Maple Toy Chest with Cherry Inlay

[Andrew W. Thomas]

I've completed my third major woodworking project. I took design elements from many other toy chests I had seen and I created the final plans using Sketchup. All panels are made from solid maple. The bottom is plywood so as to not have to worry about expansion across the case. The inlay is my son's initials and was made using a self made set of four templates and router inlay collet/bit. I used a locking rabbet for the rear corners and tried my hand at my first set of hand cut dovetails. The joints came out pretty tight but I still have a ways to go to get to Mr. Zimmel's mastery level. I sanded to 180 and used the following finish schedule: BLO, three coats of wiping varnish (half ploy, half mineral spirits), and buffed out paste wax on the exterior with 0000 steel wool between each coat. Comments and critiques are welcome. Enjoy.
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[Heather Thompson]

Andrew,

That is a great looking piece, your son looks delighted and those dovetails are top notch!!! When he gets older I could see that being his tool chest, toys for big boys.

[Todd Burch]

Looks very good!

What flavor hinges are those? They appear to be acting as a lid stay too.

Todd

[Mark Valsi]

Very nice !!!!! good job !

[Andrew W. Thomas]

Looks very good!

What flavor hinges are those? They appear to be acting as a lid stay too.

Todd

They are Rockler's Lid-Stay Torsion Hinge. They seem to work great and got great reviews.
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=30958&filter=torsion%20hinges

[Gene Waara]

Very nice work Andrew! Looks like your son thinks so too!

[Pat Barry]

Do those hinges have something in them to keep the lid from slamming shut?