There are four major steps for building a box. The first one and easily the most important is planning. Before you cut any material, you must know what material you are cutting and to what dimensions. In my case, I decided to make a small 6″ by 6″ box made out of plywood. However, when I visited the wood shop for leftover plywood, none of the ones available seemed at least 6″. However, on the advice of a friend, I found a big slab of MDF, or medium-density fibreboard, that fit perfectly with my requirements.
Once my plan was sketched on the MDF board, it was time for step two: cutting. I cut four 5.5″ walls and one 6″ base square with a thickness of about half an inch. Before cutting, though, I made sure that the mother board had all the measurements correct with a spacing in between each square. While cutting two of the walls, I accidentally trimmed too much and ended with semirounded corners. It’s not much of a structural issue, but it would affect the presentation of the assembled box. This took around 45 minutes, so it wasn’t to bad.
With all my pieces cut, I moved on to step three. This step is refinement, and it usually comes at the end once the product is assembled. However, in this case refinement depends on one specific machine: the router. Let me tell you, it took three lab assistants and Fernando to figure out how to change the drill bit to a good size, and we still only half-understand how to do it. With the machine functional and with the drill bit I wanted already installed, it was better to start refining then. Also, once assembled, the box may damage the router with the screws, so better do it early. I rounded the outside edges and corners of my pieces according to their placing, which went rather smoothly. In 15 minutes I had my pieces soft on the edges.
With that done, I moved to the last step: assembly. To connect the base and walls, I decided to use the simplest method and screw them together. Joining the base to the first wall was easy, but when it came to adding the other walls things got complicated quickly. The shape of the semi-assembled box didn’t let it clamp well to the table, so I got a bit creative and used a multitude of bar clanks to hold it together. Also, all the big cordless drills were missing, so I had to use a baby drill. Because of this, it took me about an hour to assemble.
Finally, I headed to the last step, polishing. I know I said four steps in the title, but this is an optional step to ensure quality. Nobody’s perfect, and my box had a few sides longer than what I wanted. I took some sandpaper and slowly trimmed the edges to the correct size. This unfortunately messed up the smooth edges from step three and I could not use the router again because of the screws. If you’re reading this and plan to make a box, remember to consider this during the first step.
And that’s it! Now you know the steps to building a box. And after this wall of text, here’s my final product. It’s small and has a few flaws, but I’m proud of it anyways.
