Keepsake box

Just started putting together some keepsake boxes for the girls in my family. I found plans for them in the September 2002 issue of WOOD magazine. They use two contrasting species of wood to make a box that looks like it has some very nice inlays. The work can all be done on a table saw and sander so it fits a small shop pretty well.

I made my prototype out of curly maple and mahogany.

I learned several things after building the first one, like glue up all of the sides in one long piece and then plane and sand to thickness. Also move the dado for the box bottom up to 5/16" from the bottom edge of the sides so that the groove doesn't hit the glue joint for the trim pieces.

Start to finish you should easily complete a couple of boxes in a weekend.

Here is a look at the trim detail on the side of the box. Make sure that you are cutting the trim pieces from the far side of a wide blank for safety because they are pretty thin. You can also see the splines sticking out of the end of the box that I haven't trimmed up yet.