Make a box. Sounds pretty easy right? It turns out to be not quite as easy as I expected. First things first I had to choose the wood. The wood in the OEDK ranges from flimsy little 1/4 inch birch plywood to some hefty ole 3/4 inch plywood and some other things. I settled on the 3/4 inch plywood as a nice medium but it came in one massive sheet. After begging one of the lab assistants for help I got to see the panel saw in action.

The plus side was being impressed with the panel saw, the downside was flipping a breaker when the panel saw drew too much power (who would have believed daisy chaining heavy machines was a bad idea???). Once I rouchly had my wood I used the table saw to get roughly 3 6X6 inch pieces and 2 6X4.5 inch pieces. After thoroughly thanking the lab assistant (thanks Josh) I decided to learn how to use the Kreg. To my surprise someone had been a little rough with the kreg and had managed to jam the shaft collar in place. I think they may have hit it with a hammer. I asked some more lab assistants to get me the new kreg out of the lock up. With fresh machinery I set to work making the perfect box! I lucked out and everthing fit together. Unfortunately I got a little gung-ho and kregged the wrong pieces together. Fortunately in my (infinite) wisdom I had cut extra pieces and managed to make do! Sadly I didn’t think about how the kreg needs space to operate so after making two corners I realized I had no way to attach the two corners. Don’t worry, I found a solution. I broke out the wood glue to firm up the last two corners. This led to all sorts of clamping fun since the corners didn’t lie perfectly even against each other. To solve this I stole 6 clamps from the OEDK and left them overnight holding my sides together. In the morning the warped and wayward wood had been perfectly conformed to my vision so I set out to attach the bottom.

 

Fortunately I had kregged an extra 2 screw holes into the base of the wood so attaching the bottom was pretty easy. I reinforced the bottom with glue as well just to be sure I had one sturdy boy of a box. At that point I took a moment to reflect on what I didn’t like about my box. The cracks just seemed too big. Fortunately for me,I still had my glue on hand. A nice fillet of glue in the cracks just about made them disappear. One more overnight dry time and I was ready to sand. The new sanding table in the OEDK is a gift from the heavens. With that bad boy I sanded off a solid quarter inch of uneven top to my box and gave it the nice smooth finish we all love and enjoy. A nice couple passes on the router and my child had been born. Treat him well.

The biggest takeaway from this project would be plan before you kreg. I had to do a lot of gluing and it came out alright but I need to do better in the future. Also, don’t put in screws before you route or the lab assistants will make fun of you. Finally, sand the interior, my interior was a solid 2/10 (although I might stretch that to a 1/5).

Cost Analysis:

1/3 sheet if 3/4 inch plywood:  $10

Some screws: $1

My love and attention: Priceless (although at $10/hour I would say $30)

 

Total Cost: $41