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Small Dovetailed Box With Sliding Lid

Bill Satko

Bill Satko

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Methow Valley
The box was entirely made with the use of hand tools.

This is a small box about 12"L x 4-3/4"W x 4-3/4" H. It was made out of 3/4" thick common pine from Home Depot that I had left over from another project. I had cherry picked the wood from a stack of worthless pine but still had to carefully layout the stock to eliminate knots and other defects.

The sides of the box are 1/2 thick; the lid is 1/4 thick and the bottom is 3/16 thick. The sides of the box were laid out so that grain runs continuously around it. I will show more pictures of the finished box later in the thread.

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The sides were joined using mitered through dovetails. The mitered portion of the dovetail allows for the plowing of a groove for both the bottom and lid without having to plug the resultant hole that you would get in a normal through dovetail. Below is a test joint that I did before building the box. The mitered portion on the box's actual dovetail is much larger to accommodate size of the plowed grooves.

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The stock for the sides were prepared to the proper thickness just using hand planes but the wood for the lid and bottom were first resawed using a hand saw and then finished using hand planes.
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Here the are sides at final dimensioning prior to marking and cutting out the dovetails. I left the thin lid and top stickered and with some weight on them while working on the sides.

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With side dovetails cut out but without the mitered portion sawed or trimmed by chisels, I am plowing the grooves with a plow plane.

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After roughly cutting out the mitered portion of the dovetail joints I finish it up with chisels using a paring block.

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As I mentioned in another thread, my glue out was a bit of a struggle with a poor clamping plan by me. The joints all looked perfect during dry fit up but after glue up I had one joint with a gap. Wondering how to fill this gap my eye wandered to some wood shavings and I thought why not. This picture is of the shaving I first looked at seeing if it would work. I had to create a thicker shaving with a block plane but it worked perfectly and you can't tell there was ever a gap.

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More later...
 
I really did not plan out this box much and didn't think too far ahead. But I finally came to the part where I was most uncertain about. How to cut the one end for sliding lid. I had contemplated doing this before glue up but determined it would make the part too fragile to survive the glue up. I just used saws and chisels to get the main part of the opening close to the final size and then finished it up with a router plane. After that I opened up the groove with a small saw and chisel. Very carefully!

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I had to ease the sides of the lid and slightly plane the top, like you were panel raising it, to make it fit smoothly. It has a nice smooth but firm fit. I will use canning wax for edges/groove of the lid. I drilled out a finger hole for the lid. I trimmed the lid to length and made it flush with a block plane.

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I like the look of pine but find it a real pain to keep from creating dents or chipping some part of your joints. It is just not very forgiving. I had to spend some time steaming out all the dents I created no matter how careful I was to remove debris from my benchtop.

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I finished the interior of the box with shellac. I did that before glue up. The exterior I used a mixture of 1/3 BLO, 1/3 paint thinner and 1/3 spar varnish. About 4 coats so far. Not sure if I will do anymore.

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Beautiful! Nice and clean and perfect!
Back in the day these were called candle boxes. Mice would gnaw on the beeswax candles so people built a box to protect their light sources.

Of course, a box of this design could be made any reasonable size for any purpose. Roy Underhill of The Woodwright's Shop fame told a story about the time he was in Japan visiting Japanese master carpenter. On one particular day he was with a master famous for his sweater boxes that had a lid that fit so precisely moths could not get to the sweaters inside. As Roy was marveling at the precise fit as he slid the lid in and out he happened to say to the master, "During hot, humid weather the lids must swell shut." To which the carpenter replied, "Yes, that is true but I do not need my sweaters when it is hot and humid."
 
Sweet I love it.

I have made a few little boxes with no power tools at all even make wooden hinges by hand.

My hand cut doves are no where near as good as yours.

You did an awesome job - both on the box and also on the presentation.

Thank you for this posting.
 
What a great little box. I really enjoy small boxes and often think I make too many. They always seem to find a home though :rolleyes:. They are the sort of things that become common in our lives as they set on top of our dresser, desk, or display cabinet.

Softer woods are a challenge. Fibers tend to crush rather than slice. A testament to a good sharp edge on your tools. Cool fix for the gap with the shaving. Thanks for sharing the methods, steps, and your process.
 
During the winter I only have a 10' x 10' space to do any woodworking. Although I have a thickness planer, track saw and a contractor's saw, they are in storage in the wife's pottery space until the weather improves where I can haul them outside to use. I am hoping in the near future and the wife is hoping it is in the near, near future that I can build a pottery shed and I will be able to set up a machinery shop in her old space. Then I can buy what I really want, a bandsaw! I should have never sold my old one, even if it would just be sitting in storage right now.

I don't mind prepping stock by hand, as I am good at it and enjoy the process, but it is slow. As long as it is a small project it is not too bad, but anything of any size makes it difficult.

Later today I will post some pictures of all the tools I touched to make this small box. I think you will find it interesting. It is quite a lot. Not that I needed all of them. I could have done it with very few of them, but I have them. Also this project was over many days as I was busy with life and when I came back to work on it, I would grab a different tool sometimes to complete a task.

I am also thinking of building an outdoor bench to work on things, both woodworking and house projects. Nothing fancy just utilitarian. At least that is what I keep trying to tell myself.
 
I mentioned posting some pictures of all the tools I used building this box. I was suppose to do that yesterday, but we had a nice warm sunny day and I jumped on some outdoor chores.

It is raining now so, here goes.

Below is everything I used for measuring and marking. Most are self explanatory. The Tite-Mark marking gauges are my go-to marking gauges and are indispensable for most all my work, as are the Red Rose Reproductions winding sticks. I need to flatten all my stock by hand and they are crucial for this. The calipers were used to layout the spacing of my dovetails.

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Hand saws, hand planes and chisels are the basis of all my woodworking. The backsaws are a LN (Lie-Nielsen) crosscut tenon saw, carcass crosscut saw and dovetail rip saw. Also, the smallest is a Zona Razor Saw which is very handy to have. The 26" hand saws are both vintage Disston saws. One is a D-12 crosscut with 12 ppi and the other is a D-8 rip with 5 ppi. The D-12 was made in the early 1950's while the D-8 was made between 1917 to 1923. The rip saw cuts through wood like butter.

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Next are the hand planes. I had so many options here both metal and woodies, but I stuck with the metal planes for this project. All the planes are Lie-Nielsen except for the Lee Valley plow plane. The largest plane is a LN #7 with a toothed blade in it. The toothed blade allowed me to flatten some of the stock with some troublesome grain without tear-out. The plane below that is the Low Angle Jack plane. It is the plane I always reach for first. It is the perfect plane for so many tasks. I also used it on my shooting board. Two smoothers there, #4 and #4-1/2. Three block planes, the #60-1/2 Low Angle, #102 Low Angle and a squirrel tail Model Maker's Block Plane. Beside the remaining router and plow plane, there is #95 Edge Plane which turned out real handy in trimming the 3/16" thick bottom and 1/4" thick sliding lid to final width.

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Next comes the chisels which are all Lie-Nielsen and everything I used to keep both the chisels and the plane irons sharp. I only really had to sharpen one plane iron and two chisels during this build. I prefer to sharpen using water stones but that requires doing it in the kitchen as I don't have a good place for it in my "shop". I had to sharpen the #4-1/2 smoother plane and that is what I used the water stones for. The water stones are Shapton Pro (#1000, #5000 & #8000). The chisels I sharpened using a Norton Indian Stone and a Dan's Translucent Arkansas Stone. I sharpen both freehand and using a honing guide. There is no rhyme nor reason why I will do one over the other. Mostly if I am in a real hurry, I will just do it freehand. The honing guides shown are by Lie-Nielsen and Veritas. The Veritas Side Clamping guide is a nice inexpensive model and I would recommend it for most plane blades and chisels. Although I only sharpened a couple chisels, I was constantly refreshing the edge by stropping with green compound. I use the leather for the bevel and the wood for the back.

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Next are some misc. tools. The large hammer was used for securing my holdfasts which can be seen in the front (apron) of the bench. The next larger one I used for fitting the box together. Next is Grace hammer that is about 16 ounces and which I find to be perfect for a chisel hammer. The smallest I use adjusting my plane irons. The Stanley 923 brace and Russell Jennings bit were used to put the finger hole in the sliding lid.

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Below are the clamps I used and other items I used to secure my work. The clamps are Bessey and I love them. These are the clamps I used after my first attempt for glue up was not going to work. The other bench items are all Veritas. From the top: a recent purchase, the Veritas Hold Down; Veritas Quick Release Wonder Dog; Veritas Planing Stop and the Veritas Prairie Dog which is a godsend. The Prairie Dog stays down in the dog hole and by pressing on the top it pops up for use.

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My fixtures that I used. The sticking board and the 45 degree honing block I made on the fly for this project the others I have had for quite a while.

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Everything I used to prep and finish the box.

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Lastly and probably the most important, my bench. Also pictured is my saw bench

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Very cool, Bill. It's nice when a project allows one to use a bunch of toys tools. :D You likely could have made the box with fewer tools, but if you have 'em, you might as well use 'em. (That's similar to my philosophy on guitars. That's why I bring 4 or 5 of them to each gig.)
 
Your post only leaves me wanting more!

Those are some magazine quality pics, the the box fitting of an article in one. Nice work and thanks for taking us along.

Jonathan Shively said:
I thought the box would have a spider or creepy crawler flip up and scare the opener of the box as they slid the lid open! Very nice execution of a detailed box.
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I sent one of those to my SIL a year or so ago, she still gives me the stink eye look…
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We were recently down there and my wife unknowingly picked up the box and opened it. I will say, that box is made pretty well for handling at least two significant throws across the room.
 
Most people, and many woodworkers have very little appreciation for what it takes to make even the most basic of boxes. One where all of the pieces fit perfectly with no gaps is a work of art. Doing it all with hand tools only, and getting it to fit together perfectly is beyond comprehension of even most woodworkers. You did very well on this box and I doubt that it could have been better, even if you had a full cabinet shop of power and hand tools to work with.

I too build boxes, but with power tools for most every step, but for the last 20 years or so they have all been made using 12 mm Baltic Birch with box joints for the corners. I did make a few candle boxes out of pine about 60 years ago and mostly with hand tools, but I never perfected the "perfect fit" like your box. That's mostly the reason why I'm a power tool woodworker now, as I could never pull off the "perfect fit" using only the hand tools.

Charley
 
I think the skill (or luck) in making most woodworking projects is the elimination of the accumulation of errors. Or often with me, have the errors cancel themselves out. I think that applies whether something is hand built or made with the aid of machinery.

And when things don't quite fit, problem solving can be difficult. Dovetails can be tricky because you have the intersection of two planes with a complex shape. Add in the miter in this type of dovetail joint it becomes confusing as to what may be holding your joint slightly apart on one end. Is it that miter on that one side holding the joint apart? If I remove material on the miter will that allow the joint to fully seat or will it just open up the miter? And which side of the miter do I fine tune? Or is it something else or that and something else? Once you remove material in these joints you can't put it back.
 
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