Hi all,

I'm slowly teaching myself woodwork by mistakes and successes, and have managed to cobble together a box for my toddlers toys. It's a mortice and tenoned carcass made of 40x40 mm rebated lengths with 7 mm ply walls (600 x 450 x 450 in total dimension). The lid is cherry wood 20mm thick which I'm planning to throw hinges onto.

2 questions come to mind

1) any advice on hinges is welcome - bearing in mind that the young feller loves opening and inquiring into it - the lids a bit heavy and I don't want him breaking fingers as it slams onto his hands

which leads me to

2) a latch. I'm thinking it must be possible to have a spring loaded push latch that unlocks the lid when pushed in.

The way I conceive it is on the underside of the lid I have glued a 20mm high and wide lip. If I was to fit a dowel or make a mortice through the lip and put a sliding lock bolt of timber then this could be kept under tension by a wooden leaf spring, or a pair that work from either side to balance the load.

The front of the box by the lid would then have a mortice with a pushable dowel or similar which when pushed would push the bolt on the lip back far enough to disengage from the side wall of the carcass, allowing the lid to be lifted.

In essence it's just how a lock works and I know I'm not inventing anything new here. Moreover I figure I might be trying to reinvent the wheel when there might be a much simpler solution out there.

That's where you guys come in. If the above is clear enough for you to picture what is in my mind, that is.

Cheers

Ron