Tweet
Hi everyone. I've been reading these forums nearly every day since I got my BT3100 for Christmas. I figured I'd wait till I had something to show before I de-lurked. 
This is a toybox I just completed for my soon-to-be 3 year old nephew. I took these plans from Lowes and modified them quite a bit. I didn't like all the butt joints and screws, and I certainly didn't like the whitewash paint job.
It's constructed entirely of pine (which made my wallet happy because I ended up re-cutting so many parts after screwing them up - some more than once), and finished with an oil stain and 4 coats of satin poly. There are 16(!) mortise and tenon joints holding this baby together. The back is butt-jointed and screwed, but hey, it goes against the wall so you shouldn't see it. The side panels are 5.2mm plywood and the bottom is 3/4 inch plywood. None of the panels are glued in (nor are the dowels along the backrest), they're trapped in dados.
Those are air holes in the back. The box is far from air-tight, but I figure better safe than sorry when it comes to kids. I mitered all the front-facing corners and the top rail of the backrest. Those are all glued and biscuit joined - double and triple biscuit joined, can't have the thing coming apart while the kids are climbing on it.
It may be hard to see from the pics, but the lid is made up of 12 separate pieces, ALL tongue and grooved on ALL sides (except the outer edges and the miters). That was the most challenging and fun part of the project to figure out. Working out those measurements made my brain hurt.
I made a decorative cove cut along the top rail to give it a little character. These are some of those pieces I mentioned cutting twice. The first time I cut the cove I realized that I hadn't planned far enough ahead as the cove met the mortise holes. Doh! I had to re-cut the entire top rail with offset mortises the 2nd time around.
Thanks to everyone here for all the tips and hints!
Bryan
This is a toybox I just completed for my soon-to-be 3 year old nephew. I took these plans from Lowes and modified them quite a bit. I didn't like all the butt joints and screws, and I certainly didn't like the whitewash paint job.
It's constructed entirely of pine (which made my wallet happy because I ended up re-cutting so many parts after screwing them up - some more than once), and finished with an oil stain and 4 coats of satin poly. There are 16(!) mortise and tenon joints holding this baby together. The back is butt-jointed and screwed, but hey, it goes against the wall so you shouldn't see it. The side panels are 5.2mm plywood and the bottom is 3/4 inch plywood. None of the panels are glued in (nor are the dowels along the backrest), they're trapped in dados.
Those are air holes in the back. The box is far from air-tight, but I figure better safe than sorry when it comes to kids. I mitered all the front-facing corners and the top rail of the backrest. Those are all glued and biscuit joined - double and triple biscuit joined, can't have the thing coming apart while the kids are climbing on it.
It may be hard to see from the pics, but the lid is made up of 12 separate pieces, ALL tongue and grooved on ALL sides (except the outer edges and the miters). That was the most challenging and fun part of the project to figure out. Working out those measurements made my brain hurt.
I made a decorative cove cut along the top rail to give it a little character. These are some of those pieces I mentioned cutting twice. The first time I cut the cove I realized that I hadn't planned far enough ahead as the cove met the mortise holes. Doh! I had to re-cut the entire top rail with offset mortises the 2nd time around.
Thanks to everyone here for all the tips and hints!
Bryan
Comment