This week in EDES we were tasked with building a wooden crate completely from scratch. Since I chose to do this project alone, this proved to be a more involved task that I initially anticipated.

The first and arguably the most important step is to cut out the wood required for the project. To do this, I used the miters saw in the OEDK woodshop and carefully cut out (almost) all of the wood I needed. What I didn’t realize at the time is that I was missing one of the longer pieces of wood required for the bottom of my box. I was almost halfway through routing my wood before I realized this error. Luckily, cutting the additional piece proved simple and I was able to move on with my box.

 

 

Before routing my wood I decided that it would be best to first plane the wood in order to achieve nice and even planks. This aid in eliminating any inconsistencies in the wood’s surface before I began sanding and staining the wood later. Once this was finished, I routed the corners to give them a nice rounded finish. After this extremely time consuming step was done, it was time for sanding!! This also took a while but this did ensure that any rough edges were smooth before staining.

I chose to use a dark walnut stain for my wood for two reasons: it looks really cool and it smells nice. Aside from this, the linseed oil in the stain left a really nice finish on the wood once it set and (to me of course) it feels quite nice when touched as well. The staining was also quite time consuming mainly due to the time intervals. For instance, one coat of stain take five minutes to seep in, then it needs to be wiped off. A second coat can only be applied TWO HOURS after the first one is wiped on. Needless to say I was multitasking during this part of the project. After putting on the second and third coats of stain, I allowed the wood to finish drying before applying a final layer of polyurethane ( I think) for a topcoat. This was to help seal in the stain and prevent water or other solvents from damaging the wood overtime.

With all of that out of the way it was finally time to assemble the crate! Using a corner clamp I was able to secure my wood for drilling. In the past I would have drilled my screws directly into the wood without drilling a pilot hole first. However, this is generally a bad idea and (as I quickly found out) drilling a pilot hole with decent spacing from the edge of the wood can be all the difference.

What I didn’t know initially is that my wood was riddled with knots. These sections of wood tend to crack very easily and should generally be avoided when drilling or working with wood. I only realized after I managed to crack a corner of my box when trying to drill the screw in. This happened later when assembling the final box as well leaving the finished product missing a piece of wood on a corner.

While this certainly wasn’t ideal it, forced me to find a solution to work around these issues. I re-drilled one of the holes that was in particularly bad shape and very intentionally place screws in areas that needed a bit of extra support. I noticed that by chamfering the holes, the cracking was mitigated to some degree, but on the knots is was still quite bad.

Cost analysis:
1″x4″ Board ($7.97 for 8′ HomeDepot) – $16.81 for 17′ needed for project

2″x2″ Board($4.98 for 8′ HomeDepot) – $2.49 for ~4′ needed for project

Walnut wood stain (8oz. for $7.98 HomeDepot) – ~$1.00 for ~1oz used

Sandpaper – provided by OEDK $0

Labor ($7.25/hr) – $43.5 for ~6 hours of labor

Total Cost: $63.80

In the end, this was still a very fun and enjoyable project. I was able to learn more about how to treat and work around softer wood, knots in the wood, and applying a stain I had never worked with before. Although things may not have worked out in the way I originally envisioned, I am still proud of my finished product overall!