Puzzle box 2

how was this done?

I have been meaning to make a couple of these. How long did it take you? (And did you add the magnets?)

I'm trying to figure out how to adapt this into a bank for one of my kids. (The other has a tendency to take his brother's collected money and spend it for him... )

No magnets here.

I basically routed dovetail channels on the top board piece on the router table. I drew 3 lines down the board at the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 mark. Then I ran the dovetail channels at the 1/4 and 3/4 line at the apropriate height.

For the bottom piece I routed the tails sneaking up on the mating top. Once I have the two halfs fitted together I trimmed the ends cutting 45 degree cuts at the 0 to 1/2 mark and at the 1/2 mark to the end at each end to make it diamond shape (or a square if you turned it 45 degrees).

I did it my first try, sneaking up on the top piece was actually not bad at all. The only thing you have to really measure it how thick the stock is. It looks like 2 equal pieces when together but the bottom is actually the thickness of the top plus the height of the tails.