Our 25-year-old son just got engaged to his longtime girlfriend and we are very excited for the happy couple! He is an avid fly fisherman and has a birthday coming up in July. His fiancée mentioned to me she was planning on getting him fly tying supplies and asked if I could build a tackle box/fly tying station keep everything in.
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I wanted to keep the box fairly lightweight so that he could carry it into fishing sites without too much trouble -that ended up driving a lot of the design/joinery. Rough dimensions are 18“ long x 11“ wide x 11“ tall. To maximize storage space for small items I settle on a fold-down front panel with a bank of three drawers in the middle flanked by two pullout frames to hang frequently used items. Top will also be hinged with additional storage underneath.
Carcass is ½’ thick Walnut frame and veneered 1/8” plywood panels glued in place to add some rigidity/strength. Given the thinness of the stock I went with simple half lap joints to maximize glue surface area for the frames.
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Because frames are so thin I use electric router to create 3/16 inch deep rabbit after assembly, which minimize the chance of any disastrous splitting.
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Carcass sides, back and bottom are joined via a simple rabbit joints glued and screwed where feasible.
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Couldn’t really figure out a good joinery solution for the 2 inch wide fixed front panel. If I'd been thinking would have changed orientation of rails/stiles on carcass sides so would have had some end grain available for DT's - uuugh! Went with through dowels. Not very strong by itself. I’m hoping internal dividers and overlapping top will add some strength.
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Stop rabbits dadoes plowed four vertical internal dividers. Sliding measuring stick super helpful to get this dimension exactly right.
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¼” thick vertical dividers glued in place. Because are so thin I added ¼” square drawer guides and kickers which also create a “housing” to glue horizontal drawer dividers.
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Three graduated height drawers fronts are flush, internal fit. I always enjoy planing drawer fronts to get a nice fit in their pocket. Not sure how you do this without hand tools?
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