This May Be The Coolest Wooden Box Ever

since I want this box to be as lightweight as possible I'll be making the bulk of it from quarter-inch plywood and here I'm cutting pieces for the sides but they're a little bit wider than I'll actually need then I can trim the ends off square and cut them the length using my mini table size slave I want this box to be as strong as possible even though I'm using quarter-inch plywood so I think that the best way to join the corners is to use a box joint these parts are fairly small so I'll be using my advanced box joint jig first I'm going to put a piece of plywood in there as a backer and that'll stop the first side from chipping and then I can stack in the others and put them right up tight against the fence I'm using just a single blade here but the teeth on this one are flat on the top so it's perfect for cutting one-eighth inch pot joints [Music] now I can undo the clamps and test the fit it's a little bit tight but I don't think I'll have any problem getting it together then I can flip everything over and cut the joist on the other ends like I said before I left these parts wider so that I can trim them down to the final size after and get the box choice all lined up correctly I found that this is easier to do than trying to offset the parts in the jig and normally it doesn't take any more time to do it this way and it always works out better to glue the corners I'm going to use polyurethane construction adhesive and I've spread some out on a scrap of plywood so that I can dab the ends and to spread the glue and then I can work that in this glue takes a long time to set so it gives me lots of time to get the thing put together next I can cut the top and the bottom panels and once again I'm using quarter-inch plywood to keep the weight down to glue these ones in I'm going to use regular wood glue and then just fire in a few pin nails to keep everything lined up adding the top and bottom now before the corners dry squares up the box and makes it easier to clamp next I need to clamp it up but first I want to get some masking tape on the corners and that'll stop the glue from sticking to the clamps I gave this a few hours to dry and then I took the clamps off and then to clean everything up I'm going to sand it with a 100 grit disc and that will get rid of the extra glue and bring the corners down flush [Music] after that I switched to a 220 grit disc and went over the entire box again before filling all the holes and seams with wood filler kind of wood filler I'm using doesn't take very long to dry and then I can sand a box again with 220 and round over the corners a little bit [Music] before I move on to the next steps I'm going to give the Box a couple of coats of water-based polyurethane mainly because it's easier to do now that the box is still like a cube so far so good I've got the Box fully assembled I also wound up giving it three coats of polyurethane I'll give it another couple of coats after I get it all finished - what I want to do right now is actually cut it apart because the top of this hinge is open like this so I need to cut the top off and then I need to cut the top itself in half [Music] [Music] for the lids on the box I'm going to use a piano hinge and I've already cut a half inch off the end here what I want is all of the holes that are already in here to line up evenly on the end I want to each hinge to be thirteen and a half inches long so I've already marked it out here I'm going to cut it with my angle grinder [Music] I've got both hinges cut and I've cleaned up the edges with the file and now I'm going to attach them to the lid half first before I attach them to the box what I'm going to do is just line them up so they're centered on the edge of the box like that and then I'm going to mark the holes and then drill out those holes for number five screws now the screws are going to stick out a little bit on the back so I'll cut those off with a grinder alright so I'm ready to screw on the other side rather than put the lid right tight down on the box I shift it up just by the thickness of a piece of cardboard that little bit of clearance there will make the hinge work better and make the lid closed tighter so same deal again except this time I'm not going to bother to mark them I'm just going to drill the holes Center down the holes in the hinge and then try the screws in I know some of you will probably point out that there's a special drill bit that you can use to Center the drill bit in the hole I don't have one of those I have one of those a long time ago probably before some of you were born and I didn't like the way it worked it clogged up with chips too often and really got on my nerves so I just eyeball it now and normally it works out just fine using a regular drill bit well that's here that I make the fairly common mistake of not turning my mic back on but basically I'm just saying that I got both hinges on and the lids closed and fit great while watching this I was tempted to do some kung fu film style overdubbing but I changed my mind I thought that would piss off too many people so I'll just play it straight and say that I need to add a strip to one lid so that the other lid the locking lid will fold over and hold that one closed I'm just going to glue the strip in and use a few spring clamps to hold it until the glue sets in the meantime I can get started on the locking mechanism by cutting a piece of maple to about 1/16 of an inch thick and then I can rip that and half and then cut those two pieces to length this is a wooden spring and it needs to be glued on the end to the inside of the lid it needs to flex back quite a bit so I'm going to reinforce it with a larger wooden block and then I'll just glue that in up tight against it the easiest way to mark for the release button is to drill a small hole right through the wooden springs then I can drill a 5/8 inch hole through each side for the buttons and here's how it fits and here's how it works I need to do a little bit of sculpting with a round file to make the buttons operate smoothly and then I can chamfer the hole on the outside just to pretty them up a bit the bird on the other side is wiped away with a little bit of fine sandpaper and then I can get the buttons glued on to the springs now with that done let's see how it works not bad last thing I need for the box itself is a carrying handle and I'm cutting that from the piece of solid maple [Music] to make it pleasing to the eye and to the touch I'm rounding over the corners then I'm sanding off the nasty burn marks but that leaves behind cutting operations like this always look more dangerous when someone else is doing fixing the handle halves to the lids is a two-step process first they need to glue one half on with five minute epoxy then when that sets I can glue on the other half and I have a strip of packing tape between the two to catch any squeeze out then I can drill a pilot hole and countersink that for a number five would screw that I'll drive in next I know this might seem like more than two steps but take my word for it it isn't not really and with a couple of coats of polyurethane on the handle the box is done now I did fit it out after it with some hunks of black foam to cushion my camera and lenses and there's more detail on that in the build article there's a link in the description anyway as usual I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: John Heisz - I Build It

Views: 2,663,909

Rating: 4.7647424 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, how to, diy, jpheisz, ibuildit

Id: Ls6ktHWalW4

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 13 2016