Building The Mitered Box

Sean Nov 20, 2016

Milling

To begin, I take a rough piece of walnut and mill it to 1/2" thick at the planer. I then take that board and cut it to 3 3/4" width at the table saw. The dimensions of this board are 3 3/4" wide and 31" long. The board is a little longer than I need, but it's better to have too much.

Cutting Grooves

Before cutting the smaller box sides, I first take the board over to the router table and using my 1/4" spiral bit, I cut a 1/4" groove 1/4" deep along the bottom inside edge of the board. Next I take the board over to the table saw and using my 3/8" box joint blades, I cut a 3/8" wide by 1/4" deep groove along the top inside edge of the board. These grooves will hold the lid and the bottom panel.

Miters

To get grain continuation across 3 of the 4 corners, I cut the board (which remember is still long) in 6 1/4", 8 1/4", 6 1/4" and 8 1/4" pieces for the left, front, right and back pieces. Then over at the table saw I put a miter on one edge of each of the boards and then take them down to their final size, making sure to use a stop block on my table saw to get consistent pieces.

Glue up

With the inside of the board finished and cut to size, I glue the box up using some masking tape to act as clamps.

If you enjoyed what you just watched, consider becoming a patron and support SimpleCove.

Guy Dunlap (@guyswoodshop)7 years, 5 months ago Reply

Looks good Sean! Moving on to the second part now. I like to cut my corners to the exact width first, then use a 45 bit in my router table. Different way of doing the same this I guess. It does lose less of the grain between the pieces though.

Sean Walker (@Sean)7 years, 5 months ago Reply

Yeah I've been meaning to give that method a try but every time I get into a project I never want to stop and try something new lol. That way sounds like way less waste. How much work do you have to do to dial in the bit just perfectly?

@guyswoodshop said:

Looks good Sean! Moving on to the second part now. I like to cut my corners to the exact width first, then use a 45 bit in my router table. Different way of doing the same this I guess. It does lose less of the grain between the pieces though.