My wife is very pleased with the jewelry box and my daughters are wondering when they get their own.

The next issue had to do with the desired wooden hinge corner of the doors for the jewelry box. The edges were rounded, the box joint fit very well, and I thought I had a good means of ensuring a true hole into the box joint for the hinge pin.

After drilling both ends of one door and side, this proved not to be the case. The holes drifted out of center as they passed through the fingers and some of the fingers even split. AARGH! More deleted comments. Heavy sigh. Now what? Moment of inspiration – I took both box sides and both doors to the table saw and carefully ripped them; removing all the box joint fingers. I didn’t make a mistake – this was a design enhancement. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I ripped some figured maple and glued a strip on each of the sides. We’re back in business.


All the parts are coming together. All have been dry fit and two coats of finish applied. Final assembly is pending. Surely I can’t mess anything else up – I mean I probably won’t have any more design changes now.

I first cross-cut two 22 1/2” lengths from the stud for use as legs. I ripped one side to remove the rounded edge on each length and then ripped four 1 1/2” square lengths. This left me with two ~1/8” thick x 1 1/2” wide x 22 1/2” long slats with half rounded edges. These were saved for later use. I was very pleased with how well the legs turned out. The grain orientation was at ~45 degrees so the grain looks the same from all sides.

The next steps involved re-sawing one 15” length of 2×4 and part of a second at 7/16” to be glued together to form the table top. The remaining length was ripped to 3” and then re-sawn to create the skirting for the table. The skirting boards were cut to length at 94 degrees to create a four-way, splay-legged arrangement. I cut the mortises in the legs on my router table and rabbetted the tenons also on the router table. The joints went together very well.

The table top was trimmed to 13” width to fit through my planer and then surfaced to 3/8” thickness. I added a mitered and rabbetted edging around the periphery of the top to finish it off and add a bit of strength. These pieces were salvaged from the 15” length not re-sawn and used for the table top.

Finally, I added beading below the skirting, using the ~1/8” thick edgings remaining from squaring up the 2×4 initially. One side was already round and I used a round over bit to relieve the other side.

Small off-cuts were glued to the inside of the skirting and then the top of the legs and the mounting blocks were hand planed flat for mounting the table top.

Here are some shots of the table prior to finishing.

I stained the table with an ebony stain and then applied three coats of wipe on poly, using 0000 steel wool between coats. Photos of the finished table are posted with my contest entry. The tables final dimensions are ~22 3/4” tall by 13 1/2” square.

I purchased some drawer liner from Lowe’s that was okay, but didn’t lay as flat as I wanted and didn’t have an adhesive back. So, I will return what I haven’t used and see what else they have available.

The back was a rail and style assembly that turned out pretty well.

While finishing up the cabinet, I also made a number of zero clearance inserts for my new table saw. Using the dado insert, some double stick tape, and a $5 piece of pre-finished MDF, I was able to produce five inserts in a relatively short amount of time. (The picture onlys shows four, one is in the saw.) I cut the inserts to approximate shape on the band saw and then used a pattern bit in my router table to trim the individual inserts exactly to size.

The thickness of the stock wasn’t exactly right, so I machined some relief into the bottom of the inserts on the router table. They fit great and I loved the price.

The knock down table was based on the Fine Wood Working design recently provided on line. I have the smaller Triton router mounted in it using a Woodpeck router insert. I love the combination and it serves my needs very well. The support under the plywood top was modified slightly from the FWW design and will allow me to easily transfer the top to the cabinet. With full 1” thick oak supports and a 3/4” rabbetted edge banding, I am not worried about the top sagging. I enjoy the large work surface as well.

The cart has non-swivel wheels at one end and two adjustable jacking screws for leveling at the other end. I plan to just pick up one end of the table and wheel the cart/cabinet around like a wheel borrow when I need to move it. The upper shelf will have a tray to catch the few shavings that drop below the router. The dust collection with this set-up works very well. There is virtually nothing on the ground below the router when I use the table currently.

I would heartily endorse the Triton router and the Woodpeck insert and like the simplicity and large size of the FWW table design. Oh, I also shifted the router toward the back of the table a bit from the FWW design.

I have mounted the doors and all of the drawers at this point in time. I still need to fine tune the fit of the latches and the doors – the doors are a bit too tight to clear each other when opening. There are two trays which will mount behind the doors. I will be installing these trays and fitting the drawer fronts next.

I also seem to have an issue with the photos fitting in the space available on the blog page. Do I simply need to reduce the image size that I am saving?