
It's about time for an update on the first aid kit I've been working on for the past few days. Â Sorry if it's a long post, but I'm still learning and practicing my craft and I have a few tips I'd like to share. Â As a reminder, this is a wall-mounted (via French cleat) box made of 3/4-inch red oak and maple. Â It's about 19.25 inches tall, 11.75 inches wide and 6.25 inches deep.
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I built the outer frame using dovetail joints and assembled it yesterday. Â Here's a close-up of one of the dovetail joints. Â I'm still pretty new to hand-cut dovetails, so I'm working with relatively large stock (0.75 inches in this case) and making the dovetails pretty large. Â This takes less work and ensures that the joint is plenty strong.

 Today, I began by cutting some dados in the sides of the vertical pieces to support the shelves.  This was actually much easier to do once the outer frame was assembled since I didn't have to worry about measuring anything at all.  I simply clamped a piece of scrap wood into the frame to act as an edge guide and ran the router through twice on each side. Â

I had enough of the board I used for the frame to make a shelf, but I didn't have any more oak just laying around, so I used a piece of scrap maple for the second shelf. Â
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I decided that I wanted to add a rail across the front of each shelf, so I cut some scrap pieces left over from another project.  You can see in the photo above the dado for the shelf and the outline of the front rail where I traced it onto the side of the box.  I used the good old mallet and chisel to join the rail to the box.  Tip for this step: I traced the board with pencil which, due to the thickness of the lead would make the joint very loose if I were to cut directly on the line.  So when I began to cut the joint, I cut inside the pencil mark.  It's much easier to cut a joint small and cut away more material to make it fit than to try to fill a gap.

 I did this six times (two for each rail) and was ready for glue-up.  My joinery wasn't perfect, so when I glued the rails on, I mixed some sawdust  with the glue to make some wood filler to try to close the gaps.  It looks pretty funny while the glue is setting.

 After sanding/clean-up, it looked pretty good.

Last night, I shaped the rear of the box and the front door. Â You probably noticed the very top photo where I put a first aid cross on the front. Â When someone is hurt, subtlety doesn't work too well. Â I used stain instead of paint since that's what I had laying around the shop. Â Stain bleeds around the edges of the tape, so it's not too clean, but I'll figure that out tomorrow. Â I think I can make it into a "feature" like I usually do.

I also glued the rear panel to the box today, but didn't take any photos. Â You can probably imagine what that looks like. Â I glued, clamped, nailed it in place with the nail gun and it's good to go. Â
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Tomorrow, I'll install the hinges, knob and magnetic catch. Â Then I'll wipe on some danish oil.
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The workshop continues to grow and increase its functionality and capability. Â
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