Hardwood Jewelry Box With Box/Finger Joints

I've been wanting to try a whole lot of techniques and this year we decided to give my niece a few pieces of jewelry for Christmas, so I decided it was time to make a jewelry box. This box was made with love and definitely turned out to be a stunner. I just finished chemotherapy and finally have the energy to actual get back to my hobby woodworking passion and this project hit a lot of high points for me as my vision came together.

Hardwood of Choice

We used about 30 x 6 inches of hickory, 20 x 6 inches of mahogany, 20 x 12 inches of poplar, 24 x 24 inch of 1/4 inch oak plywood, 1/4 inch x 6 inch poplar board, 18 x 4 x 1 purpleheart, 1/4 walnut dowel, and some small pieces of goncalo alves for the runners.

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Titebond Wood Glue

Kobalt Compound Miter Saw (10 inch) I haven't been able to find the same version that I have, so I recommend the Dewalt 10-inch as I have had pretty good luck with Dewalt tools, but here is a link to some affordable 10-inch options at Home Depot.

https://homedepot.sjv.io/yn5ry

Ryobi also makes an affordable option:

https://homedepot.sjv.io/LzGDO

Rockler Box Joint Jig

Or, if you have a table saw that can take a DADO blade, you can make your own with travel.muszynski

I use a Skil Router, but I have noticed that Bosch offers more accessories that can be of great use. Also the combination fixed and plunge version that I use doesn't seem to be available.

Bosch Router

Dewalt Table Saw

Router Bits

Ryobi Drill/Driver Combinations

These all include the 1/2 chuck as recommended If you want to check out other manufacturers such as Dewalt, Milwuakee, and Rigid, please check them out through my link to Home Depot below:

https://homedepot.sjv.io/bWek6

Here are some Random Orbital Sanders (I use Dewalt, but I’m sure some of the Ryobi options are more affordable if you want to stick to a reasonably priced brand):

https://homedepot.sjv.io/jMg1a

https://homedepot.sjv.io/rAxgB

Dewalt Planer

Router Tables

Pull Saws

Clamps-I buy affordable clamps with coupon codes through Harbor Freight.

Cut the length/width for the sides of your box. We cut about 14 inches for the length and 10 inches for the width. Our pieces of hardwood were approximately 5 to 5.5 inches wide.

We picked up a box joint jig from Rockler and we had been itching to try it out. So we set it up for 1/2 inch joints and went to work. You can also make your own jig using a router table, or a DADO blade in a table saw.

We set the table saw blade to about 3/8th of an inch and cut a channel/kerf near the bottom of the inside walls of the sides.

Cut the bottom roughly 1/2 inch wider than the inside of the box and assemble the box, with bottom using wood glue.

We used a pull saw to trim off significant excess then sanded the whole box.

We used hot glue, Star Bond Medium Thick Black CA Glue and an activator/accelerator. The hot glue was used to fill the bulk of the gap as we noticed the Star Bond Glue was too thin and running through the gaps. We cut the black glue flush and re-sanded the area.

We used the table saw to cut the top our of some edge glued poplar (a little larger than the actual box, we will trim it down later) and also cut 6 strips of purpleheart the same thickness as the saw blade.

We set the tablesaw blade to just under the thickness of the poplar and ran 4 random lines through the top, making sure they don't cross over. We glued in the purpleheart strips, planed and trimmed the top, then ran two more channels for a cross over pattern and glued in two more pieces of purpleheart. We again trimmed the excess and ran it through the planer on both sides, so that the purpleheart shows through on both sides.

We temporarily nailed some scrap wood to the top of the box in an angled pattern, using a 1/2 inch square dowel in between as a reference. Then we used our router to cut a channel through both sides of the box with a flush bit. You can also do this with a table saw, preferably with a DADO blade but can be done with a regular blade, check out rschoenm's instructable, "A Novel Way to Set a Box Lid." We cut pieces of the goncalo alves to fit the channel and then glued them to the lower side of the top, making sure the top overlapped a little on each side. Then we trimmed the top using the router and a larger flush bit and re-sanded the box with the top.

We cut strips of the 1/4 inch plywood about an inch side. cut them to size, then cut halfway through them so that they are interlocking, and glued them in place.

We created a couple of nesting boxes using the poplar for the sides and oak plywood for the base. We made sure the width of the nesting box was a little less than that of the main box, created sides about 1.5 inches deep, and the height of the width sides was just below the inner box. We created the nesting box nearly the same way as the main box but used wood glue and some nails to attach the sides of the box. We also got creative and added some walnut dowels as accent pieces in each corner. We chose to soften the top corner of the first nesting box and added a small channel to grab the inside of the box by. After the first nesting box was created, we made another that fit inside that one (not shown).

We applied 3-4 coats of finish on all pieces of the box. The only thing I didn't get to do before I gave it as a gift would be to cut and put down the padded fabric. I ran out of time before Christmas.

When it was all done, we had a lower section, deep enough to hold larger jewelry (6 compartments), a middle nesting box for medium jewelry (12 compartments), and a top box for small pieces (16 compartments). We are absolutely pleased with the way it turned out and think it's stunning. Check out our YouTube page and Facebook page for more creative ideas.