100 Dovetail Boxes

Christopher Sexton is on a mission to craft 100 dovetail boxes, one carefully fitted corner at a time. As a volunteer Wood Shop Steward at Nova Labs, Christopher helps care for the shop while supporting our ever-growing community of woodworkers.

What was the inspiration or story behind the 100 boxes project you’re working on?

Hand joinery is something I’ve always found impressive when done well, especially when done in a way machines can’t replicate. Dovetails are honest joints. They don’t hide much. If your layout is sloppy or your sawing is off, the joint makes that clear immediately. I wanted to be able to make the things I was impressed by, not just approximate them with jigs or machines.

I realized I was spending too much time debating what project to build next instead of practicing the skill I actually cared about. So I simplified the decision and committed to making 100 boxes. Boxes became a way to stop thinking about projects and start practicing joinery.

What’s the process you follow when making these boxes?

My approach is the result of trial, error, reading, watching others, and stubborn repetition. I’ve pulled ideas from a lot of places and then filtered them down to what actually works for me. When mistakes happen, I try to understand what caused them instead of just fixing the result and moving on.

Once you understand why a joint fits or doesn’t, it gets much easier to adjust your process in meaningful ways.

Do you have a timeline for completing the project?

No timeline. It’s been going for well over a year. I’ll finish when I hit 100. I just passed 70.

What kind of feedback have you gotten about these boxes?

Almost entirely positive. Nothing is more flattering than someone responding with disbelief “wait you made that by hand?!”

Some folks see hand-cut joinery as inefficient or impractical, or they question whether my admittedly dainty pins are “strong enough.” That criticism usually assumes the goal is producing furniture. It isn’t. This project is about improving my own skills, not optimizing throughput. Measured against that goal, it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

What tools or spaces do you use at Nova Labs to create this work?

The most important tool is a proper hand-tool bench. You need mass and good work holding. Without that, everything else turns into a workaround. The Nova Labs woodshop has benches and vises that actually support hand-tool work, which matters more than people tend to expect.

The shop also has all the tools someone would need for this kind of work, including dovetail saws and chisels. In practice, I usually bring my own saws and chisels when I’m working on hand joinery, but it’s nice to have the option if I need it.

What really enables this work is sharpening. Sharp tools aren’t optional. When you’re cutting joinery by hand, dull tools don’t just slow you down, they end the session. Nova Labs has a complete sharpening setup, from CBN wheels, diamond stones with fancy jigs, even a water-cooled grinder imported from Sweden. That means you can maintain edges properly, experiment a bit, and get back to work. Sharp solves problems.

Do you teach classes on how to do this?

I don’t currently teach a joinary Class, but Anjelika does (https://portal.nova-labs.org/event-6521405). She’s one of the woodshop stewards and has way more formal training than I do.

There are other good learning resources too. the woodshop holds open office hours multiple times a week, where a host is available to help members. Depending on who’s hosting, that can absolutely include hand-tool joinery.

We also run hand-tool meetups where all the power tools are turned off. The shop gets quiet, and people can focus, talk through techniques, and compare approaches. Beyond that, the community itself is a huge resource. Being able to have real conversations about the craft has been a big part of my success.

How has repeating the same project over and over changed the way you approach woodworking more broadly?

Repetition was the point. I needed to do the same thing over and over to build muscle memory and actual skill. Stripping away distractions forced me to confront fundamentals.

What surprised me was how transferable the skills are. Everything I’ve learned from these boxes carries into other woodworking, including work that involves machines. Good layout, accuracy, and confidence don’t disappear just because you turn a motor on.

What do you wish more people understood before trying hand-cut joinery for the first time?

Expect to struggle and don’t treat that as a failure. You will get better, but only with practice. Hand-cut joinery is difficult, and that difficulty is part of what makes it satisfying.

Nobody skips the learning curve. Anyone who tells you they picked it up immediately is either misremembering or very selectively editing the story. Some parts come easier to some people, other parts come easier to others, but everyone puts in the time.

We do this because it isn’t easy. If it were, it would be called something else and we’d all be bored by now.

How does having a shared shop and community like Nova Labs affect long-term, skill-building projects like this one?

A lot of people look at Nova Labs for the tools, and the tools are great. But the real strength of this place is the community.

Being able to engage with other woodworkers, trade opinions, ask questions, and get help makes a big difference. And sometimes, very practically, it’s just helpful to have three extra people around when you’re doing a large complex glue-up.

That combination of space, tools, and community is what makes long-term projects like this sustainable. I have a well-equipped shop at home, but I still come into the woodshop here a couple times a week.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about this undertaking?

Practice matters, especially with hand tools. A lot of woodworkers want to jump straight into projects. I did too. But hand-tool woodworking asks you to invest in skills before it pays you back. You have to normalize the struggle and accept that improvement takes time.

Progress comes from showing up, doing the work, and doing it again. That’s the grind. The reward isn’t that it gets easier. It’s that you get better.