Making Dovetail Keyed Boxes

One of the Mags (I get so many that I can never recall which one anything came out of) had an article on making a nice wooden box with dovetail keys in the corners.  I'm not one to work much with others plans, but I am not averse to using some of their ideas.  I have made many small boxes with fingerjoints and have more recently made some with splined miters, that is with splines inserted in slots in the corners, the slots having been cut perpendicular to the miters on the corners.  These splines assist in assembly of the boxes and also add strength to the joints.  The dovetail keys, done in a contrasting wood, add a bit of strength, and also some eye appeal.

After reading the article (well, mostly looking at the pictures) of the Dovetail Keyed Box, I decided I would give it a try.  Since I like the sturdiness of the splines, and the assistence they give in assembly, I decided I would include splines and add the dovetail keys also.  When doing something like this, it is as easy to do several as it is to do just one.  I had orders for two boxes, and a tentative order for a third, plus I wanted to do one more for a gift, so I ripped enough of the appropriate stock to make four boxes.  I then cut the miters for all four boxes using a stop block on the miter fence to insure I had all opposing sides cut to the exact same length.  I then cut the slots for the splines into each mitered edge.  I make the spline stock for a loose friction fit so that I can insert the last one into the corner after the corner is closed up.  I just slide it down into the slot with some glue on it and clamp using belt clamps.

Once the boxes were all glued up with the bottoms installed, it was time to cut the keys for the dovetails.  I made this simple jig of scrap plywood and a couple pieces of scrap cedar.

Once I had the plywood cut to the right size, I trimmed one edge using the rip fence set just narrower than that dimension of the piece, and left the rip fence in place.  I then glued and screwed the first of the two cedar fences at a 45 degree angle to the edge I had just cut on the tablesaw with the end of the fence piece extending just over that edge.  I returned to the tablesaw, raised the blade, and cut off the excess of the fence using the same rip fence setting I had used to trim the plywood.  The second fence section was attached and cut the same way.

I installed a Dovetail bit in my router and installed the router into the router table and attached my tall fence.  I eyeballed the dovetail bit to what I felt was a nice height for the cut.

I then set the jig against the fence and adjusted it to a distance that would not interfere with the bottom of the boxes and was far enough from the base of the jig for the lid to be cut from the box leaving some of the side attached.  About 3/4" from the base of the jig to the closest edge of the bit is what it turned out to be.  With everything locked down, I turned the router on and, keeping the base of the jig snugly against the rip fence, I slid the jig through the bit.

Then the box was flipped over and dovetails were cut into each corner around the top.  I found that it does work better if you clamp the box into the jig.  Also, the fence needs to be placed at the same location for cutting the boxes as it was when the jig was cut and the bit should be set at the same height also.

Now it was time to cut the key stock.  I mused over that for a while and decided that the best way to do it would be to make the keys from a wider piece of stock, then rip them off once they had been milled to proper size with the router.  I ripped and a piece of the stock for the keys about 3" wide and just shy of an inch thick.  Leaving the router bit set at the same height as when I cut the keyways, I attached my shop made router fence with an opening in which to bury most of the bit.  I exposed just a little of the outside edge of the bit, and, with the stock on edge and against the fence, I passed both faces of one edge of the stock through the router.  After check the size to the slots in the boxes, using my micro adjuster I exposed a little more of the bit and again passed those same edges through the router.  I Repeated this last exposing about 1/64" more each time until the key fit nicely into the slots.  I then flipped the piece over and ran each face of that edge through so that I had key stack on both edges.  I then set the rip fence on the table saw so that it was about 1/4" wider than the keys, and ripped the keys off of both edges.

<

I then cut this stock into pieces about 1" in length so that when inserted into the keyways on the boxes they extended a bit proud of edges of  the box.  The keys were then glued into the keyways on the boxes and the excess removed with a pull saw and finally sanded flush with the edges of the boxes.

I then proceeded with my normal methods for inlaid boxes.