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My daughter and son in law asked me several weeks ago if I could possibly make a toy box for the Granddaughter, this is number six of seven. She's two (ish)
They said that her toys are starting to take over the house and it's time to teach her to put them away. What won't fit in the box, will be sorted and donated. Favorites kept, and others will slowly disappear. As new toys come into her life, she will slowly see old toys she doesn't play with and has no attachment to, mysteriously vanish. (Funny, we did the same with out kids, and it never hurt them either.)

I told my daughter that I couldn't just throw something together, and I'd have it ready by Christmas... she just laughed. "I know you daddy..."
"Do your thing, and whatever you come up with is fine." For the past few weeks I have been tossing ideas around, looking at various plans, and skimming images on the net for enhancements I'd like to add. I finally put some measurements down on paper and ordered some parts. (Wow.. the safety hinges were fifty bucks, but the lid won't slam down and crush baby fingers.)

I am thinking a Maple Cabinet Grade 3/4 ply box, with Walnut trim and enhancements. I had planned to carve Grumpy from the Seven Dwarfs, and of course Snow White... since the grandkids all call me Grumpy, and Izzy is a little princess. but, we'll see how it goes.

Spent the morning in the shop cutting the 3/4 sheet of ply into the rough size pieces for the "box". OMG... 3/4 ply sheets have to be manhandled over the table saw and it's too much for me these days. Miss T was a lot of help. Now they are rough cut... I can get them to final "smooth" sizes and pre-drill the assembly holes and get ready to "build" the basic box. That's the easy part. The fun part will be "trying" to cut out and carve the extras.

Wish me luck.

awesome project. Good luck!

I quit manhandling full sheets of ply on the table saw a while back. Maybe if I had tables around the saw that fully supported a full sheet, I would feel differently. For now, I rough cut with a circular saw. Much safer.

I love the combo of maple and walnut. What kind of joinery are you planning to use? I normally lean toward box or dovetail joints, but using plywood the look is not the same. A locked miter with contrasting splines perhaps? Maple ply with walnut splines would look awesome.

I normally go with box/finger joints since dove tails still cause me loads of grief to get them looking good... or, I countersink screws, use contrasting plugs intentionally as accents, and roll on. In this case, I will glue and screw the case, since I plan to "picture frame" the front and sides in walnut to accent whatever highlights/enhancements I manage to carve that meet my standards. Lol. The frame trim will hide the screws, as well as make the maple ply pop.

good to have another of your projects to follow

The pieces that Tina and I cut this morning, were all cut about 1/4" oversized, so that I could go back and run them across the tablesaw in the more manageable size and trim them to final size, then assemble the box. First, I put the box together on a dry run as a test fit. Everything fit very well except I needed to shave about a 32nd of an inch off the bottom of the box so the right side would close up tight. Meh, no matter. The bottom for this toy box fits inside the box, and is also made from 3/4 ply, mainly for weight. I want the box to be heavy and stable so I don't have to worry it will turn over on the "Little Princess" as it will also act as a bench seat in her room.

After final checks for fit and minor adjustments, I still went ahead while it was all clamped together and drilled positioning pins, two for each of the contact points, and put finishing nails in the holes ... The trimming of the bottom would have NO effect on the alignment, so the holes would still line up. Trimming would just allow the right side to pull in just a little tighter.

Each side was marked to match the corners and orientation, and then the pieces were pulled apart by pulling the nails, and I put down paper and waxed paper, and applied glue in the proper locations. (AFTER trimming the end of the bottom panel.) Then, one by one, each panel was reassembled, slipping the finishing nails back in the alignment holes and applying the clamps to draw the box up tight. I'll leave it overnight to dry, and then drill and countersink the necessary holes and screw the box together for additional strength. After all, a two year old will take possession at Christmas and once done, I'm hoping she will want to keep it a long time.
If you look below the top clamps, or above the bottom clamps on the front panel, you can see the alignment pins sticking out along the right and left edges... Once I start screwing the box together, I'll pull the pins, countersink the holes and put screws in these holes as well. No worries.

The top of the box won't come into play again until the very end, as it was cut WELL oversized to allow it to be cut down to match the trim, and I'll add the backrest and side rails to the top AFTER the trim and accents are added to the box.

Stay tuned.

Looks good BoM

Henry88 wrote:Looks good BoM

Thanks Henry, but we are barely gettin started. Like most of my projects, I don't really know exactly where I am going, my sketches and plan took me to here... The rest of my plan in my head is a general idea of what I want to do and where I want to go, FROM here. That's the adventure in all this. I want to make a toy box that the two year old will still love when she is six and then ten. I want to build quality, with durability and safety as well. But, I want this puppy to be unique. That will require either some wood carving or leather work. That's the fun.

Got out in the shop this morning and back to work. Took off all the clamps and put them back where they belonged. Then drilled, countersunk and screwed the various holes so the box will be extra strong. Careful measuring using the pocket square made sure that none of the screws would break thru due to misalignment. Been there, done that. Extra work to patch the mistake and if you can't cover it up, you have to remake the piece or start over.
If I wasn't going to hide the screws with the picture frame trim, I would have drilled counter sunk holes and used contrasting plugs for accent as I did in this project. The knotty pine cradle is beautifully accented with the walnut plugs which hide the screws giving the doll cradle strength enough to allow granddaughter number 3 to play with her heirloom cradle. There is a visitor in the shop for the next few months. The Polaris Ranger will live there for a bit, it's gotten hard to start in the colder weather, but starts on the first turn of the key in the climate controlled shop. Like it's brokenolmarine pop, it hates the cold. Mostly, it's not in the way, if it is, I back 'er out and do what I have to, and pull it back in. I put the remote for the garage door on the Ranger's Key ring, so it's not a problem to come and go to check the mail or run and check the property line if need be. The Ranger is my "farm" wheel chair.

Next up for the project is making the Walnut "Picture Framing" and adding the detailing for that with the molding planes. Then deciding on the accents, whether I decide to go with the carvings or just IZZY in big letters. I'm looking forward to it all.

Loving it. Keep 'em coming.

I worked for a while yesterday afternoon, after searching thru the boathouse barn converted to my wood storage. I found several treasures. I did find a couple nice pieces to make the frame pieces out of, and set up the power planer for the initial run, as this was a rough plank with bark still on the sides and one end about seven and a half feet long.

As I planed off the milling marks from the huge saw blade, and some remnants of bark on the end, the oddest thing occurred. Never seen it before. It appears that the bark has dyed the wood below in a very unique pattern. I cut off that end piece and will make a top for a box from it. I'll probably keep that box for myself. I'll be very careful in finishing the box, wouldn't want to cut thru this pattern while shaping... Anyway, processing the board was a long process, and required a number of passes thru the planer. In addition, there was a slight bend in the board toward the end, so I had to cut the long board and process it in two pieces to straighten it, without losing a lot of thickness. I will run this through the bandsaw and cut it into two or three boards then again to bookmatch those boards, as they frames are for aesthetics. They don't have to be really thick.
I did find two other beautiful treasures hiding in the wood storage. (three actually.)
A piece gorgeous Curly Cherry, 4' x 6" one inch thick... (on the far left)
and a piece of Cocobolo 3' x 5-1/2" one in thick. cocobolo is highly prized for gun stocks, pistol grips, and knife scales. This piece is highly figured.
(to the right of the curly cherry board) There was also a black cherry board about 6' but I forgot to bring that one back to the shop. Sheesh. (face palm) Memory... I need one.

I will get back out to the shop today if I can, and finish processing this wood so I can start on the framing of the box. Then comes the fun part, the enhancements.

BTW... this is Miss Tina's Curly Cherry Jewelry Box I made for her years ago. The entire box is hand made, including all the trim. Took me weeks, as my job left me only a few hours each day to work on it. One of the women I worked with saw the pics and asked how much a box like that would run... I told her that the SINGLE board that I made the box from, a 12" wide, 6' long, one inch thick board cost $85, the hinges were $40 or so... and I couldn't guess how many hours. I figured $250 to $300. I thought the woman's sister standing beside her was going to have a stroke.
"I can get a beautiful painted jewry box at the Kmart for $35!" she almost screamed.

Her sister, my friend, looked at her.
"Then that is where you should buy YOUR jewelry boxes baby."

She didn't order that box, but she did order one of these made from Australian Lacewood. It wasn't cheap, but I priced it very fair for her.
She wanted it to keep her recently deceased Father's personal items in.

Be careful with that cocobolo. I turned a piece of it years ago. Ended up with a really, really nasty poison ivy like rash all over my arms, neck and even my chest, where the shavings fell inside my shirt. The rash lasted for a month and a half. Drove me crazy. Fortunately, I was wearing breathing protection.

Spent a couple hours in the shop this morning, working my way thru the two boards I planned to use as framing on the toy box. Once I got out there, I rethought my plan, and drew a line down the side of each board to give me a straight edge, and then ran both across the table saw until I had a collection of 1/2 inch thick boards.

Here is the pile of processed boards. I sorted through them and tried to match the book matched boards, matching the long boards and the shorter boards so I had good pairs. Yup, there is some bend in those puppies, but when I attach them, they will be flexible enough to pull into alignment and POW, tack into place til the glue dries. We adapt and overcome.

Next session I will run these thru the planer to take off the roughness.
Decide WHICH side of each will face out.
Use a cabinet scraper to get the front face SMOOOOOTH.
Mark the back sides.
Decide on the alignment - marking where on each over length board will be the center for later installation.
AND which will be the inside edges.
THEN... I'll choose a molding plane, then sharpen the plane iron.
I'll roll the appropriately marked inside edges, which will reinforce the illusion of a picture frame.

All that may take two or three sessions. This is not something I will rush. I am pretty sure I have plenty of this walnut, but I don't think I have enough to make too many mistakes.

Then, very carefully, I will measure and cut the boards, then begin framing the front and both sides of the box. I will both glue and shoot the frame sections with brads to attach the frames to the box. The project is coming along.

Went out and got busy again. Waiting for me was the work from yesterday, all lined up on the table saw table, all shined up, sorted and ready to go. Note the cheat marks at the bottom of the pairs. The chalk marks tell me a couple things. The matched pairs and the orientation. They are only on ONE end, so I know which ends go together with the pairs.

Before I could start the "actual" work, I chose my molding plane, pulled the iron and got out the diamond and water stones and got to sharpening. It was a touch up, but I spent about 45 minutes getting it just so. It is my Granddaughter's Toy Box after all.

I put the first frame piece full length in the vice, clamped the loose end to the table for stability, and off we go. More cheating, see the chalked notes on the back of the long board on the work bench. There is actually a good bit on info here for me. The location of the chalk itself denotes the back of the board, the bad side. The arrow points to the Inside of the frame, and I know this long piece will become the top of the frame for the front of the box. The R stands for right side of the box as I look at it. The slash beside the R reminds me to square the end before making any measurements. The exact same notes appear on the board for the bottom of the frame section.

The molding plane does a nice job reworking the profile of the little boards, turning them into the frame material. It took me a while to figure them out, but even that journey was interesting and a pleasure. I use this classic molding plane more than any of the others, and usually in this format, just rolling the edge. However, if I roll it more into the cut, it will add a beaded edge, as we saw on the White Oak and Spalted Maple box I did earlier. After about two hours in the shop, I was done with this phase, and for the day. I think I'll be cutting and fitting tomorrow. We'll get a better idea of the complimentary woods together and a good look as the box is really starting to take shape. (Hopefully.... ) Knock on wood.... get it.. .wood.

I began this morning's session by staining the "background" areas of the main box with Watco Natural oil.

But before that, as always, I took two scraps, a walnut and Maple Ply and made two test stain pieces, staining both with the Natural, Golden Oak, and Meduim Walnut Stains. My hope was that the Maple Ply would look GREAT with Medium Walnut, or that the Walnut would look Rich and Deep with the Golden Oak. No such luck. The Walnut, as expected, looked best with ... Medium Walnut Stain.

The Maple ply looked best with the Natural.

So, I marked the location of the framing pieces and stained inside the markings with a little overlap. I didn't want the oil where I needed to glue. Not a good idea. The next hour and a half was spent measuring, cutting, test fitting, trimming, test fitting, trimming, and then attaching - the framing for the front of the box. It turned out fairly well. The next session will be framing the sides. Then on to the enhancements.

What? Yup, I could have just bought cheapo, already formed molding for a couple bucks per piece and shot it on and covered it with varnish and called it done. It wouldn't be walnut trim, hand formed by Grumpy in his shop for Christmas for Izzy. I'll make a Disc with all these pics on it and include it as a part of the gift, and years later, when she is old enough... it'll mean something to her. Or not. I know it means something to my daughter. She has a number of Grumpy heirloom pieces in HER home... all are priceless to her.

Back out to the shop to try and finish the framing.
Here is a peek before the framing started on the LAST section.. (Whoo Hoo!) Now, I don't want to slip and accidently push the Toy Box off the bench THIS late in the game, overbalancing and causing it to fall, so Safety first. I stuck a stand under the back side, just in case. I have to turn it crossways on the bench to have the chair fit where I need to be to do my thing. I do a lot of my work with hand tools, but ... I still use some of the power tools as the weather has aggravated ARTHUR and he is not friendly.

This process used the Chop saw a lot. Measure, Cut, trim and test fit, trim and test fit. I used the Dewalt Brad Nailer to reinforce the glue til it set and powered it with the oil cooled large compressor in the corner... larger capacity and a LOT quieter than the pancake compressor I used to use in the old shop. After a couple hours rolling back and forth between my stations, staining EACH piece before installation.... they are pretty much done. I did cut the pieces to use to round the corners and tack them in place. Tomorrow morning I'll shape those, and stain them after sanding, tune the fit on the whole works and add a last coat of stain to everything. Then move on to the Enhancements. The Top and Hinges will be the very last step.

When I said it had put the pieces in to round the corners, it probably didn't mean much... but maybe this picture will help. Since I didn't make some of the framing material overly wide to overlap an edge, there was a gap at the front corners, a half inch or so. After it was all finished, I put a square piece of walnut in the two corners, glued and shot it them place, put a couple band clamps around it and left them til morning to set.

Came out this morning and took the clamps off, and got ready to work 'em. There was work to do. First the nail sets drove the brads deeper, didn't want to ruin my iron in the plane.
Then I took the plane, cut off the sharp edge of the corner sticking out and proceeded to round off the edges to make a rounded corner of both the added pieces, and then sanded all the frames as best I could.

Once this was done, I touched up all the stain and stood back to admire my work. Next up is to work the enhancements and the top and hinges, and we'll be done.
Another week?

I was tossing idea around in my head about what to put in that front panel, what would convey the message we wanted, but let Izzy know that Grumpy built her toybox all these years to come...? Then it hit me.
Yup, that should do it. I'll work on the high relief carving over the next few days or so. If it turns out okay, this will certainly do the job.
"Grumpy Says"