Upside Down Rabbet Box

The combination of rabbet joints and an upside down box works wonderfully together. This box can be done with nice wood to make a decorative box or it can be assembled quickly from pine and thin ply or MDF to make something functional quickly. This is a great beginners project because it involves a lot of simple steps. It gives experience seeing how the project comes together but it is fairly simple. It also scales well.

If working with raw lumber, figure out the length of the sides, top and bottom and cut a board with a little wiggle room and plane the board in one pass. If you can spare it, cut the board long enough that the snipes can just be cut off to save some work sanding later on.

The rabbets and lips should all be cut without changing the height of the sawblade.

The shorter (non rabbet) sides should be left just a little bit longer so that after cutting the rabbets and dry fitting the sides, they can be trimmed down to perfect square.

The recesses for the top and bottom should be just a little shallower than the rabbets, otherwise they show. After cutting the rabbets and lips, move the blade down just a hair.

Clean both inside edges of the lip with a chisel because it's impossible to sand. But on the rabbet, don't do the part that lines up with the out side of the lip or there will be a small gap.

Once the six pieces are all cut (including rabbets, lips and grooves) set the table saw fence (or record the length very accurately). Finish the inside of the box, including both sides of the top and bottom. While waiting for the finish to set, apply wood glue to the end grain of the shorter pieces and the inside portion of the rabbet. Either tape off the edges of the shorter pieces or use a low grit sand paper other wise you'll be gluing to the finish inside the rabbet which won't be as strong. Then do the glue up. Once it's dry, cut it on the table saw and finish the outside.

An interesting variant would be to make two at once, but only but the bottom in the second and don't cut it in half. This would give a three piece stacking set of two boxes and a lid.

Could this be done with

• Miter rabbet
• Locking miter