For this second project, I am paired with Ellena Jeon in building a wooden crate!
Process:
We asked to receive pre-cut wood for the crate, which consists of 9 pieces of 14.5″ 1×4 lumber, 6 pieces of 12″ 1×4 lumber, and 4 pieces of 11″ 2×2 lumber. The wood we received was in very bad condition, some of which even had to be replaced. Most were of different widths, warped, and had uneven edges. We tried to fix the majority of the wood by sanding them using the belt sander to equal widths and lengths, but even as we tried our best, it was very hard to fix the warped pieces. As you can see, the 12″ pieces were significantly shorter for the box to fit together, so a lot of sanding with the belt sander was required.
First, we used the belt sander to prepare the three different categories of wood each to the same widths and lengths, trying to even them up and reduce the warp as much as possible. We then sanded each individual surface of wood using the hand sander with a grit of 120. The next step was the assembly of each box layer, since we decided that we wanted to do the staining after the routing. Making sure that the box surrounds the three planks of wood that make up the base, we used the corner clamp and nailed the wood. The process was marking the nail spots with a ruler, putting a pilot hole using the 1/2″ drill bit, drilling in the center of the pilot hole with the countersink drill bit, and screwing it. This process was mainly successful, since we managed to screw these without cracking or splitting the wood. There are some uneven pilot holes, but they are mostly not very noticeable.
We then routed the edges of these boxes with a hand router. We decided to do this after assembling each individual box because that would create a consistent inner edge. After that, we sanded each box and unassembled piece with the hand sander again (it was very hard to get a very perfect edge from the hand router, so we sanded each edge to fix it), starting from a 120 grit to a 240 grit for the smooth, final surface of the wood.
The next step was staining. In class, we really liked the express walnut finish, but all we could find on the rack was the dark walnut stain, which we chose since it also looks good and is similar enough! We stained each box and unassembled piece with brushes and made sure to wipe the stain off after 3 minutes (as instructed on the can). Even though we made sure to wipe off the stain on time, there were still some minor splotches which we discovered were due to the grains of the wood. We then left them overnight on clean sheets of towels to dry.
We came back the next afternoon to do the final assembly and clear coat. We assembled the base first, using the same process of a pilot hole, countersink, and screwing after marking the points with a ruler. After that, we went on to assembling the four 2×2 vertical pieces using clamps to secure and the same process as before. Each box was separated by two pieces of unused 1×4 scrap wood that we found lying around, which would assure that the gaps between each box is even. We did realize that the bottom of the box is still a little wobbly due to the warp of the wood.
Finally, we did some finishing sands of the areas around the screws, blew the wood dust off with the compressed gas inside the woodshop, and sprayed the entire box with a finishing matte clear coat that would prevent the dark walnut stain from washing off.
Here are pictures of workspaces after being cleaned:
Overall this was a very fun project that successfully helped us learn how to use the tools in the woodshop and ways of finishing off wood!
Cost estimates:
- About 17 feet of 1×4 lumber: $5.98/8feet * 3 = $17.94 (including excess which is also necessary)
- About 4 feet of 2×2 lumber: $4.98/8feet *1 = $4.98 (including excess which is also necessary)
- Dark Walnut Wood Stain: $7.98/can *1/8 can = $1
- Tools: didn’t account for since were available in OEDK, should also be free to workers
- Labor of 6hrs: $15/hr * 6hrs = $90
**All prices of wood from Home Depot, labor price checked from Indeed.
Total: $113.92
