I finally got around to finishing my box a couple months ago, but I'm just now getting a post together. Unfortunately I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked to, so I'll just have to trust my memory on what I did.
My first step after cutting the grooves in the sides was to layout the pins for the for the dovetail joints. A dovetail joint is basically made up of two cuts that fit together, the dovetails and the pins. I had read somewhere that it's easier to do the pins first so that's what I did. In the bottom left picture you can see pins that have already been cut. To layout the pins, I began by using a wheel gauge to mark the board thickness on all of the boards.
This determines the depth that the pins and the dovetails need to be. I then picked a number of pins that I thought would look good, in this case three in the middle and half a pin on each edge (bottom left picture). I picked an angel for the pins that I thought would look good and the spaced them out evenly. Once the pins were laid out, I made all of the cuts with the grain using my dovetail saw (upper left picture) which is designed for cutting with the grain. I then used a chisel to mark the cross grain cut and slowly chiseled out the waste in between the pins. I did a couple of boards this way and then I decided to try a method using a fret saw to cut out the waste in between the pins and then clean it up with a chisel (The upper right picture shows me using this method on the tails). This turned out to be way faster and I'll probably always use the method in the future. Once all the pins were cut and cleaned up (its very important to make sure all the pins are straight to ensure a good fit with the tails), I lined the board with the pins up with a board that would have the corresponding tails (bottom left picture). I then traced the pins, which left the outline for the tails on the opposite piece. It's very important that I had each joint labelled so that I didn't mix up which tail went with which pin, because each joint will be slightly different. Once marked, I cut out the tails the same way that I had cut out the pins. I lined up the joints to see how they would fit and then cleaned them up with a chisel until it looked like they would fit.
After all the joints were complete, I cut the bottom panel to size. I then attempted to test fit the entire box together, but found out that I had to clean up my grooves first. It turns out that as I was going deeper while cutting the grooves, I did't go straight down and the walls of the grooves were sloped. Once I straightened the grooves, the bottom panel fit in pretty good. I assembled the box by positing the bottom panel into the ends of the box first (bottom right picture). I then hammered the side boards with the tails down onto the end boards with the pins. My joints turned out to be too tight and I created some splits at the the corners of a couple of the pins. The good thing is that because the dovetail is such a strong joint, these splits can't be noticed.
I then disassembled the box, clean up the joints a little bit more, brushed a little wood glue on the joints and then hammered it back together. I clamped it up over night and when the joints were dry this box was solid as a rock. I see why the dovetail joint has been used on quality furniture for so many years. Finally, I cleaned up the surfaces with a scraper and the edges with the block plane and sand paper. I didn't put any kind of finish on it, because I liked the look of the bare wood. I may still put some sort of oil on it to protect it, but I need to do some research on that first.
I hope to expand my wood shop before my next project, but there are so many things that I want. There are many tools that would help speed up these projects and allow me to do more things. I think I really need a heavy duty workbench with a built in vise that won't move while I'm planing. I also really need a good set of sharpening stones, because having a nice sharp chisel makes a world of difference. Of course there's a variety of planes that I would like as well. Choices. Choices.
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