Hi all, I am coming towards the end of my house renovation and finally have a room to use as an impromptu workshop. I’ve been reading about woodworking for six months and am pleased I can now finally get down to my first ever project! Would love some feedback on methods / techniques and other ideas as I’ve never done any woodwork before.
Needing somewhere to store the tools I’ve collected for the renovation I thought some big plywood storage boxes would be ideal, and I decided to make them with box joints so I can practice using a hand saw.
Here’s the WIP so far:
Tools – Not many woodworking specific ones, but they are what I’ve picked up along the way. Will be building up woodworking kit over the next few months – recommendations welcome:
My cheap workbench (workbench project on the cards soon!) and macallister sliding mitre saw – only ever used it for rough cuts on site before, so will be good to test it on a project requiring a little more accuracy:
Oops, almost forgot, picked a coping saw up for skirting and thought I would try it to cut the box joints:
Wood – bought 12mm hardwood veneered ply from my timber merchant and asked them to rip it into four 1’ wide planks (seemed like a nice round split of a standard 8’x4’ board). I’m planning to make around 5 boxes 2’x1’x1’ to fit my understairs shelves. Also got some hardwood cut for the bottoms of the boxes:
Measuring and cutting - Despite making sure the blades were straight in the jigsaw, the blades seemed to bend in the wood as I was cutting meaning I couldn’t get the edge of the cuts square – is this just because I’m using a cheap jigsaw? (Macallister). So, I thought I’d try my cutting on my chopsaw.
I used the first cut board (1’x1’) to measure and mark the second:
Despite my best efforts, it was difficult to get the chopsaw cut perfectly straight I aligned the blade all along the pencil line of each cut first, but I still struggled to get square. So, once the sides were cut to rough size, I trimmed two together to ensure lengths matched up:
Three boxes cut to size:
Routing channels for box bottoms - To get some practice using a router for the first time I decided to cut channels for the hardboard bottoms to sit in:
Each time, I struggled at the edged to get it straight due to the gap in the guard. I worked out aftertwards that I could solve this easily by plunging a little further in rather than starting from the outside edge!
Solution (and comes in handy for avoiding exposed channels on edge of box joints):
I used a chisel to square up the edges of the channels. I also did a bigger run for a sliding shelf on one of the boxes:
The routing caused some nice smoke, and some of the sawdust nearly caught – is this normal? Also ended up splitting the veneer on one of the runs, which I fixed with some glue:
Marking and cutting the joints - After having a few pretty disastrous test runs with cutting the box joints, I decided to match the edges and draw the fingers across the insides of both adjoining boards at the same time:
When the timber yard ripped the boards for me they made a hell of a mess with tear-out, which I didn’t notice until I got home. Tried to tidy up with a Stanley knife, and used the torn sides as the insides so they won’t be as prominent:
To try and save some time, I decided to cut the two associated edges at the same time, making sure I clearly marked which fingers I needed to remove. Placed them back to back to try and avoid tearout on the good sides of the boards:
I’ve since found that a tenon saw might not be the best for this job (dovetail saw or gent’s saw better?), but it’s what I had in my kit already:
I also found that the saw got stuck a fair bit and a lot of residue (ply glue?) built up along the blade making the matter worse. I read that a candle might help – it worked a treat:
Breaktime! Having spent six hours thus far setting up and cutting, someone was nagging for attention:
Handles - I used a hole cutter and jigsaw to cut the handles and tried a bit of freehand routing with a roundover bit to soften the edges. I was quite pleased for a first attempt!
Back to the box joints - Being cack-handed, I found this the trickiest bit! I first drilled holes so I could get the coping saw blade in between the joints:
Chocks away:
Tidying up – disappointingly, I struggled to keep the cuts straight (am I using the saw correctly?), so I chiselled out and sanded each edge, which took a while, but was more satisfying:
I found cutting with the chisel harder here because of the layers of ply:
Dry Assembly – it was definitely worth trying it all together first, made some final tweaks and checked everything before gluing:
Final Assembly – I used wood glue liberally due to some meaty gaps, and held clamped it all together using a box clamp. I went around afterwards with a wet rag to clean off the squeeze-out before glue dried.
And that’s it! Currently waiting for the glue to dry (will sleep in between!). Will post more photos when the clamps are off – any suggestions for stain / wax / finish?
Not overly happy with some of the gaps in the joints, but practice makes perfect!
Needing somewhere to store the tools I’ve collected for the renovation I thought some big plywood storage boxes would be ideal, and I decided to make them with box joints so I can practice using a hand saw.
Here’s the WIP so far:
Tools – Not many woodworking specific ones, but they are what I’ve picked up along the way. Will be building up woodworking kit over the next few months – recommendations welcome:
My cheap workbench (workbench project on the cards soon!) and macallister sliding mitre saw – only ever used it for rough cuts on site before, so will be good to test it on a project requiring a little more accuracy:
Oops, almost forgot, picked a coping saw up for skirting and thought I would try it to cut the box joints:
Wood – bought 12mm hardwood veneered ply from my timber merchant and asked them to rip it into four 1’ wide planks (seemed like a nice round split of a standard 8’x4’ board). I’m planning to make around 5 boxes 2’x1’x1’ to fit my understairs shelves. Also got some hardwood cut for the bottoms of the boxes:
Measuring and cutting - Despite making sure the blades were straight in the jigsaw, the blades seemed to bend in the wood as I was cutting meaning I couldn’t get the edge of the cuts square – is this just because I’m using a cheap jigsaw? (Macallister). So, I thought I’d try my cutting on my chopsaw.
I used the first cut board (1’x1’) to measure and mark the second:
Despite my best efforts, it was difficult to get the chopsaw cut perfectly straight I aligned the blade all along the pencil line of each cut first, but I still struggled to get square. So, once the sides were cut to rough size, I trimmed two together to ensure lengths matched up:
Three boxes cut to size:
Routing channels for box bottoms - To get some practice using a router for the first time I decided to cut channels for the hardboard bottoms to sit in:
Each time, I struggled at the edged to get it straight due to the gap in the guard. I worked out aftertwards that I could solve this easily by plunging a little further in rather than starting from the outside edge!
Solution (and comes in handy for avoiding exposed channels on edge of box joints):
I used a chisel to square up the edges of the channels. I also did a bigger run for a sliding shelf on one of the boxes:
The routing caused some nice smoke, and some of the sawdust nearly caught – is this normal? Also ended up splitting the veneer on one of the runs, which I fixed with some glue:
Marking and cutting the joints - After having a few pretty disastrous test runs with cutting the box joints, I decided to match the edges and draw the fingers across the insides of both adjoining boards at the same time:
When the timber yard ripped the boards for me they made a hell of a mess with tear-out, which I didn’t notice until I got home. Tried to tidy up with a Stanley knife, and used the torn sides as the insides so they won’t be as prominent:
To try and save some time, I decided to cut the two associated edges at the same time, making sure I clearly marked which fingers I needed to remove. Placed them back to back to try and avoid tearout on the good sides of the boards:
I’ve since found that a tenon saw might not be the best for this job (dovetail saw or gent’s saw better?), but it’s what I had in my kit already:
I also found that the saw got stuck a fair bit and a lot of residue (ply glue?) built up along the blade making the matter worse. I read that a candle might help – it worked a treat:
Breaktime! Having spent six hours thus far setting up and cutting, someone was nagging for attention:
Handles - I used a hole cutter and jigsaw to cut the handles and tried a bit of freehand routing with a roundover bit to soften the edges. I was quite pleased for a first attempt!
Back to the box joints - Being cack-handed, I found this the trickiest bit! I first drilled holes so I could get the coping saw blade in between the joints:
Chocks away:
Tidying up – disappointingly, I struggled to keep the cuts straight (am I using the saw correctly?), so I chiselled out and sanded each edge, which took a while, but was more satisfying:
I found cutting with the chisel harder here because of the layers of ply:
Dry Assembly – it was definitely worth trying it all together first, made some final tweaks and checked everything before gluing:
Final Assembly – I used wood glue liberally due to some meaty gaps, and held clamped it all together using a box clamp. I went around afterwards with a wet rag to clean off the squeeze-out before glue dried.
And that’s it! Currently waiting for the glue to dry (will sleep in between!). Will post more photos when the clamps are off – any suggestions for stain / wax / finish?
Not overly happy with some of the gaps in the joints, but practice makes perfect!
