Mitered Dovetail Box Complete

Next came the bottom. This is a glued up 1/4″ maple panel. Damn near impossible to plane this stuff. The grain is all over the place.

 

 

Had to resort to a cabinet scraper for some of it.

 

 

Eventually got it fitting nicely in that 1/4″ groove in the bottom of the frame. Smoothed it all out with a card scraper.

 

 

Again, this was sized to fit an 8 1/2″ x 11″ stack of paper.

 

 

I then cut grooves in the tops of the two side pieces for the top.

 

 

The top is 1/2″ thick with a 1/4″ rabbet, so it slides right into those grooves.

 

 

The front handle is another piece of maple, rounded over, and attached with glue and a few dowels.

 

 

And finally, all glued up. Three coats of shellac and polished with wax. The maple has some really nice figure. I’m happy with the way this turned out. A few gaps in the dovetails which I didn’t even try to fill. This thing is solid and will last 100 years easily if it’s not completely abused. I love knowing that. I have no use for this box. I mainly made it to try my hand at the mitered dovetails which wound up going really well. For sale, best offer.