Oak and Walnut Dovetailed Box for Katy

This was for my sister Katy for her birthday and is my first box with my new Veritas 14 tpi dovetail saw. I was able to cut much smaller and tighter dovetails than on my other boxes. I was also using my newly made 1:7 dovetail marker. So far, I’ve done all my dovetails by eye but I needed more uniformity for half blinds on a drawer front that I wanted to look perfect so I made a marker. For these I marked just one line and cut on that and then put my saw directly in the kerf for the second cut. I also had to create a new chisel to clean out the waste. Before now all my pins were 1/4 inch or more at the wide end but these are only 1/8. I ground down the edges of my 1/8 inch chisel to a sharp bevel. It’s now shaped like a triangle and all edges are sharp, including the top. Well, back to the box. It’s walnut and red oak and the bottom is lined with royal blue velvet inside and out. The top is a single piece of walnut with a hole made with a forstner bit. I then chiseled out a 1/4 inch wide groove to fit the handle in. The handle is about 1/4 by 1/4 square walnut and is glued down in the groove. The box is 5×7 5/8×3 1/4. Unlike most of my boxes, the top is flush with the sides. The lid is rabbeted to sit down just a bit into the box to keep the lid in place. The finish is BLO and wax.

-- Jason