I have some special wood I told my wife I would make her a box out of. I figured before I tried making a fancy box that I could use some practice making small boxes to work through any issues or skill gaps.
I started by watching several videos on making small boxes and settled on making one based on one based on the design by Quill Woodworks.
I built a new 45 degree sled for my table saw. I set the blade to 44.8 degrees so if there are any gaps they will be on the inside vs the outside of the miter joint. Using a stop block I could make sure the parallel sides were of equal length.
As you can see, from the below picture I marked all the pieces with white pencil to make sure I could keep them all together in the correct order.
After cutting the strips to length on the miter sled I cut rabbets in the top and bottom edges. I then used my router table to cut the notch to hold the top open (watch the video for details).
I had strips that were not usable for sides so I glued them together to make bottoms for the boxed.
After a lot of scraping and sanding I had my first box. I finished it with wipe on oil based polyurethane.
After a lot of scraping and sanding I had my first box. I finished it with wipe on oil based polyurethane.
This is the only box I've finished so far. I was making these as a break while working on my filing cabinet. This one went to my friend Bonnie.
