This is a keepsake box I made for my girlfriend. The plan is from a magazine and I decided on flocking the inside of the box instead of just using felt. This is my first time using veneers and inlay banding. I am pretty happy with how it turned out and am learning a ton. After making many of Marc’s clocks, I am getting the mitered splines down! Thanks for all you do!

My sister needed a nice box to put envelopes and gift cards into when she got married but I didn’t want to go through the trouble to make something nice only to have it never seen again once the wedding was over. Instead, I made the box so it’ll also double as a keepsake box that she can use after the wedding. To convert the box from card box to keepsake box, I made a rectangular finial that drops into the slot to hide the slot.

The joinery was miter joints reinforced with purpleheart splines. The sides were attached to the base using No. 20 biscuits. The lock is fully mortised and the hinges are half mortised.

Overall I thought this was a fun project and was well worth the effort when I saw the look on my sister’s face when I presented it to her. Even though I’d been giving her periodic updates, she was thrilled with the result.

A friend designed these boxes and I made a bunch from exotic scraps I saved. They are approximately 2 X 3 X 6. They make great small gifts and they are easy and fun to make.
Just a bunch of glue ups and 1/8″ brass pins for hinges. Thanks Marc for all you do for the wood working community.

This is a box I built for my new baby nephew. He is the first child of my only brother and I wanted to do something special.

Before I go into any further details about the box, I want to express my sincere thanks to TWW. I discovered woodworking about 6 months ago and this box is my first real project. Marc’s videos (in conjunction with Rob Bois’s blog) have been pretty much the sum of my woodworking education. Perhaps the most striking feature of this box is the inlay of my nephew’s initials and I learned every single step of the process from Marc’s video on router-based inlays. So from myself, my brother and his wife, and my tiny new nephew, thank you so much for this incredible resource!

The box was made from some short walnut scraps sold on sale at my lumberyard. I think if I had had a little more experience, I would have chosen different (likely straighter) grain for the sides of the box. The dovetails are handcut with a super cheap saw and my homemade 1:8 dovetail marking gauge. I took full advantage of the sawdust/glue combo to hide gaps. Actually, after doing the inlay and seeing how wood-like the gaps were after adding a drop of CA glue, I did this for all the sawdust-filled gaps around my dovetails. It made for a LOT of CA glue sanding, but I thought it looked better afterwards. The top is two pieces glued together then run through my planer. I tried to slide my boards around to find color and grain pattern that looked relatively matched. The bottom is attached by brad nails and features wedged through-tenon feet that are pretty much a straight rip-off of Rob Bois’ Bible-box project (which this project was obviously heavily influenced by). The hinges were bought at my local woodcraft (perhaps my 3rd major source of knowledge). The inlay was cut out of hard maple using a cheap Ryobi scroll saw.

This box was incredibly fun to build and a MAJOR learning opportunity for me. I made several mistakes most of which I think I was able to conceal, but you can be the judge. Thank you again for this amazing resource that has made my nephew’s gift possible.

Website: Studio Minus

This is my second project, a keepsake box built for a friend who’s birthday was on 11.11.2011. I was free to fiddle with the design, the only requests were traditional joinery, “clean look”, no use of stains, and the ability to keep a secret.
Overall dimensions are 320 cm x 160 cm x 10 cm ( approx. 12 x 6 x 4 inches )

It was my first encounter with bubinga. Until now I only used local species. Also I almost bit more than I could “cut” with the joinery of the secret drawer. Due to the small dimensions of the parts, it was almost impossible to secure them in a vise.

Another tense moment was while boring the holes for the “hinges” (two 6 mm brass pins). I do not have a drill press, and as with this system there is no chance of fine tuning, they had to be dead square. To do this I used a mirror and two squares placed on the workpiece. A thing that I’ll try to avoid next time.

Topics Covered:

• Creating sliding dovetails
• Using a dowel-centering pin to locate holes
• Cutting a recess with a pattern bit
• Sanding end-grain

Circle Templates – $32.99 This template set has been incredibly useful for numerous projects including these keepsake boxes and the Contemporary Clock Project from last year.

GRR-Ripper Adjustable Push Block – $59.99 The GRR-Ripper is the fancy push block you see me using in this video. Incredibly useful and gives you ultimate control of the workpiece!

As you can see, there’s a secret peg lock. Once you find it and lift it out, the lid slides off on a sliding dovetail revealing the contents. Believe it or not, I made this in just a few hours in the shop. So this is a very quick project that would be perfect for the holidays. Think I should do a full episode on it?