Box by Box
$39.31
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Hone Your Woodworking Skills One Box at a Time
When it comes to great woodworking projects, it’s hard to beat boxes. Using a minimal amount of materials, you can craft wonderful gifts or items for sale. And it’s a great opportunity to use those pieces of special wood you’ve been hoarding.
The real trick to successful box-making is coming up with the right designs. If you’ve been looking for attractive box projects that suit your particular tools and abilities, you’ve picked the right book. In these pages, you’ll find plans for 21 delightful boxes along with step-by-step instructions for making them. They include lovely, simple creations that a novice can make with just a few hand tools, all the way through designs with drawers and dovetail joinery that will provide experienced woodworkers with an exciting challenge.
Regardless of your woodworking experience, building these boxes provides a world of fun and the opportunity to develop new skills. In the process, you’ll become a better woodworkerbit by bit, and box by box.
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Charles Holzheimer –
I would agree with Boxmaker. This is a good book but the projects advance very quickly to more advanced designs. I got some good ideas that I will eventually use but there are several that I will never attempt due to their complexity.
If you have already built some boxes and you need more ideas and designs, you could do worse than this book. If you are a beginner and have a bandsaw, I would recommend “Making Beautiful Boxes with your Bandsaw.”
Build on!
RokJok –
this book starts with the simplest version of a box and grows increasingly complex as the chapters progress. There is one project covered in each of the 21 chapters, which is normal format for a small-project-oriented book. At the start of each chapter is a photo of the finished project, an exploded view line drawing, a cut list with dimensions, and a list of the tools expected to be used in completing the project.
The format of Box By Box is captioned photos. The sequence is clearly marked with numerals on each photo and there is no confusion over what caption goes with which photo. Photos are in color, clearly illustrating the technique/step covered, and logically sequenced to walk the reader through the construction of each of the projects.
Interestingly and fortunately IMHO is that the binding of the book is wirebound, sort of like a school notebook. That allows the book to lay flat on a bench/table for reference while working, without the tendency of stitch-bound books to close themselves up at the most inopportune moment.
With each project along the way a new concept or technique is introduced. Here is a quick ‘n dirty breakdown of the boxes and techniques for each chapter, which also indicates to some degree the progression of difficulty and complexity through the chapters.
1. rectangular box — glued butt joints with separate lid
2. rectangular box — nails added to the joints and a handle on the lid
3. rectangular box — mortised hinges to make a flip-up lid
4. rectangular box with separate lid — internal cleats and a divided tray that sits on them, bottom set in dados
5. rectangular box with flip-up lid — brass pin hinges through the sides and a notched front for handle
6. rectangular box — raised-panel shaped lid slides in grooves cut into sides
7. rectangular box — adds feet below body and carving on top of lid, divided tray within
8. rectangular box — box-joints for case and frame-and-panel construction on the lid
9. imitation safe rectangular box — crafting tumbler lock device from wood and paint as finish
10. rectangular box — dovetailed body and coopered lid
11. hexagonal box — compound-angle cuts for body & lid and splined miter joints
12. twenty-sided icosahedron box — adds complexity and accuracy for the compound angle cuts
13. oval bandsawn box — introduces slabbing off lid & bottom and bandsawing out interior cavity, also adds drawer making
14. round bandsawn box — adds pivot hinge for stacked drawers
15. freeform bandsawn box — sawing with paper pattern and laminating cutouts into drawers
16. truncated triangle stack of drawers — multiple & tapered-sided drawers
17. rectangular box — dovetailed drawers via DT jig and tray lifting mechanism on lid (like fishing tackle box)
18. rectangular display box — glazed lid and french-fitted interior tray
19. lap desk — dado’ed case construction
20. lap desk — veneering
21. silverware chest — adds inlay to veneer and putting profiled serpentine edges on the top & bottom
I’d add this one to my list of good books for giving to a beginning boxmaker. It’s escalating difficulty that starts at super-basic and the clarity of instructive photos make it a volume well worth adding to your library of boxmaking books IMHO.
Amazon Customer –
Book has excellent drawings and measurements. I originally got the book from the library and then wanted one for myself. I combined two boxes into into a new box and made three. One for my wife, my daughter-in law and my grand daughter.
J –
Don’t bother getting the kindle version. The tiny plan and measurements’ appear on a page where you can hardly see anything and they are not mentioned in the book at all after that. Even the very first project is hard to know how to do with this tiny display. I hoped I could copy and print it but no deal. I wish I could return this but I don’t see an option to return kindle books. A waste of money.
james v atkins –
excellent book. very useful
KickingSixtyChick –
Box by Box (Popular Woodworking)
My husband has ALWAYS loved boxes — and since his wood working hobby became his second hobby (his garden and love of gardening will always be first) this book seemed the ideal gift. AND IT WAS!! This is now one of his favorites books — it’s full of lots of ideas and the instructions are easy to follow for not only advanced wood workers but those beginners just starting out.
Mike W –
Good info
Ricardo Slussarek –
Se você quer montar caixinhas, você terá os dados suficientes. Ótimo treino para trabalhar com madeira. Vale a pena! Muito Legal
Art H. –
I was interested in making the box on the cover of this book because of the unusual drawer in the box. After making a couple of them for gifts I feel that project alone justified my purchase. There are a couple other project in the book that I will make at some point in time. When I buy these books, it is with the idea that I will not make every project in the book, but, just the ones that are of interest to me for myself or gifts. I will add this book to my growing library and am very satisfied with its’ addition.
Mr. P. Lewis –
Very, very disappointed with this I’m afraid.
It says it’s for beginners and up but it isn’t. It says things like “Use a backer board when planing”. What’s a backer board? I’m a beginner. I need to be told what one IS, nipote just to use one.
It also lists all the tools required for each project. Except clamps never get a mention in the tools list. He just assumes that all beginners already have all the clamps they need, and know which type to use in which circumstance. Well, sadly, being a beginner, I don’t have clamps, and don’t know what I should get.
There are no instructions for marking out, cutting to line, or how to plane (except ‘practice, practice, practice’).
Not impressed at all. Definitely not a book for beginners, and the projects are probably far too simple for someone who already does know how to cut to a line, and plane a flat surface.
S. Doremus –
This is a strange one. My first box was the slider and I spent more time trying to interpret the drawings than actually building the box. The dimensions are nearly impossible discern given the poorly documented drawings and the instructions are woefully lacking. The content is unworthy of the luxuriously hard bound booklet which showed up scratched and dented like it had used as a football around someone’s workshop. The author is reminiscent of those strange kids you knew growing up who had pet tarantulas and other scary fetish’s. With his recollection and inclusion of a Boy Scout safe this is not an aspiring box makers reference but, rather some bizarre self reflection account of which I have no interest in. You don’t get the sense the author is a subject matter expert which is unfortunate because this is the expectation when purchasing a book like this. Save your money and watch a few YouTube videos of real expert on the subject.