Boxes

I'm in the middle of building boxes to house chess sets. Larger boxes, like the ones I need to make are not easy. You need to consider how you want to join the different faces of the box. I decided to do hand-cut box joints. They make an attractive joint, and are the second strongest joint in existence, with the dovetail being the strongest.



As you can see in this picture, the joints on the edge between the walnut strips alternate from one face to the other. They were a bugger to fit together. In the end, I still had to use a rubber mallet to convince them to join.



This is the back of the same box. It shows the strip of walnut I added to the box after it was glued together. I cut a channel with the table saw to put the strips in then fit them by hand. That took me about two hours.

The box itself will be in three pieces opening like a showcase.



Each side will have one full chess set - 16 pieces arranged to show them off, and a space for checkers. It's going to be very attractive.

The other box is made from Cherry and is more square. It will be a top closure design, and the pieces will snuggle into individual cubbyholes.



This one, I used a dado blade to cut a channel in the middle of the box joint and add a strip of Padauk wood. The cherry/padauk combination is striking and I wanted to play off that.

I'll publish more as continue building.