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CrownMolding Boxes

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They look like the work of an artist, with their elegant curves and clas-sic proportions. Actually, you can make these delightful boxes withcrown molding available at any home center. The trick is in the jigs, andthe jigs aren’t complicated at all. So, just spend a little time jigging up,and you’ll soon be turning out a variety of impressive boxes. Don’tworry—no mathematics or protractors required.

They're shapely, stately, and oh so easy to make

DS-014 ©Copyright Meredith Corporation 2001

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A

B

C

A tale of three boxes

Believe it or not, these boxeswere made from crown moldingof the same size and profile, butwith slight building modifications.Box A is made of red oak with anoak handle. Boxes B and C,made of cherry, have cardinalwood and Corian handles,respectively.

We made boxes A and B in thesame way, except we positionedthe crown moldings upside downin the jigs when cutting the partsfor box B (relative to how wepositioned them when makingbox A). With box C, we laid themoldings at a flatter angle in themiter-gauge jig. Doing this madethe box more upright in stature.

This technique began to hatch in themind of assistant design editor Jan Svecseveral years ago. A fellow employee at amillwork shop would take scraps ofmolding, miter them, and make boxeswith vertical sides.

Not bad, thought Jan. Not bad for abeginning.

The next step came when he touredhistoric homes in Philadelphia, search-ing for project design ideas for WOOD®

magazine. “In one house, I saw a tea boxwith a molding profile inside and out,”Jan said. That would be a very compli-cated project, but what about a boxthat’s fancy on the outside and plain onthe inside? He realized that crown mold-ing would do the trick.

However, part of the beauty of this teabox came from its angled sides, so Janexperimented with ways to cut com-pound miters without complicated mathor fancy equipment. In fairly short order,he came up with the two jigs shown onthe next 2 pages.

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#8 x 3/4" F.H.wood screw

1/8 x 41/2 x 61/4"hardboard

5/32" shank hole,countersunk

7/64" pilot hole5/8" deep

18"

25/8"

1/8 x 61/4 x 153/4" hardboard


5/32" shank hole,countersunk on bottom

3/4 x 25/8 x 18" plywood

#8 x 11/4" panheadwood screw

Cut a 45o bevel withtablesaw after jig ismounted to miter gauge. Miter gauge

mounted to jig

41/2"

3/4 x 21/2 x 43/4" spacersremoved after assembly

MITER-GAUGE JIG

16"

22"

3/4 x 1 x 14" cleat 1/2 x 16 x 22" plywood

Stock to fitmiter-gauge slots

90o


5/32" shank hole,countersunk

1/8" saw kerf, centered

5/32" shank hole,countersunk on bottom


#8 x 11/4" F.H. wood screw

11/2 x 3 x 12" fence

11/2 x 3 x 4"blade guard

45o bevels

43/4"

3/4 x 3/4 x 43/4" spacersremoved after assembly

SLIDING TABLE JIG

Why two jigs instead of one? It hasto do with the limited height of atablesaw blade and the need for ahigh-profile box topped by a low-profile lid. Make them, try them,and you’ll see. You’ll soon cut thesecompound miters without ever hav-ing to figure an angle in degrees.

You can use the jigs as shown tomake boxes of any width andlength. They will handle moldingup to 4fl" wide. As you can see onpage 2, changing the position ofthe workpieces in the jigs dramati-cally changes the appearance of thebox. In this article, we’ll show youhow to build boxes like the ones onpage 1. Then you can experimentwith other styles.

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Ready to try one?First, cut the four sidesOur finished box will measureabout 8" wide by 10" long. From apiece of 4‹"-wide crown molding,cut two pieces 8fi" long and twopieces 10fi" long. Cut them in thesequence that they’ll followaround the box—side, end, side,end—and number each one nearthe bottom edge. (This way, thegrain will seem to “run” continu-ously around the box.)

Set your tablesaw blade to 45°, orjust a hair over, to make sure thatthe outside points of the miters willbe tight. Slip the miter-gauge jiginto the right-hand slot of the table-saw, and load one of the fourpieces into it. Lean the molding

against the rear fence at the steep-est angle that will still allow theblade to cut through it, then mea-sure the distance between thelower edge and the front fence. Cuta spacer to that width, and put itbetween the workpiece and thefence, as shown on Page 6.

The edge that sits higher in the jigwill become the top edge of the fin-ished box; the lower edge will be atthe bottom. Double-check thatbefore making each cut. Now, withthe workpiece wedged firmlybetween spacer and fence, cut amiter. Do the same at one end ofeach of the four pieces.

To miter the opposite ends, flipone of the shorter pieces so it’sleaning against the front fence, and-

place the spacer between the work-piece and the rear fence. Line it upwith the blade, and clamp a stop-block at the other end. You don’thave to measure a thing. Cut thatmiter, take the piece out, and cutthe second short piece exactly thesame way, without moving thestopblock.Remove the stopblock, and follow

the same procedure for the longerpieces. Tape the four pieces togeth-er to check the fit.

Adding feet and a bottomwon’t take you longAlong the bottom edge of eachworkpiece, measure in 1" fromeach end and make a mark. Draw aline parallel to the bottom edge and1" up from that edge. With a com-pass set to a 1" radius, scribe a

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When forming the legs, use a fence with a drum or spindle sander tosand a straight edge and smooth radius.

curve up to the line. Use a scrollsaw or bandsaw to cut

close to that line. Install a 2" drumin your spindle sander or on yourdrill press, and sand to the line asshown in the photo above.

As shown in the drawing on Page

6, use a sliding bevel gauge andstraightedge to determine the anglefor the kerf that holds the box bot-tom. Again, the number of degreesisn’t important. Just set the slidingbevel gauge and use it to set yourtablesaw blade.With the feet of each piece against

the rip fence and the molding pro-file facing up, saw a ¤"-wide kerfabout ¤" above the leg cutout and‰" deep at its shallow side. Do thison all four pieces. Measure thelengths of those kerfs to find thedimensions of the bottom, and cut

a piece of ¤" plywood or solidwood to fit.

After test-fitting, glue together thesides, ends, and bottom of the box.Hold them together with maskingtape and a band clamp until theglue dries. Make sure the top edgesare lined up at the corners. It’s eas-ier to sand away imperfections ifthey’re on the bottom.

Top off your beautifulbox with a matching lidAs you choose molding stock forthe lid, keep in mind that the lidpieces cannot meet in the center ofthe box. That’s because there mustbe a panel at least 1" wide in thecenter of the lid for mounting ahandle. For the box in our exam-ple, 3fi"-wide crown molding willdo the trick. If the box was wider,the 4‹"-wide stock used for thebase might work for the lid as well.

From the 3fi" crown molding, cuttwo pieces 8fi" long and twopieces 10fi" long. As before, cut ina side-end-side-end sequence andnumber the pieces.Also, cut a scrap of that molding 1"

long and tape it to the box so thatits bottom edge fits snugly againstthe bevel of the box. Lay a straightpiece of scrapwood across the boxand mark the angle of your scrapmolding on it. (See the drawing onPage 6.) Set the sliding bevel gaugeto that angle, and use it to set thetablesaw blade, with the handle ofthe gauge held against the rip fenceas shown on the next page.

Saw kerfs in each lid piece toreceive the top panel. To do so,hold the flat side of the moldingagainst the fence, and cut a slot ¤"wide and ‰" deep, at least ¤"from the edge that will be thehighest part of the lid. See thephoto on Page 7.

Place the sliding table jig in theslots of your tablesaw, and set theblade at exactly 90°. To find thecorrect angle for the miter cut,again use a piece of scrap molding1" long taped to the box. With astraightedge across the box, mea-

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Saw blade tilt angle

Wood scrap

Mark anglewith pencil

MEASURING THE ANGLE FOR THE TOP PANEL KERFS

Maximum height of sawblade when tilted to 45o

Spacer

DETERMININGTHE SPACER SIZE

FOR THEMITER-GAUGE JIG

(Workpiece shownat maximum angle)

Sliding bevel gauge

Sawblade tilt angle

MEASURING THE ANGLE FOR THE BOTTOM PANEL KERFS

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Fence

Saw blade

Sliding bevel gauge

SETTING THESAW BLADE ANGLE

FOR THE TOP PANEL KERFS

C

AB

A-B+C=height strip

MEASURING FOR THE HEIGHT STRIP TO SET THE TOP SLOPE

Hold the back side of the molding against your table-saw’s fence to cut the kerf that holds the panel in thecenter of the lid.

Spacer

Height strip

Maximum heightof saw blade

USING THE HEIGHT STRIPTO DETERMINE THE TOPANGLE AND SPACER WIDTH

Cleat

sure as shown in the illustration onPage 7. Cut a piece of scrap to alength that equals A-B+C. Hold thisheight strip flat against the leftfence of the jig, and draw a linealong the top edge.

Tilt one of the molding piecesagainst the fence so that it just cov-ers the line, and measure the gapbetween the workpiece and thecleat. Cut a spacer to fit that gap.See the drawing above. Cut amiter at one end of each of thefour pieces, each time pressing thepiece firmly between the fenceand spacer.

Hold one of the longer lid piecesagainst the side of the box, andmark its finished length, whichshould be about 10" in our exam-ple. Moving to the right-hand sideof the sliding table jig, put the spac-er against the cleat and set theworkpiece so the blade meets themark. Clamp a stopblock to thefence and against the point of themitered end. Cut the miter.

Repeat the procedure for theother long piece, and follow thesame steps for the two shorter

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Attach four cleats at right angles to each other to hold the lid piecesin position on a plywood clamping platform.

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pieces. Again, the bottom edge of the lid goesat the bottom when cutting. Cut a piece of ¤"plywood or solid wood to fit the lid kerfs.

To make a clamping jig for the lid, screwtwo pieces of scrap to a piece of plywood atright angles, hold the lid together, and set itinto that corner. Screw two more scrappieces into the plywood so that they’retight against the lid as shown in the photoon Page 8.

Take the lid out, glue the miters, and replacethe lid assembly into the clamping jig. Aboard or two on top, held down by clamps,will force the miters snugly together asshown at left.

For a handle, we suggest a “fin” made of‹–fi" stock, cut to the length of the lidpanel and about fi–1" wide. This would be afine time to use a piece of exotic scrapwoodor Corian. Attach the handle with brassscrews from the bottom side of the panel.

Apply the finish of your choice. Paintworks well for woods lacking showy grainpatterns, or if you want to show off thegrain, apply several coats of oil and top it offwith paste wax.¿

Apply glue to the mitered edges, and squeeze them togetherwith the help of some scrap stock and clamps.

A few facts about crown moldingYou can buy crown molding in many sizes andspecies. Shown here are some of the moldings weworked with during the making of this article. Eachone will produce a box with a slightly different look.

Commonly available species include oak, cherry,and poplar, and range in width from 3fi" to 7‹". (Ifyou use moldings wider than 4fl", you will need toupsize our jigs to accommodate their greater width.Your larger jigs will work just like the ones shown inthis article.) We used economically priced poplar forthe painted boxes.When you go shopping, check a couple of sources

for selection and price, and inspect the molding’ssurface carefully. Some mills turn out glass-smoothcuts, and some leave noticeable chatter marks thatcan be tough to sand out of an elaborate profile.

Also, some mills cut grooves in the back side ofthe molding and some mills don’t. If you prefer asmooth interior, be sure to flip the molding over andcheck the back before buying.

A wide range of availablecrown moldings meansyou can make an infinite varietyof boxes.

The purchase of these plans does not transfer any copyright or otherownership interest in the plans, the design, or the finished project to thebuyer. Buyer may neither reproduce the plans for sale nor offer for saleany copies of the finished project.

Produced by Marlen KemmetWritten by Jim Pollock

and Bill Krier with Jan SvecIllustrations: Roxanne LeMoinePhotographs: Bill HopkinsGraphic Design: Jamie Downing©Copyright Meredith Corporation 2001