Get Woodworking Week Post – Box Challenge Build

Published on by Mike

2013-01-30 22.44.46 Since my shop is in a garage, and in Ohio, I am don’t know that I will get much if any woodworking done this week.  Much of it depends if my kerosene heater can compensate for cold air outside.  However, I think it is worth talking about my current project, which is part of a box challenge that a group of us are participating in.  The idea of the challenge is to build a box that pushes your skills.

2013-01-19 18.22.49The first skill challenge for me was hand cut dovetails.  I took a class a couple years ago, and made several practice bookends, but never actually did a project with DTs on all four corners.  The answer to the top question is tails first.  🙂  I spent a lot of time being extra careful, with both the DT saw and chisels to get the joints as clean as possible.  The only area that I consistently had issues with were the half pins on the ends.  This is where I had the worse gaps.  The rest of the DTs ended up reasonably tight.  I haven’t glued the box up yet, so I have decided yet how I will close up those gaps.

2013-01-30 22.45.05After completing the four sides, I started working on top and bottom pieces.  The top I ended up doing a square turning to make it domed shape.  The I started working on the bottom.  I couldn’t bring myself to just making it from plywood.  It had to be solid wood.  I started out just rabbeting the bottom piece to fit in the dados in the sides.  I didn’t like how it looked.  So I grabbed my #3 and started working away at it.  I marked some guidelines, and next thing I know, I had a raised panel for the bottom!

2013-01-19 23.04.08I still have some work to do on the box, and any more work I do on it this week, I will update as another GWW post.

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