The construction material is MDF. It makes for a heavy toy chest but it's easy to work with and paints well. One tip about painting MDF is to use a mixture of glue and water to coat the edges. MDF soaks up the paint on the edges and looks sloppy. After you coat it with the glue sizing and let it dry you can sand it to 320 grit and it smooths out nicely.
I used a piano hinge for the top. They are easy to install and because of all the screws it holds well in the MDF which does not take screws all that great in the edges. I did not have time to order a slow close catch so I settled for the lock open style. This is not the safest hing for a toy chest so I might order a slow close and replace this one.
I used pocket hole joinery to assemble the box. I have the Kreg pocket hole jig and I love the thing. I use it all the time for fast and strong joints. If you build any kind of cabinetry or boxes like this it is the perfect tool. I did not fill the pocket holes inside the box but they have inserts that you can sand flat and hide the holes.
I had a lot of trouble finding handles that I thought fit the project so I made custom handles in the shape of baseball glove and ball..
One note about building projects from MDF. My shop is a disaster after building this box. The dust from MDF is terrible. It's the one drawback that almost keeps me from using the stuff. If you use MDF wear a dust mask.I'm going to deliver this gift to the birthday party tomorrow after noon. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. This is an example of how a scroll saw can be put to good use for "regular woodworking projects". Now that I have this finished I will get back to working on the blog for you guys. This was one of those honey do projects that had to get finished first or I would be sleeping in the dog house.