This 1 hour 20 minute video takes you through all the steps of making the beautiful rectangular checkered boxes with curved sides and lift off lid. You will need the following:
I was actually building one of the curved sided hexagon checkered boxes while making the video so every step is on tape.
Besides the simple steps, you get several interesting tips and observations gained by more than 15 years of box building. These include avoiding some of the mistakes I have made! I also am able to explain that while no box is actually perfect there are some techniques I have gained that help hide the minor imperfections that inevitably come into any hand craft such as box building.
Through the years I have made all the mistakes already - so you won't have to make the same mistakes! (You can make your own!) I have even benefited from some mistakes changing the design in order to make the "mistake" into an asset. For example, one of the box lids was made too small. I added a rim of wood around the edge of the lid to make the lid large enough to fit on the lid shelf.
This new lid rim actually made the lid look nicer than any previous lid I had made.
This type of lid is now one of his preferred designs! I think God shows us things by our mistakes. Even a life that is messed up in some way, God can make beautiful.
One of the boxes that I made was from a scrap of wood that was an "end piece" from a solid brown walnut wood. It wasn't useful for the checkered boxes because it had all sorts of swirls of color in it. After it had lain around the shop for 6 or 7 years I decided to make a non-checkered box from it. When this little box was finished, My wife immediately claimed it, saying she didn't want it given away. This little box now holds her jewelry.