I need suggestions on a construction technique

[Larry Feltner]

I am wanting to build a copy of a sugar chest that my mother owned. For the most part it seems pretty straight forward. It has a frame on the bottom with 4 short legs and a drawer in front with a box (similar to a cedar chest) attached to the frame. The frame is approximately an inch wider on each side than the chest (box) and an inch deeper. The back of the chest is flush with the back of the frame, so the inch difference shows up in the front of the piece. There is cove molding that sits in the inch over hang on each side and in the front to finish it off nicely. My question is how to attach the chest (box) to the frame. In the piece that belonged to my mother, the chest is screwed in each corner, from the inside, into the top of the legs on the frame. In other words, they inserted a screw through the plywood bottom of the chest in the very corner into the top of each leg in the frame. What I don't like about this method is that when you open the chest you can see the screw heads in each corner of the chest. It would be nice to have a method that hides the mechanical fasteners. Any ideas or suggestions?

[Russell Sansom]

I can't quite picture this. Perhaps a fault in me. A sketch would help considerably.

[Jamie Buxton]

Pics of the original might help.

But here's an idea.... Make the frame and the legs at the bottom separate from the box. Put a plywood "floor" in this frame thing. It can be dadoed and glued to the edges that go around it. Drop the box into the frame, and run short screws up through that plywood floor into the floor of the box, or into the walls of the box.

[Chris Kennedy]

Would you have enough thickness to drill a small recess, screw the box down, and then cover the screw heads with plugs? Cut those off and sand flush?

Cheers,

Chris

[Larry Feltner]

Attached is a picture of the sugar chest. The bottom in the original appears to be thin, perhaps 1/4 or 3/8 plywood. I guess it could be made of something different though. I was thinking of maybe putting some cross pieces in the top of the base and somehow screwing up through those into the sides of the box.