Thread: Help on Toy Box please - recycled tounge and groove

Originally Posted by Timbre Surfer

G'day

In anticipation of the arrival of our first bub, i thought it would enjoy in years to come a good quality toy box.

I don't have the equipment to do dovetails, any suggestions?

What equipment do you have?

Originally Posted by Sprog

What equipment do you have?

electric plane, pedestal drill, router, lathe, orbital, belt, angle grinder, jigsaw, 9" buffer/polisher/sander, power chisel, drop saw, circular saw you know the usual stash the missus does not quite know the full extent of . Actually, none of it is outstanding quality, but i take it slow and it does the job well enough, i still prefer the hand tools for small jobs, like the hand planes and surforms.

Magnet Mart had a plan for one using t&g boards.do a google search on toy boxes.

I'd get a bit of stuff about three times the thickness (or maybe two) of the boards square, then route a groove up two adjoining sides to make a "slotted" corner piece. Screw, nail or glue from behind.

Cheers,

P

instead of dovetailing the corners, why not mortice and tenon them instead? I used nothing but timber and glue in one I did ....for the safety side of things ..didnt want any screws or nails working loose on young hands to fix the corners with strength drill a dowel hole through the top and bottom corner and through both tenons ....apply glue ....and hammer in ......oh and it was a "lift off" lid settup.....which doubled as a blackboard

Give the lid some thought. If it comes down on those little fingers, you''ll wish they were yours. I've seen a thread somewhere about lids.

Carry Pine

Could mitre join them, then dowel at a 45°... looks good too.

If you have a saw and a chisel you have the equipment for dovetailing!
But you will need some sort of framing to hold the t&g boards together.
I have made a number of boxes with recycled t&g by using them vertical with a frame top and bottom.

Bino

Originally Posted by Carry Pine

Give the lid some thought. If it comes down on those little fingers, you''ll wish they were yours. I've seen a thread somewhere about lids.

Carry Pine

yeah, that is one thing that really does worry me! The blackboard idea is a good one, and will go with that, somewhere on the box, and mortice and tenon sounds like the way to go, either that or the grooved box down the corner. Might just leave it as an open top and think about lids later on.

thanks for your help gents, much appreciated. One other thing, since these are old wall cladding tounge and groove, what timber is the most likely for them to be? it just seems to dark to be pine, though that could be age and weathering.

Timber around here was Baltic Pine, very common for floors and walls, polishes up really well.
As for little fingers there is a pneumatic/hydraulic damper for these things, lets the lid down very gently, never had the need for one and can't help with a supplier but I am sure they are readily available.