Kade’s Toy Box

I built this chest, a toy box, for my 3 year old grandson Kade. The chest is made from walnut and maple with a birch ply bottom. I used the torsion hinges from Rockler so he won’t get his fingers smashed by the lid.

It started with taking a hand cut dovetail class at Woodcraft, highly recommended. Now an entire chest full of hand cut dovetails seemed a little intimidating at first, but once I got going it wasn’t so bad. The lid is a raised panel design I saw on a episode of Wood Works with David Marks. The raised panel was resawn from a piece of 8/4 walnut for a nice book match and the frame of the lid is maple. I used maple for the front and back and walnut for the two ends with walnut trim around the bottom. The bottom of the chest is 3/4″ birch ply.

To be honest most of my woodworking has been what I call “ply boxes” until recently. So this project was a lot of fun using all solid wood except for the bottom and the cutting of the dove tails by hand was an extreme stretch for me and a great learning experience.

The finish used was General Finishes waterborne which I sprayed with a Fuji HVLP that I absolutely love. In my former career I painted cars for living so using a brush or rag on anything just makes my skin crawl.

In the end I’m very satisfied with the way it turned out and I think my grandson will enjoy it and I hope he learns to appreciate it.