Hugh,
I have not started a box from "scratch", these were already built when I got them.
Just not usable, because of being warped. Removing the warp required re-cutting the inlets to make them deep enough again.
A new box might actually take less time; as I would not paint the inlet areas, but leave them natural like the originals. These are painted because the boxes were stained a red brown, which had to be removed from the flat areas, but is near impossible to get out of the inlet areas.
The big challenge is the latch, which is unlike any US latch I have seen. The original maker made these from scratch also, from solid steel material, way too hard to duplicate. There may be something like them available in Germany, but I have not looked.
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