This week Lidvin and I teamed up to build something that has never been built before, a Minecraft TNT box. Why did we do this? Well we just wanted to build something unique and this idea sprouted up in Lidvin’s head and I thought it was cool and fun.
Preparing Materials
The first step of the process was cutting our wood. Since we did not request our wood to be precut we had to do it ourselves. This took longer than we anticipated since a lot of our peers were also cutting their wood. In total we cut:
- 9 14.5 inch 1 by 4s
- 6 12 inch 1 by 4s
- 4 10-11 inch 2 by 2s
Constructing the Layers
We first began the building part of the project by sanding all of pieces first to ensure they were smooth before putting them together since we knew it would be more tedious if we were to do it afterwards.
This is when we decided that our crate was going to have handles since we wanted it to be easy to transport and walk around with. We took the 2 12 inch 1 by 4s we were using for the top base and clamped them down to start cutting. I used a hack saw for this while Lidvin used a jigsaw. I really regret not using a jigsaw for this since the hack saw really only allowed me to a few big chunks at a time and left the edges really rough while the jigsaw was just one smooth cut. To fix up the handles and make them the same in dimensions we used rasps. We alternated a lot from just a rectangular rasp to a curved rasp since we wanted our handles to be as comfortable to the hand as possible. We also sanded the handles to achieve this goal of comfortability.
For each layer we used 2 of the 14.5 inch 1 by 4s and 2 of the 12 inch 1 by 4s and attached them in this fashion (with the screws going into the front of the 12 inch 2 by 4s):
We repeated this a total of 12 times to build 3 layers of the crate.
Once we had the layers constructed, it was time to route them. Since we were aiming to complete the crate at the intermediate level we had to use two different routing patterns. We started off by routing both the bottom layer and top layer using the routing table with a rounded bit.
Once we routed the edges and corners of the 2 layers it was time to switch to a different routing patter for the middle layer. We decided it would be cool to go for something completely different, so instead of a rounded bit we used a cone bit.
Now it was time for more sanding as routing the layers resulted in the edges having some roughness to them and we did not want to move on to painting without the layers being completely smooth. Through using the orbital sander, we noticed that the sand paper kept ripping and saw that it was caused by a crack in one of the pieces that had been there since the beginning. Lidvin then came up with the idea of using bondo putty to fill in this crack and some other holes in the wood.
Spray Painting
Once we were done sanding we could move on the fun part, the spray painting! We used a bright red for the top and bottom layers and white for the middle layer to give it that iconic TNT block look. For the 2 by 2 stilts we decided to go with black since it fit the design we were going for.
Of course once we were done spray painting the layers we now had to decide how were going to have the letters TNT be represented on our box. Our first idea was to 3d print the letters since we did not have access to the laser cutter. I thought that it would look better if we spray painted the letters directly onto the middle layer since it would fit the design a lot more and Lidvin agreed. In order to do this, I first created the design for the stencil we were going to use.
I then cut the stencil using both an exacto knife and scissors. Using the stencil we then proceeded to spray paint a test piece to ensure it actually worked.
After testing it, it was obvious that just the printer paper would not be enough to make a clean design. I decided it would be a good idea to add tape to the back of the stencil and make some of it double sized to ensure more stability when spray painting. Once I did it was time to spray paint all 4 sides of the middle layer of the crate.
There was still some smudging on the letters but we thought it actually fit with the theme we were going for with this design so we left it as is. It was finally time to assemble everything together.
Assembling
When spray painting we only had the 3 layers built, but we made sure to also paint the pieces were going to attach to the bottom layer to create the base of the crate. We now needed to use the stilts to assemble the whole crate. To do this we late out the layers side ways with the stilts inside and began measuring so that our crate would end up being 12 inches tall. Once we got all the measurements sorted with the gap in between the layers being about 1 inch to 1 1/8 inches in length we got to screwing everything together. As we were going along with assembling, we noticed that since some of the stilts were not perfect in shape due to the wood we were given to work with it would be hard to put them together without using clamps to push the stilts towards the sides of the crate.
Once the crate was assemble we gave it a few touch ups with spray paint and BOOM! we were done! (pun very much intended)
reflection
Although this assignment was a time sink I still had fun building it with Lidvin and the result makes it worth it. There are definitely a lot of improvements that could be done to our construction process and Lidvin and I did the best we could with what we were given.
On a separate note, no OEDK rules were broken in the process of completing this assignment.
Cost estimate
- 15 hours of Labor for 26/hr due to 2 people, each at $13/hr: $390
- 9 14.5 inch 1 by 4s at $3.38 per 8ft: $4.59
- 6 12 inch 1 by 4s at $3.38 per 8ft: $2.56
- 4 10-11 inch 2 by 2s at $3.38 per 8ft: $1.48
- 1 can of Spray Paint in total: $6.48
- 48 Screws at 2 cents a piece: $0.96
- Total: $406.05
