Project Information
This is a box I built for my brand new baby nephew (born May 1, 2011). He is the first child of my only brother and I wanted to do something special. I discovered woodworking about 6 months ago and this is my first real project.
The box was made from some short walnut scraps sold on sale at my lumberyard. I think if I had had a little more experience, I would have chosen different (likely straighter) grain for the sides of the box. The dovetails are handcut with a super cheap saw and my homemade 1:8 dovetail marking gauge. I took full advantage of the sawdust/glue combo to hide gaps. Actually, after doing the inlay and seeing how wood-like the gaps were after adding a drop of CA glue, I did this for all the sawdust-filled gaps around my dovetails. It made for a LOT of CA glue sanding, but I thought it looked better afterwards. The top is two pieces glued together then run through my planer. I tried to slide my boards around to find color and grain pattern that looked relatively matched. The bottom is attached by brad nails and features wedged through-tenon feet that are pretty much a straight rip-off of Rob Bois' Bible-box project (which this project was obviously heavily influenced by). The hinges were bought at my local woodcraft. The inlay was cut out of hard maple using a cheap Ryobi scroll saw. Finish is BLO followed by a few coats of pastewax buffed to shine.
This box was incredibly fun to build and a MAJOR learning opportunity for me. I made several mistakes most of which I think I was able to conceal, but you can be the judge. Thank you to all the LJ out there for this amazing community. I draw a great deal of inspiration from the projects I see on this site.
The box was made from some short walnut scraps sold on sale at my lumberyard. I think if I had had a little more experience, I would have chosen different (likely straighter) grain for the sides of the box. The dovetails are handcut with a super cheap saw and my homemade 1:8 dovetail marking gauge. I took full advantage of the sawdust/glue combo to hide gaps. Actually, after doing the inlay and seeing how wood-like the gaps were after adding a drop of CA glue, I did this for all the sawdust-filled gaps around my dovetails. It made for a LOT of CA glue sanding, but I thought it looked better afterwards. The top is two pieces glued together then run through my planer. I tried to slide my boards around to find color and grain pattern that looked relatively matched. The bottom is attached by brad nails and features wedged through-tenon feet that are pretty much a straight rip-off of Rob Bois' Bible-box project (which this project was obviously heavily influenced by). The hinges were bought at my local woodcraft. The inlay was cut out of hard maple using a cheap Ryobi scroll saw. Finish is BLO followed by a few coats of pastewax buffed to shine.
This box was incredibly fun to build and a MAJOR learning opportunity for me. I made several mistakes most of which I think I was able to conceal, but you can be the judge. Thank you to all the LJ out there for this amazing community. I draw a great deal of inspiration from the projects I see on this site.