Although I had done some woodworking in the past, it was very imprecise and not much compared to this project. I also had time constraints keeping me away from the OEDK so it was hard to dedicate large chunks of time on the project. If I could do this over again, I would try building the box when I had more time to do so and learn more as I did it.

Following initial planning in my prototyping workbook for my design I first tried to use 14″ and 16″ 1″x4″ wood pieces for the sides of the box. As I was cutting the 16″ pieces, however, I realized that the box would be easier to fit together and cutting would be more uniform if I used the model of the box of indeterminate size (all 15.25″ pieces). I therefore pivoted and used a uniform cutting contraption on the miter saw to shave my 16″ pieces down to 15.25″ and then used the miter saw to cut the remaining 15.25″ pieces, giving me 12 15.25″ pieces for the box sides.

Once I had these pieces, I decided on my bottom. Because I am relatively inexperienced in woodworking and had time constraints, I did not trust myself to build a stable bottom using 1″x4″ pieces. I therefore used a 16″x16″ piece of plywood that held well, and adjusted accordingly in my measurement of for the 12″ height of the box:

I cut out my 2″x2″ pieces based on this calculation. The final box height measurement was almost exactly 12 inches, which was great to see! I then used calculations of wood thickness to get the lengths needed for my 2″x2″ runners (shown below). After calculating, cutting, and placing them, they fit well (before nailing), but I realized that they would compromise the uniform bottom of my box which might make it hard to balance and evenly hold larger objects. I therefore decided to omit the runners.

After cutting the sides and runners and getting my bottom to the right dimensions, I took my materials to the  router to smooth the edges. I smoothed all of the long edges of the 1″x4″ pieces as well as my bottom 16″x16″ piece. I inspected a few different bits, but the one I finally settled on had the simple, rounded finish that I was looking for, so I settled on that:

Since I used the indeterminate sizing method for my box sides, I only wanted the short edges of my 1″x4″ pieces to be routed if they were going to be showing on the box outside, since a non-routed edge would be better for uniform nailing. I therefore laid out all three layers of the box and labeled the short edges that I would route. The photos show the marking and an up close view of what the routing job did to the sides:

I then sanded the sides and put the box together in the woodshop. My main mess up here was that I tried to put the 2″x2″ standards on the bottom of the box before putting the sides on. This didn’t work terribly, but it did cause some gaps along the edges. Before nailing the box together, I sanded the all of the wood pieces with the hand sander using 80 grit sandpaper, making sure to make the wood more uniform overall. I then hand sanded with both 80 grit and 220 grit sandpaper (the 100 grit was gone 🙁 ) to make a more uniform touch.

As mentioned before, I nailed in the 2″x2″ posts after measuring out their locations and outlining them in pencil (I placed the sides on and measured out the 0.75″ width of the wood on either side).

I then began to craft the sides, screwing through the side 1″x4″ boards on every connection and then nailing the adjacent boards directly to the vertical support at a minimum. There were some connections where I added extra screws to increase stability. 2 screws along the wood’s length were used at each screwing site. I first used the 1/8″ drill bit to make a hole, then used a very large bit to make a “countersink” hole, which I got progressively better at as I went:

I repeated this process on the top 1″x4″ layer of the crate next, then the middle layer, which I measured out by calculating the midpoint between the bottom and top board layers. I used clamps to maintain steady placement while I inserted screw connections:

Following the final attachment of the box sides, I sanded everything with 220 grit paper one last time to trying to make both the inside and outside uniform!

I had tried out a few stains already and seen other people’s boxes, so I knew I wanted to do the cherry stain because I love the look! I uniformly stained both the inside and outside of the box and let it dry overnight:

The next morning, I added a clear gloss coat to all sides of the box including the bottom to improve longevity:

And voila! My box was complete!

Cost Analysis:

I worked for about 8 hours on this box, and the work required semi-skilled labor, so I assume a pay rate of $12/hour. The labor cost of the box, then is $96. A 1″x4″ board costs about $4, and I used two full boards cut up into pieces in making the sides of the box, costing $8 total [1].A 2″x2″ board also costs $4, but I only used 1 of these to cut my vertical supports [2]. The wood screws used cost about $9.00 per box, but I used only approximately 1/4 of a box, so $2.25 [3]. Cherry wood stain cans cost about $5.00, but I only used about 1/5 of the can in my staining, adding only $1 to the cost, while the clear gloss finish used about a can of gloss spray, which is $8.30 [4,5]. With just the cost of raw materials to buy the box and labor costs, then, the box is about $119.55. Unlike other projects, the machinery required to produce the product (including the drill, miter saw, planer, sander, clamps, etc) has a large range of price and power consumption. Based on neighborhood costs, the machinery involved in this project could range from $500 to around $5000 dollars, making an exact neighborhood machinery cost difficult [6,7]. That said, the machinery costs are more than that of the raw materials regardless.

References