It is Christmas Eve and the boxes are wrapped.

I have one of the 8” Incra Router Jigs and I decided to finally do something with it. I designed a box that uses a “Quadruple, Triple, Double box joint”. (I couldn’t think of anything else to call it.)

The box has four sides (duh), with a triple box joint on each of the two ends. Thus the name.

I used Sketchup to design the corners and it worked great. Since I wanted to cut the top off the box using the table saw, I purposely added 1/8” at the correct position to ensure that the box joints were all the same width after the box was reassembled.

I built a prototype box out of walnut, maple and spalted maple. Somethings that I found during the prototypes construction:
1. Use a sharp spiral bit in the router. I started with a straight bit and I could not get consistent results. A 3/8” endmill worked great
2. Make sure that none of the parts can move while routing the joints. This requires a stout fixture to hold the boards correctly.
3. There are lots of glue-ups and it is difficult to keep everything lined up during these glue-ups. I was shooting for a final thickness of 1/2” for all of the box sides. I started with everything planed to 9/16”. I then completed all of the triple box joints and then planed the sides to 1/2” before finally gluing up the corner posts to the sides.

I then built the three boxes that I am giving to my wife and my two daughters. The boxes are all slightly bigger than the prototype. The top of the boxes is made from bubinga veneered to 1/4” ply. The corner posts are made from sapelle. I also used cherry, walnut, birch, white oak, and paduck.

-- "A goal without a plan is a wish."