Ever since Sarah and I were married, we have exchanged hand-made gifts on Christmas Eve, a tradition that we have also shared with our two daughters. For me, the crafting began in November when I bought the materials I'd need for my projects from Home Depot. (I'd love to buy rough lumber and mill it but until I have a planer and a jointer, I have to buy my wood pre-milled.)
For my daughters, I built two versions of the same thing: a small writing desk with an internal divider for paper, pens, etc. I used half-inch poplar, four inches wide. I cut the sides to length while mitering them on my chopsaw then I cut the dadoes for the tops and bottoms on my table saw. Even my smallest dado combination was too wide so I just used my regular blade and cut two dadoes side by side. The tops and bottoms are hardboard that I cut with the circular saw and cleaned up with my block plane.
For assembly, I taped the back sides of the miters with blue painters tape, spread the glue, and held it all together with a band clamp. I used a couple other clamps to clamp it down at the corners to keep it good and flat (the top of my table saw was good for that, as you can see.)
Cutting the top off of a box like this seems like it should be easy but it has caused me trouble every time I've done it. I need to come up with a better technique. I didn't wreck anything but the top and bottoms don't meet nearly as neatly as I would like. Maybe hot-gluing some scraps inside to keep it all even as I run it through the table saw would help? Regardless, I cleaned up the top and bottom with a block plane and sand paper so they came out OK. The divider inside the box (with rounded corners) provides just enough friction to keep the lids closed and provide just the right amount of resistance when opening them. That is a nice feature of my design that I didn't anticipate.
The thin stripe on the front of the box in the picture is evidence of a lapse in concentration while I was cutting the tops off the boxes. I wasn't thinking and made a cut in the wrong place. After a bit of head scratching (every shop needs a chair or stool for long bouts of thinking) I decided to glue a thin strip of cherry in the mistake and show it off as a decorative feature. It works!
The finish is a coat of urethane inside and out (not on the hard-board, of course).
A close friend gave me a set of plastic triangles that elevate workpieces off of the bench for finishing that are very, very helpful. He probably has no idea how much I use them!
Here's a summary of the highlights of the design:
- Sides are 1/2" x 4" poplar
- Top and bottom are 3/16" hard-board, smooth side out
- The boxes are square, about 12"x12" inside dimension
- The corners are mitered and do not use splines
This design is so flexible and easy to build that I suspect I'll make a few tool and storage boxes using this technique.
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