“The Tooth Fairy Was Here”
I got the idea to make this while listening to a mother comfort her daughter who was in the next exam room during my semi annual dental check up.
The concept is to have the child put the tooth in the box with the plain lid and place it on their nightstand, dresser, or under their pillow. Once the child is sound asleep, you put the $$$ in the box with the engraved lid and sneak into their room to “swap” the boxes.
The most difficult aspect was figuring out the lid/base tolerances so they snugly fit together without binding and to minimize sanding. Did I mention that I hate sanding small parts!?
Another design point that had to be considered was to ensure that the machine didn’t have to be re-zero’d in between cutting the “top and bottom” tool paths. ie: from engraving the lid to cutting out the base and lid pockets on the reverse side of the stock.
Setting up a rigid 90-degree corner block on the spoil board ensured the stock would properly be positioned (aligned) when the stock was flipped over…assuming the stock’s left side corners were cut at exactly 90-degrees and that the stock’s exact dimension’s were correctly entered in the job’s setup.
It shouldn’t be necessary to point out, but I will,
that centering the design on the stock is critical since the stock will need to be flipped over between engraving the tops to cutting the top and bottom pocketing tool paths, as well as cutting out the boxes.
Also, please note that the project was set up using multiple tool path groups so that they could selectively be enabled or disabled, depending on the side of the keepsake box being cut. This is more about my preference and/or propensity to simplify the job’s tool path logic than it is about the job’s requirements.
Anyway, my niece’s daughter will be receiving her ’Tooth Fairy’ keepsake box early this week, once the USPS delivers them. ![]()
Tooth Fairy Boxes.c2d (676 KB)

