Dovetail Storage Box

My wife requested a storage box, and decided on a final size or roughly 9” square by 10” high. I thought this would be a good opportunity to refine my skills with (mostly) hand cut dovetails, as well as try some new wood combinations for the lid.

The box sides are curly maple about 1/2” thick. For the dovetails, after lots of trial and error, I now use a hybrid approach combining several methods. I mark and saw the tails with a magnetic dovetail guide from David Barron. Before chiseling out the waste, I mark the saw kerfs on the pin board using Rob Cosman’s method of offsetting the tail board by the width of the saw kerf (.024”) into the waste area. I milled a small block of wood with the offset which makes the setup easier. The waste on the tail board is then removed with a chisel.

The saw cuts were then made on the pin board using the dovetail guide, placing the saw in the kerfs already made in the previous step. The maple I used on this project had a nasty tendency to chip out along the base lines, even when the lines were carefully scored with a marking gauge and knife. I ended up using a technique that I saw on a video from Mike Farrington, partially removing the waste traditionally and finishing by placing the pin boards vertically in my Moxon vise and routing down to the base lines with a 1/4” pattern bit. The results were much cleaner than I got with a chisel. Perhaps I need to continue working on my chiseling technique.

I designed the box in Sketchup, which allowed me to play with different wood combinations for the lid. The final design used an inner field of Sapele, a thin strip of Wenge, a slightly wider strip of Maple, edged with Walnut. The handle on top is made from Wenge, as are the 4 square feet which are not visible in the photo. I used 3 layers of Osmo Polyx for the finish, which produces a soft, satin sheen.

It was a fun build, although time consuming for such a simple project. Thanks for looking!

Very nice! I like the top, too!

Very nice job, and good photography, also.

Mike

Very nice job I especially like that you have an excellent finish on the maple end grain. So easy to leave in and so demanding to get out.
Very nice
mike calabrese

Thanks guys. I just retired in January after a 45 year career as a professional photographer, so I better have some decent photos of my work!

You can take that technique of using the router pattern bit to remove pin waste and turn it on it's head.
What I mean is make a 90 degree holder, clamp the workpiece to it and then do the same operation on the router table pins down. I found I liked this better than a handheld router. Note, you'll have to rout or cut a relief in the 90 degree holder so the bit bearing can pass all the way through the workpiece.

Nice looking box BTW

Edwin, that’s a great idea! It would make it easier to set the depth of cut, and sneak up on the depth if needed. I can see that it would also eliminate possible error if the work piece is not clamped in the vise perfectly square or flush with the top, which creates an inaccurate cut.

I have another dovetail project coming up, and will try this method. Thanks for your suggestion!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tim Andrews

Edwin, that’s a great idea! It would make it easier to set the depth of cut, and sneak up on the depth if needed. I can see that it would also eliminate possible error if the work piece is not clamped in the vise perfectly square or flush with the top, which creates an inaccurate cut.

I have another dovetail project coming up, and will try this method. Thanks for your suggestion!

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Tim, for me the other benefit is that I have much better dust collection at my router table. Using the handheld trim router was spewing dust everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Edwin Santos

Tim, for me the other benefit is that I have much better dust collection at my router table. Using the handheld trim router was spewing dust everywhere.

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Good point. There’s not many tasks in the shop messier than routing.

At the risk of highjacking this thread (can you highjack your own thread?), I would like to ask about your dust collection. I have good dust collection on the router table when edge routing using my split fence with a dust port. But I’m still working on a good solution for situations like this, where a fence isn’t used.

I recently purchased the Milescraft Dust Router, but since I have a Jessem router lift installed in the wing of my table saw, it limits the ways it can be installed. Because of limited points to attach the Velcro ring, I hot glued a 1/4” piece of plywood with a hole to the bottom of the table, but it barely allows the router to be raised high enough to change bits. It works, somewhat.

Did you build a box to enclose your router with a dust port to connect to your dust collector? If so, did you vent the router so it takes in fresh air?

Thanks Edwin, I appreciate your responses knowing they come from someone who knows his craft. The quality of your work speaks for itself.

Excellent box, photos and discussion on routing! I’d love to see a photo of the router table set Edwin described.

best,
chris

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tim Andrews

Good point. There’s not many tasks in the shop messier than routing.

At the risk of highjacking this thread (can you highjack your own thread?), I would like to ask about your dust collection. I have good dust collection on the router table when edge routing using my split fence with a dust port. But I’m still working on a good solution for situations like this, where a fence isn’t used.

I recently purchased the Milescraft Dust Router, but since I have a Jessem router lift installed in the wing of my table saw, it limits the ways it can be installed. Because of limited points to attach the Velcro ring, I hot glued a 1/4” piece of plywood with a hole to the bottom of the table, but it barely allows the router to be raised high enough to change bits. It works, somewhat.

Did you build a box to enclose your router with a dust port to connect to your dust collector? If so, did you vent the router so it takes in fresh air?

Thanks Edwin, I appreciate your responses knowing they come from someone who knows his craft. The quality of your work speaks for itself.

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Hi Tim,

Attaching some photos of my router table setup and my procedure for routing the pin board waste with the flush trim bit. I decided to just make a longish box for carrying condiments out to the patio.

Yes, my router is enclosed in a cabinet on casters under the tabletop. I forgot to take a photo. There is a central compartment with a door, and I drilled a few holes in the door for make-up air because there is a dust port in the back of the enclosure and another up top at the fence which you can see. For this operation, the fence port is capturing most of the dust. I laid out these dovetails in a progression and the narrowest tails at the end were too narrow for the flush trim bit to fully clear, so I did what I could and finished with a chisel.
I draw a quick pencil line for my stop point when I'm sawing, but I'm routing to the scribe line. In reality you don't even need to scribe a line using this method. You could set the router bit height using the tail board and then just rout away. In the last photo you can see how nicely the tails are fitting against the pin board routed baseline.
I'll rout in some handholds on the two narrow ends and glue this guy up.

Let me know if you have any questions. I think your question was mainly about dust control but I thought I'd show the whole set up.

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Edwin, thanks for taking the time to respond. Your photos confirm exactly what I had envisioned when I read your previous post. And thanks for the info on your dust collection. That seems to be a fairly common approach, and I may go that route if I need to change from my current setup.

I just happen to be working on a project with dovetails, and gave this approach a shot today before reading your message. And I can confirm, it’s awesome! I used my square clamping jigs to keep the boards perpendicular since they were already available, and they worked great. I made my cuts in 2 passes, which may not have been necessary, but using the router table allowed me to remove the pin board to test the fit, clamp it back in position after raising the bit a fraction, and finish with beautiful, clean base lines. I can’t quite tell what size bit you are using, but since you mentioned that it was too large for your narrowest openings, I’m using a 1/4” bit and it works well.

This thread is an example of why I enjoy this site so much. Post a quick thread about a box, and get an informative response that helps everyone improve their woodworking skills. Thanks!