I had been woodworking mostly vicariously through different Youtubers for the better part of a year. I've never really had the funds while in college to buy tools and fancy woods, so what I have built I've built with cheap or free woods with the best craigslist tools I could find. So when taxes rolled in I seized the opportunity and splurged on some nicer woods, some curly Maple, Sapele, and Paduak, I had been planning on making another box for a friends birthday, but with the week of Finals going on I would only have less than a week to finish the gift.

I didn't plan out this box at all before I started building it. I knew there was the dovetail challenge going on via Reddit, and I knew I wanted to create something that I felt could compete with the amazing content that I see on the site. I also knew I wanted to maple sapele paduak (none of my woods make the pun, should have used spruce instead) up the dovetails, and decided that bisecting one would be my creative addition to the piece. This was the first time I was using many techniques I had seen my inspirations use as well as a table saw, so trying to plan out how to account for saw kerf and such was problematic.

I am so happy with the final result. I am not the best with photography, but I hope that these pictures still do the box justice. Total time was probably around twenty hours over 4 days.

I learned so much doing this project, and feel like I achieved my goal of creating something that could compete with some of the creations I see from the r/woodworking community. Id be happy to answer any questions you all have, and would love to hear any sort of constructive criticism you all have. I want to be better.

Thanks