New Box with a Surprise

I was out of a project so thought a wood box using as much lumber as already had would be fun. The materials on hand largely determined the box size. 13.25" x 10" x 3.25" tall.

I had not done blind dovetails since 2019 for my jewelry box project that is posted on this site. Had a piece a curly maple little over 4 feet long, some 6/4 walnut strips and a design pattern that is in the front of my two table lamps just completed.

During the lamp build the design pattern was cut all wrong, it tapered from 1/2" to 3/16". I think/know the fence slipped while cutting the lamp design strips. So I planed and sanded it to 0.10" thick.

Cutting the dovetails was done with a Porter Cable DT jig and 48 inches of 4" wide poplar squared and planed to match the box side dimensions.

The lid has a walnut frame that is rabbeted to provide a ledge to place an insert panel.

The lid insert panel is maple that had a slot just under 0.10" deep x 4.5" wide to match the design strip. The slot was cut with an overhead milling machine with a fly-cutter bit. It takes awhile to adjust to cut parallel to your board axis but not too hard. I clamped the maple board to the mill adjustable platform with 3 clamps. When nearing the end of the board had to stop and move one clamp to the other end to allow clearance of the fancy bit.

The bit would not cut the full with of the design inlay strip and when I moved the piece so the bit reached the full width the cut was just a smidge wide thus the need for wood filler in mahogany tone, also had on hand.

I leave AZ tomorrow morning and did not have time to install hinges now. Was thinking Brusso but jeez gad they are $52/pair now almost double the price since 2019. Wood craft has some knockoffs that go for $28 a pair, would love to find some stop hinges that are not so expensive.

You probably figured out the surprise by now, the bobby was just laying on a sandy area on an evening tour of the golf cart path.