Joinery for wooden boxes
I'm working on a toy chest for my son. At first I wanted to do wood boards for all faces, but accounting for expansion was too daunting, so I went with 2 sides of boards glued up, and 4 remaining sides with plywood.
If I was less incompetent, how could I have joined things to have 6 (or 5) faces be board wood, without splitting due to moisture. Tutorial links would be amazing.
Thanks!
Posted Oct 10, 2016, 10:38 PM UTC
14
There are a number of ways to handle this. One strategy is to join the sides together so that the expansion will be up and down, and have a floating panel resting in grooves for the bottom. The bottom panel will be slightly loose in the grooves to allow for movement.
Another option is frame and panel construction, where the box has top and bottom rails that tenon into corner stiles. Panels can be loosely fitted in grooves cut on the inside of the rails and stiles. You see this alot on bigger boxes like blanket chests.
Would you typically see 4 faces directly joined (dovetail or similar) and the top/bottom faces sliding into rails?
Yes, the sides can be dovetailed together (or mortice/tenoned if going the frame and panel route) and the bottom will be loosely fit in grooves on the rails (or, it can be set on glue blocks or cleats glued into the inside bottom edges of the box. The top panel for a chest is usually resting on top and connected with hinges. A smaller box might have the top sliding into the rails (with one of the sides cut shorter so the top can slide out).
A google image search for "hope chest plans" gives several examples of both frame and panel and dovetailed construction.