Birthday Gift Box

This box is a birthday gift for my sister-in-law. It is based on a design in the book "Box-Making Basics" by David Freedman. I made it from curly maple and black walnut. The dimensions are about 10" by 5" and 4" in height. I finished this box with Danish Oil.
 
The plans in the book use biscuits to join the carcase pieces to the legs. I used mortise and tenon joints instead. Here are some pictures of the joinery that I used. The pin in the first photo is used as one of the two hinges for the lid.

 
The legs are tapered on the two outside faces. I rigged up a shooting board to make the tapers with a hand plane. Here are some pictures of the contraption that I came up with. After fine-tuning it on a test piece, this method worked very well on the small legs.

 

When it came time for glue up, I realized that clamps might not work well because of the tapered legs. I could have made some more tapered pieces as shims to create flat clamping surfaces. But, I decided that I should not need all that much pressure when gluing. If I did, that would mean that I messed up something earlier. I had good results using eight rubber bands.

 

Locating the holes for the pins in the sides and lid was the most exacting part of building this box. Since the lid is meant to be flush with the carcase top and there is a reveal all around, there is no where to hide a misalignment. The goal is 1/32" reveal on the sides and 1/16" on the front and back.

Posted elsewhere Apr 24, 2011