Cypress and Bloodwood mini blanket chest

I’m still teaching myself how work with wood and wanted to make a box with dovetails. I have some cypress which is very light and easy to work, but it turned out to be too fragile for dovetails; the pins broke easily. So I built a box joint jig for the tablesaw and it worked just fine. The box is 16 1/4×8 5/8 x 8 3/4 inches. I put a band of 1/8 inch bloodwood around the top (I disremember why, even though I just built it last week!). Finished with four coats of amber shellac, then paste wax.

I hope to make a full-size blanket chest in the near future. In the meantime, I’ll practice my hand-cut dovetail skills on cherry.

-- Dana, Tallahassee, FL