Wooden Tray with Stripes and Dovetails

Remember the wooden bowl I posted about a month ago? This project is from the same class. I wanted to make two pieces that would look good next to each other – but not necessarily be matching.

Here’s the box I designed. I was thinking I could put it on my shelves to hold earrings or something. I wasn’t particularly attached to the dimensions of the box, but I knew I wanted it to be square, have dovetails, be made of the same wood as the bowl (walnut and poplar), and have the right proportions between the stripes. Here’s the isometric: 

I wish I took more process photos, but I forgot. I started by finding all the right wood and sanding it down to the right thicknesses for the stripes. Then I glued them all together in a big block. Once that was dry, I sliced the block width-wise into 4 pieces for the sides of the box.

Once I had all the pieces, I cleaned them up a little and made sure they were all the same length. Then I used a dovetail set up thing that I don’t know the name of and a router to cut the dovetails. Once that was done, I cut grooves in the bottom. 

I hammered it together to make sure it all fit. The striped lined up perfectly!

(You can see the hammer in the corner of the picture.)

I also cut a square of light wood for the bottom of the box. It’s not poplar, but it was a similar enough color.

Then I sanded all the edges and corners, finished it with beeswax and ta da!

I don’t know what was up with the light – it looks a lot redder in the picture than it does in real life. 

I tried to sand the inside of the corners, but they still don’t look as clean as I wish they did. 

I also woodburned my name and the year into the bottom of the box. 

Absolutely love how the dovetails turned out. 

Now THIS is much closer to the actual coloring!

The walnut I used takes on a lot of different colors. 

There will be another couple posts about shop projects coming soon!

-Taft WK