Solid jewelry box lid suggestions

[Dave Cohen]

I have milled a nice piece of figured cherry down to 7/8" for a lid, the jewelry box sides are 1/2".

Any suggestions on what to do with the lid?

1) Just leave it hefty at 7/8"
2) Hollow it out in the center down to 1/2", just leaving a 7/8" perimeter frame
3) Make a rabbet around the perimeter so its 1/2" thick and the center square is 7/8"

Curious how others have handled this type of solid (i.e. out of 1 piece) lid on their boxes.

Thanks in advance

[Charles Wade]

To me, the answer depends on how you do the joinery of the 1/2" material. Since the box is closed 99+% of the time, the exterior view is most important.

If you use bevels for the joinery, there is no indication of the material width, thus you can do with the top as you like. In this case the proportions of 7/8" vs the height of the side walls would come into play. If the box is low you might want to use a rabbet to make the exposed lid less dominant. For taller boxes, it might be good to show the entire 7/8". An internet search (or even one on this site alone) will turn up more boxes than you can count, so you might browse to find proportions that you like.

If you use finger or dovetail joints which expose the 1/2 inch material, then rabbeting the top is probably a good idea, keeping in mind the above suggestion about the internet.

[Lee Schierer]

I think 7/8 is a bit too thick for use on a box with 1/2" sides. If you recess a mirror in the lid, then leave it thicker, but otherwise my suggestion would be to mill it down to 1/2" of maybe at the most 5/8" thick.

[David Keller NC]

Dave - I make a lot of boxes. My typical joinery method for the sides is with keyed miter joints, and the lid is a floating panel with a tongue captured in rabbets around the top insides of the side. With this set-up, the thickness of the top is irrelevant (within reason, of course) - you can inset it as much or as little as you wish, depending on how thick the tongue is and at what position around the edge of the top.

I typically bevel the perimeter of the top, so the top appears as a beveled panel glued to the tops of the sides. You can do a lot with the design of the box depending on how you bevel the perimeter - for example, cutting a cove around the perimeter gives the box a more formal look, an ogee an even more formal look, and a flat bevel a more streamlined, "contemporary" (I hate that word!) look.

Doug Stowe has a fairly well-illustrated article on this method of construction in the lastest issue of Fine Wood Working.