hey guys so i wanted to show you a project that i finished up a little while ago it's a keepsake box and it's in the shape of a fish and you can see this little dowel rod right here kind of holds the the lid together and on the inside you can store your treasure inside um it's it's a great beginner project if you're new to woodworking or even if you've been working for a little while now and you're just looking for an easy afternoon project this is a great one to look at i actually got the plans for this from a local woodworking group that i belong to here in indianapolis and um and if you're not if you're not involved in a local group you should really try and check one out there's lots of good stuff that you can learn from from one another as well as kind of being community with other guys and uh the group that i actually belong to they they make boy they make thousands of toys um every year and at the end of the year they pass them out um you know right at christmas time to low-income households and it's pretty neat what they've been able to do so uh anyways check out the video that i made of how how i made this and as always you can check out my website at woodlogger.com where i've got more pictures and detailed information and i have a template too of uh you know you know what i used to cut this out so to get started on my uh fish keepsake box um i used four boards and so what i've got are i've got two three quarter inch width um boards and i cut these down to four and three quarters by six inches long and so the the two three quarter boards will be they'll kind of make up the middle of the box and so when i what i'll do is i'll drill a hole that goes all the way through and then i have a sizer planer that i use to sort of trim these boards down but but if you don't have a sizer planer you don't have to use it i mean you can probably get your hands on some half inch thick boards i do so i went ahead and chop or cut mine down so that um they would be that that width so i put mine at a half inch width for the top and then i put this one as about a quarter of an inch for the bottom and so it kind of all comes together you sort of have these four boards and this is sort of your lid and it flies open so anyways i'm going to go ahead and tape these up and then head over to the bandsaw after that so for the tape up on this i just use double stick tape and you know one tip on that is don't let it set for too long or it you know it's almost impossible to take off next up i just cut out the template of my fish and i'll use double stick tape for that as well just to kind of hold everything together so when it came to cutting everything out i just used a band saw i think that's the easiest tool if you have one you could certainly use a jigsaw if you wanted to but you know a bandsaw really gives you a sort of all that you know gives you more control and flexibility on how you're going to make your cuts so for cutting the fish eye out i just used a drill bit that matched the diameter of the dowel rod that i'm going to be using for the fisheye and then next up uh was just taking everything apart and pulling that double you know pulling this wood apart from the double stick tape you do have to be a little careful that you know you don't break one of your boards along one of the grains especially some of the thinner pieces but anyways after i had everything pulled apart i got my two the middle section or the center section and for the hole that i was going to use i just used a forstner bit for that i use the largest one i have which is about two and a half inches you can use up to three inches i think that'll fit just fine or you could just use a jigsaw and just cut it out that way as well okay guys so i've got all my fish pieces uh cut i need to kind of glue everything up clamp it let it dry and then i'll be ready for uh the little dowel fisheye to hold the uh cover on i'm just gonna use some glue okay i think i've got everything pretty much lined up get some clamps on there okay i've got all my clamps on there i think i'm gonna let it dry for a little bit and then i'll be ready for the uh the box cover and the little dowel that holds it in okay well my box should be all dry now i'm gonna go ahead and work on putting the top on and the top is going to go something like this here's my dowel i'll slide right in there as my fish eye and all i have to do is just glue it into place and then you'll be able to open it up of course it'll be a lot tighter when it's on there for good so i'm gonna squeeze some glue in there and uh one thing i will do is i'll put some wax paper on the dowel in between the top of this and this so that if any uh any glue kind of bleeds out a little bit it'll uh you know won't make the the lid stick to uh the base okay well i'm just gonna let this uh set i've got this in there it feels pretty snug you know i don't want it too tight or the the lid will have a hard time shifting but i don't want it too loose or it'll just kind of flip around but uh this this feels pretty good so i've got my box all done uh my dowel dry for my little fish eye and now i'm just gonna i'm gonna put a a layer of finish on it i'm using a product called salad bowl finish i've used it before for some other things and i was pretty happy with with the results i'm just gonna repeat that again i'll just wipe it on and wipe it off okay well i've got it pretty stained pretty well i think i'm gonna let this dry for a few hours um and probably gonna give it one more coat so there you have it there's my fish shaped treasure box and it you know it turned out great it's a it's a great little project especially if you're new to woodworking this is a great place to get started so be sure to check out my website at woodlogger.com where i've got more pictures and information about this and other projects going on in my shop