With some trepidation I went headlong into the fabrication of my Saw Box lid. The challenge came from the the geometry of the corner joint for the lid. By mounting the top board in a groove in the frame boards, the only way to conceal the groove would be to use a mitre joint.
The big problem with ordinary mitre joints is they are weak and do not offer a lot of glueing area. This is the reason I chose the mitered dovetail joint. The mitre hides the groove and the dovetail gives the joint strength. I have never cut this joint before, I have only seen Roy Underhill cut these on his 2-episode show on the Woodwright’s Shop where he made a Joiner’s Tool Chest and used this type of joint for the same reason as I was going to use it. My effort was a process of trial and error; my first one was ok, but it had a few extra unnecessary cuts. Fortunately I foresaw this difficulty and planned ahead with extra long stock, which gave me a couple of tries for each piece. When it came to cutting the critical second cuts on each board, I was getting pretty good at it.
