Thread: My First Box WIP

Originally Posted by bosox

Looking good. I like the dovetailed corner with curve effect! The finish is actually eye-catching. So, where's the finished piece?

Thanks. Havent had time the last few days but its coming. Hopefully i can finish this weekend!

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Did some shallow radius cuts on the bottom for the appearance of legs. They came out OK but i wish i had done it before assembling the box. That way i couldve used a jigsaw jig for perfect cuts. Instead i just drew the radius with a large wing divider and cut them free hand. My jigsaw is terrible and is on my short list of tools to replace.

Lessons learned so far:

-Finish the design before starting the project!

-Make a better jig for finger joints. These are decent but the small inaccuracy really shows.

-Use thinner material. 3/4" is too much for a small box.

-Clean up glue more thoroughly. I had to sand quite a bit around the fingers to get it clean and it affected the shape slightly.

-Dont use paint-grade wood! Yeah i like the unique piece and i knew it was a risk from the start, but im having trouble getting a satisfying finish on my samples.

This project is experimental for me so im not too worried about the small stuff and ive learned quite a bit already. I'll be much better prepared for the next one!

More to come tomorrow.

Well i decided that this is not the box i want to give my daughter. It was a learning experience and i enjoyed it, but for my daughters birthday i will make her a cute little pink painted box that she will appreciate much more. So this one has been repurposed.

I wanted to just get it done and move on to the next so i threw $4 worth of crappy home depot hardware on it, a couple coats of semi-gloss poly and itll be a chisel box or something in my garage. Its definitely not the type of thing i want to give as a gift but i learned alot from it and that was the whole idea

Dont laught at my boring lid or terrible hardware...like i said i just wanted it to be done! ;-)

You should be happy with the result, well done!

Nice work. Good to see so many 'first box' WIPs.

Thanks for the comments. Hopefully after a few more experimental projects I'll be able to build something a little more interesting!

Originally Posted by AlexS

Nice work. Good to see so many 'first box' WIPs.

I know. I'm partway through my first box and already thinking about how I'll do things differently on my next box.

For example maybe trying the rounded dovetails like on
sheperd80's box.