I've completed my third major woodworking project. I took design elements from many other toy chests I had seen and I created the final plans using Sketchup. All panels are made from solid maple. The bottom is plywood so as to not have to worry about expansion across the case. The inlay is my son's initials and was made using a self made set of four templates and router inlay collet/bit. I used a locking rabbet for the rear corners and tried my hand at my first set of hand cut dovetails. The joints came out pretty tight but I still have a ways to go to get to Mr. Zimmel's mastery level. I sanded to 180 and used the following finish schedule: BLO, three coats of wiping varnish (half ploy, half mineral spirits), and buffed out paste wax on the exterior with 0000 steel wool between each coat. Comments and critiques are welcome. Enjoy.
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