it has 1/4 dados for easy placement of paper dividers. I burned the Illinois State Police seal with my District number and location on the lid. I need to take it back out and cover burn it to darken it again, scrape everything down and reapply a finish. Someday I may make another one, but this one is going to have to wear out or break first.

Up close, you can see that the woodburning needs to be re-darkened, as it’s starting to fade some. When it was brand new, it sure looked nice.

Probably like most of you, I hoard wood. No, really, I do… lol. Well, it took over my largest barn and I had to have a place to put it, instead of stacked against the wall. I built this project out of the scrap lumber that I already had scavanged from other remodel or carpentry jobs, or wherever I could get the lumber really. I had a lot of sheeting and 2x stock and some others. There is also about 250 board feet of white oak in it too that I had gotten off a friend that was moving in one of those “everything must go” moments in his life.

Anyway, it’s just a simple A-frame with large plywood storage in the middle on the bottom and small sheet storage in the middle on the top. The pegs that hold the lumber are simple 2×2 stock, 2×4’s ripped down. I made a 2×4 base with sheeting and castors so that it was mobile. Well, it WAS mobile at the time, I’ve outgrown it now and it’s so heavy that it’s not mobile anymore… lol. The A-frame was a 2×4 on one side, 2×4’s between each peg cut at an angle to let the peg stay level, then a piece of 1/4 inch ply on the other side to hold the pegs in… that’s it. You’ll notice in one of the pics where it is empty that some of the pegs sag. Some of these are not pushed in all the way, and if they are still short, you can shim it. In the same pic, you can see the lumber mess behind it. All that lumber and much more fit onto it.

I have so much lumber on it now, that it is completely full from the top to the bottom, solid wood. So heavy I can’t move it. I’m going to have to come up with another storage idea… get rid of some wood (gak!)... or start mass production building… lol…