Project #1 - A New Box for Blocks - The Beginning

 For my first project, I knew I didn't want to get in over my head.  I didn't think it would be a good idea to start working on our new bed right off the bat (see post #1).  I wanted something fairly straight forward that wouldn't take a lot of time to build and that wouldn't require a huge variety of tools that I didn't have.  What could be more simple than a box, right?  Well, probably several things as it would turn out.  The picture on the left is the current setup for my 2-year old's wooden building blocks.  It's working for now, but I have a feeling that eventually it will get torn apart.  A new wooden box should be a pretty simple and straight forward project and it will allow me to practice on some basic woodworking techniques. I plan to use dovetail joints at the corners and the bottom of the box will fit into grooves that I cut into the sides of the box.

The drawing on the left is what I sketched up.  It shows five sides, 1/2" thick, with an open top.  When it is full of blocks, there should be a 1/4" gap all around the sides and the blocks should be pretty much flush with the top.  I have made some design changes since putting this drawing together.  The first will be to add some hand holes to each end of the box so that a child can pick it up or drag it.  The second change I made while shopping for the materials, which I got a Metro Hardwoods in Independence.  While looking at the 1/2" Hard Maple, I thought that it looked unnecessarily thick for the bottom of the box and was worried that it would add a lot of extra weight.  Fortunately they also carried 1/4" Hard Maple.  Using this for the bottom will save on weight and it will save on work since I won't have to cut the rabbets that I show on my drawing.  So, $21.00 later I walked out of the store with a 6' x 6" piece of 1/2" Hard Maple and a 4' x 6" piece of 1/4" Hard Maple.


This is a picture of my material already cut to length.  Also, on the left side you can see that I have already glued two pieces of the 1/4" material together to make the bottom panel.  My first challenge of this project was to use my new block plane to create two really straight sides so that I would have a good joint going down the middle of the panel.  This really should be done with a longer plane, but I had to make due and I think the it turned out pretty well.




The pictures below show what I've done so far.  At the left I'm ripping one of the boards to the right height.  In the pictures in the middle and at the right, I'm planing the end grain to square up the ends.  As you can see, I had to come up with a special technique to hold the saw horse still while I planed.  My wife's grandfather suggested that I push the saw horse up against a wall to keep it from moving.  I definitely need to consider getting more advice from guys who have been working with wood their whole lives.  They usually have a lot of simple solutions for doing things.

This project should really only take a day if I had the right tools.  So far I've worked on it on three separate days for an hour or two at a time.  Part of the reason I haven't done more is that I was waiting on a pair of saws that I bought on eBay.  One of them is a rip saw and I thought it would make my rip cuts a lot easier.  It did, but it's really too coarse for cutting hardwood.  I'll use it for the rest of this project, but I think I'll keep my eye out for another one with more points per inch.  I'm also still waiting on a 1/4" chisel that I ordered to cut the grooves to hold the bottom panel in and a file that I'll use to the smooth out the hand holes in the ends of the box.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to post about cutting my first dovetail joints.