It's a box!

I've been trying to sell some lately, I mentioned a while back that I opened an Etsy store and put out a craigslist ad. Still haven't sold anything on Etsy, but the CL ad was quite profitable. The first sale, however, came on Nextdoor. A super nice guy named Mike was looking for someone to custom build a wedding present for his soon-to-be-bride. He wanted a box made, sized to hold a bottle of wine and love note, with a lock on it and a countdown clock to his anniversary - what a sweet idea! I knew this needed to be a family heirloom quality box and really needed to put together something special.

I went to a Woodcraft store and found a sweet piece of cherry, some stop hinges, and a latch. I wanted to use continuous grain and finger joints to pull this together. Also wanted to steal an idea I saw on a tv show and make a floating bottom for a subtle cool effect. One of the neat things about cherry is that it gets darker as it ages, so the color of the box will actually change the longer they stay married. Very cool.

one board - cherry

Here's how you lay out the finger joints

First I ran it through the planer to get an even thickness and lighten the box weight some. There was also a little wane that I needed to smooth out too. I squared the end of the board, the first piece cut off was the top. Remember, I wanted continuous grain to wrap the sides of the box. Then I used the thickness from the top to gauge the finger size. I wanted the fingers to be proud out of the corners. Remember you want the long sides to contain the fingers that cover the top and bottom of the joints, and you need any interval size that will give you an odd number of fingers, I chose 5 fingers at 1" each to keep the math easy. Lay out the fingers on the board before you cut, allow extra length to cover the kerf of the saw blade and some sanding, and draw out the layout above. Then cut pieces to length on the miter saw, then cut out the fingers on the band saw.

Fingers are all cut out

Takes a lot of sanding to make everything fit

with the top on - just a dry fit

I used a roundover bit on the top

with the lock and clock from amazon

I ran the top through the router table with a roundover bit to put a nice dressed edge on it. After cutting out the finger joints on the bandsaw, I had to do a lot of sanding to custom fit those things. It took forever. You really have to put a lot of work into those joints to get a tight fit.

I didn't get any good pictures of it, but to get a good bottom you have to cut a slot into the bottom of the side boards before final assembly. I used the table saw for this, better to use the router table if you can. I cut the groove about 1/2" up from the bottom of the boards, then cut a rabbet into the bottom board which is 3/4" thick. This means after fitting, there will be another 1/4" of the bottom sticking out - you don't want to see this in the final product! I used a raised panel bit in the router table to cut an extra part away from the bottom of the bottom. It hides the visibility completely! So after you get that fit inside of the groove, you have a final fit that is ready for glue.

In the clamps for the glue up - no metal in this box yet!

You can see the bottom in there now

with the hinges and latch in place - see how the bottom floats?

We put a black felt liner in the bottom with batting to cushion the wine

now with more clock

The finished product on the counter at the engravers shop

In the end, I think I gave Mike the heirloom quality box that he wanted. Perhaps it could have been nicer, some of the design details could have been different. Everyone designs boxes like this to be slightly unique. I absolutely love the way this one turned out. See how when it's sitting on the counter it looks like it's floating? that's the 1/4" extra thickness sticking out of the bottom board. I've been wanting to use that detail for years. More importantly Mike absolutely loved it, and I believe his bride did as well. I hope they have many happy years together and get to enjoy this box for a long, long time.

update: I forgot to mention that I finished this box by sanding everything inside and out with 80, 120, 180, 220, and 320 grit sandpaper, then added 7 coats of tung oil buffing with 0000 steel wool in between each coat. The end result was super smooth!