On 2010-02-26 13:40:06 -0500, Kevin Miller said:

Very nice.
Did you make the sides thick and trim/angle them on the tablesaw or did
you calculate the compound corners?

Thanks, all.

This is pretty simple -- the joints are essentially half-laps. As you
guessed, the box was assembled and then the sides beveled. I did use a
table saw, but a band saw is more commonly used since that allows more
depth to the box.

The design alteration here was the inserts midway up the corners -- the
success of the box depends on tight, square joins. Since I'm pretty new
at this stuff (at least, at "precise" stuff), things didn't meet. They
gapped.* So I opened the gap with a bit more precision and plugged in
the purpleheart. Since I'd already used purleheart in the lid, it looks
like it was designed that way. grin

Dad had rough-split the oak some years before his death, and the
purpleheart was something he'd picked up someplace. Got some
interesting pieces of cocobolo and rosewood for accents on some future
project or three.

*Too much speed on my part, though I am looking for a reliable table saw!