# Keepsake Boxes



## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

I love to make little boxes and have been making these in various forms over the years. They make great gifts and are always well received. One of the reasons I bought a CNC machine was to help up my game. For Christmas, I made 8 boxes with a variety of different carvings on the top or front.

I made these from 1/8" thick cherry with 1/8" box joints. The box joints were cut with a 1/8" spiral bit on a router table with an Incra LS Positioner. The lining is made from pine, cork and velvet. The carvings were done on a small Al extrusion CNC router using a 90 degree V bit. I used Affinity Designer and F-Engrave for CAD/CAM work. Boxes were finished with an oil based poly.

Here's a detailed write-up of how I made the boxes.


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## jj777746 (Jan 17, 2015)

Nice work,Phil. A little too delicate for my touch but very nice work. James.jj777746


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

excellent..
well done character...


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## Oscar36 (Feb 23, 2019)

Beautiful boxes. Anyone receiving one of these lovely pieces should be very happy.


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## RainMan 2.0 (May 6, 2014)

Nice work Phil and great gift idea


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## OCEdesigns (Jan 31, 2019)

Very nice work!


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## Web Shepherd (Feb 8, 2012)

Beautiful work, Phil. Tell us more about how you are able to cut or trim the cork and velvet to make them fit. Do you use contact cement or some other type of adhesive?


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## sreilly (May 22, 2018)

Great looking boxes and the detail is sweet. I've been wanting to make boxes for a while but have been consumed in other projects that have taken precedence. But I will make boxes. But I doubt they will start off being 1/8", maybe 1/2-3/8" but 1/8 seems way to fragile for me and would (wood) have to be something I work down to. I really appreciate the detailed instructions and that will work well as a guide for me to get started with even if I upscale the thickness a bit for starters. I also want to try bandsaw boxes. Actually there are far more thing I want to do then have done. Time's a wastin. Thanks again Phil.


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## CharleyL (Feb 28, 2009)

Some great work Phil. 

Working with 1/8" material sure has it's challenges, doesn't it. I make a lot of boxes too, but most are more of the tool and storage type and mostly of thicker material. 

Charley


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## marecat3 (Nov 30, 2010)

they look great


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## ScottyDBQ (Jul 5, 2008)

Pretty easy to see why your gifts are so appreciated and why you get the deserved compliments - excellent work in any material, let alone 1/8th inch !!! And thanks so much for the detailed tutorial.


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## JFPNCM (Dec 13, 2009)

Nice work and the construction notes are most appreciated.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Web Shepherd said:


> Beautiful work, Phil. Tell us more about how you are able to cut or trim the cork and velvet to make them fit. Do you use contact cement or some other type of adhesive?


The cork is interesting but really easy. When you cut it, it has a pretty rough edge as the cork basically crumbles. I conceal that by using the pine insert lining. It's just self stick shelf liner. Pretty cheap.

The velvet is a bit more complex. You really can't just cut it to fit and glue it in. Makes a mess. Don't ask how I know this. Instead, I glue it to a piece of card stock (I use art mat board but anything fairly stiff will work). I make it about 1/16" smaller than the inside of the lid. In the first photo you can see 3 stages - fitting the card to lid, a card glued to a piece of velvet sized 1/2" larger on all sides and a finished one. The third photo shows trimming the corners. I then smear on contact cement and fold the cloth over making a stiff velvet card. With the velvet on the edges, the card makes a very snug fit in the lid. I think that should be enough to explain it.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

sreilly said:


> Great looking boxes and the detail is sweet. I've been wanting to make boxes for a while but have been consumed in other projects that have taken precedence. But I will make boxes. But I doubt they will start off being 1/8", maybe 1/2-3/8" but 1/8 seems way to fragile for me and would (wood) have to be something I work down to. I really appreciate the detailed instructions and that will work well as a guide for me to get started with even if I upscale the thickness a bit for starters. I also want to try bandsaw boxes. Actually there are far more thing I want to do then have done. Time's a wastin. Thanks again Phil.


I definitely wouldn't recommend 1/8" stock when starting on box joints. But 1/4" is pretty easy. Having an Incra LS positioner makes it pretty easy, dare I say foolproof. Well, not damn fool proof! A lot of woodworking is making boxes of one sort or another so it's a good skill to have. I recently finished making a 15 drawer cabinet for my workshop. 15 drawers - boxes. 3 carcasses - boxes. Drawer organizers - more boxes.


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## sreilly (May 22, 2018)

Love the cabinet. I did something similar for my miter station here I've since decided I need a shop Bookcase to house the magazines and books. Will include a space for the DVDs as well but have it outside of the shop.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

sreilly said:


> Love the cabinet. I did something similar for my miter station here I've since decided I need a shop Bookcase to house the magazines and books. Will include a space for the DVDs as well but have it outside of the shop.


Sweet. Looks like it was a big job. Making and mounting that many drawers can get old in a hurry!


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## sreilly (May 22, 2018)

PhilBa said:


> Sweet. Looks like it was a big job. Making and mounting that many drawers can get old in a hurry!


Worst part was I was at the end of the build and it was late, I was tired and achy but determined they would get finished that evening. But for the bottom two drawers I needed to be on the floor to install the slides as I hadn't really thought that far ahead when assembling them and may well not have decided on the drawer sizes. But for anyone that's had one knee replaced can attest, they ain't standard issue and it was uncomfortable to say the least which was another compelling reason to get it finished. So with both knees having been replaced it was a bit more uncomfortable. 

One bad evening versus two just made more sense to me. Just needed to ice down afterward. Lesson learned, install the slides when the cabinet is able to be raised. I used a set of cut blocks made from scrap boards for the height of the slide so I could simply rest the block on the base and use a spring clamp to hold in place. Install 2-3 screws and move the block to the opposite side and install a few screws. So as all the drawers were at the same height I just had a set of 4 blocks cut to the appropriate height to use as guides assuring all were the same. 

The hard part with 28" deep drawers and an assembled cabinet as this was, I had to lay down to get the back screws. Like working on a kitchen sink faucet under the cabinet. Royal pia for us older folk.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

sreilly said:


> Worst part was I was at the end of the build and it was late, I was tired and achy but determined they would get finished that evening. But for the bottom two drawers I needed to be on the floor to install the slides as I hadn't really thought that far ahead when assembling them and may well not have decided on the drawer sizes. But for anyone that's had one knee replaced can attest, they ain't standard issue and it was uncomfortable to say the least which was another compelling reason to get it finished. So with both knees having been replaced it was a bit more uncomfortable.
> 
> One bad evening versus two just made more sense to me. Just needed to ice down afterward. Lesson learned, install the slides when the cabinet is able to be raised. I used a set of cut blocks made from scrap boards for the height of the slide so I could simply rest the block on the base and use a spring clamp to hold in place. Install 2-3 screws and move the block to the opposite side and install a few screws. So as all the drawers were at the same height I just had a set of 4 blocks cut to the appropriate height to use as guides assuring all were the same.
> 
> The hard part with 28" deep drawers and an assembled cabinet as this was, I had to lay down to get the back screws. Like working on a kitchen sink faucet under the cabinet. Royal pia for us older folk.


Yeah, A real pain those bottom drawers. I made a template for holding the slides in place while I drilled and screwed. Started out at the top with the template for the top drawer slides. It was, iirc, about 26" tall. Once the top set was in I cut down the template bottom by the height for the 2nd row of drawers, installed those slides and the repeated the process for the 3rd and subsequent rows. I still had to climb in for the last row. My cordless drill and driver having lights on them made a huge difference. 

To add to all the work, my bottom drawers came out about 1/16" narrow and the cheap crap Rockler slides I used weren't having any of that. I wound up having to shim them. To top it off, the bearing retainer on one of them snagged on the slider as I did the first fit test. Imagine my dismay hearing the tick, tick, tick of ball bearings falling out. At 11:30 PM, that's about the last thing I wanted to hear. Found all but one bearing, repacked them and crimped the retainer. Spent waaaay too much time groveling and cursing on that cold and dirty concrete floor. I guess too narrow was a blessing - too wide would have been worse. And, yes, the next morning I was definitely feeling it. Thank god for Ibuprofen.

But, it's easy to forget the aches, pains and f*^%ups once it's all done.


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## sreilly (May 22, 2018)

Must be a club we joined and didn't know it! Makes me feel a bit better. I must say I like that flush drawer look better. Haven't tried that yet but will on next cabinet build.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

sreilly said:


> Must be a club we joined and didn't know it! Makes me feel a bit better. I must say I like that flush drawer look better. Haven't tried that yet but will on next cabinet build.


That actually turns out to be easy to do. Mount your slides so the box with the face piece on it will be flush with the face frame. You add the face pieces at the end, cutting each one to fit with 1/16" spacer shims on bottom and sides as you go. Attach each face as you make it and measure from that. Start at the bottom and work up.


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## sreilly (May 22, 2018)

PhilBa said:


> That actually turns out to be easy to do. Mount your slides so the box with the face piece on it will be flush with the face frame. You add the face pieces at the end, cutting each one to fit with 1/16" spacer shims on bottom and sides as you go. Attach each face as you make it and measure from that. Start at the bottom and work up.


Good tip, I'll add that to my library...I do want to give that a try.


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## TenGees (Sep 12, 2012)

Nice, delicate work, Phil.


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