Instead of having Father-Daughter Tea Time, my dad and I would spend time together by building things. When I was little, my dad would periodically take me to the Home Depot Kids Workshops where we would work together to build small wooden toys like napkin holders, birdhouses, and firetrucks. It was a lot of fun and definitely got me used to handling hammers and screwdrivers, but the beauty of those wood kits is that everything was already pre-cut, pre-drilled, and came with an instruction manual.

The first time I actually attempted to build something out of wood from scratch, I attempted to build a birdhouse for the ENGI 120 Hand Tools workshop and it, uh, didn’t end well. It was badly measured and badly sawed and badly warped. That birdhouse is lost to the sands of time, where it belongs.

So when Dr. Wettergreen told us to build a box from scratch out of wood, I immediately knew that this project was going to be a lot harder than it initially appeared. I had so many questions: How do you use a Kreg jig? Does anyone actually know how to use a table router? And where the hell is the plywood stored?

So the first step came from answering that last question. Plywood is (obviously) stored in the wood shop. That would make sense. The only problem is that the OEDK doesn’t typically store that much excess plywood at any given time, so I dug through some scraps to find two big enough pieces of 3/8″ wood that weren’t too badly warped. I could work with those.

Even though I am a lab tech, I do not feel super comfortable using the saws in the wood shop by myself. So, I got my fellow lab techs, Abigail and Alex, to re-teach me how to use the table saw. This led to the following exchange:

Alex: “Tori, are you doing homework? While on shift?”
Me: “What are you talking about? I’m just helping this poor helpless ENGI student with her project!” *Points at Christina, who is at least as competent in the OEDK as I am*

And so we went to the wood shop. Abigail taught me how to use the table saw, and cutting the wood was going great until suddenly the table saw refused to turn on. So Christina and I were stuck there, each with like one more piece to cut, and we sure as hell weren’t going to try our luck with a jigsaw. I had some previous experience using the panel saw (even though it’s so imprecise I don’t trust it for projects like these), so that’s when Alex taught me how to use the miter saw. Between all three saws in the wood shop, we finally got our pieces cut, and then we went downstairs to figure out how to put our wood together.

I had originally planned on using the Kreg jig to assemble my box, but I had no idea how to use it, so I started to dig through the manual to figure out what screw size and settings I needed. Glancing at the manual, I discovered that the wood I had selected was too thin to use the Kreg jig, a fact that Dr. Wettergreen sadly confirmed.

So after days of debate and research and consideration, I decided to use screws to piece my box together because that was really the only other option I had once Dr. Wettergreen took away all my power by forbidding me from using the Laser Cutter. Also, after sneaking into the machine shop only to learn that the OEDK’s nail collection is pretty pathetic, so screws were really the only option I had.

I originally grabbed 1/2″ self-driving screws, and I used corner clamps to hold the sides of my box together as I pre-drilled the holes in the sides of the wood and then used a manual screwdriver to actually insert the screws. Because my wood was so thin, I was scared of using a power drill on it and splitting the wood, so I avoided using the power drill as much as possible. I also wasn’t sure where the drill bits were, so screwdriver it was.

However, as soon as I moved the corner clamps, my box folded in on itself because the screws I was using were too short and I hadn’t pre-drilled deep enough holes. Well, that was an easy fix. I ran upstairs and grabbed some 3/4″ screws and re-drilled deeper holes into the box so that it would actually stay together this time.

At about this time, Dr. Wettergreen came out of his office to see Christina and I very obviously working on his homework over at the tool table. He came over to see our progress and side-eyed my sketchy clamp set-up with my box. This led to the following exchange:

Dr. Wettegreen: “Uh, is your wood splitting?”
Me: “No, actually. I’ve had pretty good luck so far.”
Dr. Wettergreen: “…That sounds fake, but okay. You should use a smaller drill bit though.” *Walks away*
*Literally five minutes later*
Me: “Dammit, my wood split!”

I blame this janky set-up:

Essentially, the interior dimensions of my box were too small for me to use a corner clamp for more than three sides. So, to clamp it together to build holes, I went from the outside and delicately balanced the box on already completed sides and some clamps. When I applied the pressure to drill the holes, I think it shifted enough that I wasn’t drilling down at a 90 degree angle anymore and the bit started coming out of the side of the wood. I fixed this by just trying again multiple times until I got a hole that actually stayed inside the wood.

Christina looked up and saw my issues and then mentioned that over the summer, one of her coworkers taught her how to make wood filler out of sawdust and glue. So I looked up a basic tutorial online,  swept up all the sawdust we had produced over the past hour, grabbed some cardboard and wood glue, and attempted to make some wood filler. It kind of turned out, and it was usable, but the shards that come from using the Kreg jig are way too big to be used for wood filler, but I didn’t know that and used it anyway.

So now that I had successfully pre-drilled and built the box, I needed to take it apart so I could have smaller panels that I could sand down and use on the table router. I decided to do these steps after initially building the box because I was the most concerned about pre-drilling the holes in the skinny wood. Once I successfully did that, I felt a lot more comfortable polishing and processing the wood because I knew I [probably] wouldn’t destroy anything in that process.

So I took it apart, and I thought I was being clever by color coding the corners where the wood pieces met so I could put the box back together again. The pieces were not interchangeable from the previously mentioned wood-splitting incident: The holes are not identically placed on each panel.

Part of the assignment included using the table router to round the corners of the box. Last semester, I had to supervise an ENGI 120 team that had to use the table router, and I felt so uncomfortable supervising them because I didn’t even know we had it, let alone how to use it. So I turned this opportunity into a Teachable Moment™ by asking Fernando to train me to use the table router. And let me tell you, it is so much easier to use than it looks. Just set up the drill bit, run your piece of wood along the back board, and you have a routed piece. Things only really got complicated when I tried to arrange my pieces to determine which edges would be routed (this was when I realized that my color-coding idea could have been much better executed) and when Fernando attempted teach me how to change the drill bit.

That being said, after some perusal of the instruction manual and trial-and-error, we successfully replaced the drill bit and routed all my necessary edges. I just hope that the routing didn’t mess up my drilled holes too badly.

Apparently, I had missed a bunch of holes when I had originally mixed the wood filler, so I had to make some more and finish the job and prevent Dr. Wettergreen from noticing my mistakes. 

Christina had previously mentioned that the wood shaving I used to make my first batch of wood filler were too large, so I needed some finer shavings. Conveniently, there is no vacuum hooked up to the table saw in the wood shop, so if anyone saws some wood, a bunch of super fine sawdust flies out of the saw and right onto the floor. Also conveniently, it was 3:30 PM on a Wednesday, which meant that I was on shift and that the wood shop needed to be cleaned. So I swept the wood shop and instead of throwing the saw dust away, I used it to make a second batch of wood filler (I mean, I was going to throw it away anyway…)

This second batch of wood filler turned out so much better and smoother than the first. The fluffy saw dust definitely helped, as did my previous experience with the stuff (so I sorta kinda maybe had a vague idea of what I was doing this time). I used it to coat all of the holes and strange gashes in my box, and I left the pieces to dry.

Because the wood was rough and the routing had roughed up the edges even more, I decided to sand down my box so it would be super nice. This worked for removing splinters, smoothing out the routed [and non-routed], and removing the wood filler from the surface of the wood. The orbital sander is a lot more powerful than I give it credit for, and it definitely makes sanding a lot easier. That being said, I don’t think that the other OEDK patrons appreciated that I was using the [very loud and very noisy] sander for like 40 minutes straight.

At that point, all that was left to do was assemble the box back together, which went about as well as one would expect. There were a few hiccups along the way, such as my box not fitting together quite as well as it originally had, and the screws sticking out from the edges a bit due to the routed edges, but all in all, it’s a pretty good box, and I am proud of it.

However, during this process, Dr. Wettergreen again left his office, saw me at the Tool Table very obviously working on my ENGI 210 project, and came over to chat. This led to the following exchange:

Dr. Wettergreen: “Ah, you are assembling your box. How are you going to make sure your edges are square?”
Me: *Stares at him while processing the question* “Um, I already built it and it worked?”
Dr. Wettergreen: “Yes, I think that is a good process that you are following. However, your screws are extruding from your box. Have you considered countersinking them?”
Me, genuinely intrigued: “No, how would I do that?”
Dr. Wettergreen: “Just, you know, drill more.”

Thanks. That’s, uh, helpful.

By that point, I had decided not to countersink the screws into the wood, both because of that aforementioned fear of power drills and the lack of a desire to take apart and reassemble my box for the third time.

That being said, my dad – the very same dad who took me to Home Depot Kids Workshops when I grew up – came to visit me this weekend. My dad knows how to countersink screws, so he showed me how to do it to make my box look a little nicer. Sure enough, it does require more drilling as well as different screws and yet another batch of wood filler.

 

So at that point, I considered my box finished. There are some definite flaws in it, such as the semi-split wood, and the markings, but I am also really, really proud of it. I was not excited when I heard the assignment because I knew it would be far more difficult than it sounded, partially because I had never built anything completely from scratch using only basic construction materials before (#LaserCutterLyfe). I learned a lot this week, from how to use the tools in the wood shop to how to make effective wood filler. Ultimately, I think this was a good exercise to make me complete because I learned so much and proved to myself that I can actually build things from scratch if put to the task.