Da Baux

To begin, I opened up my engineering notebook only to realize it was filled with the memories of organic chemistry, harking back to my days as a uber-pre-med greaseball locked away in Fondy. Using the power of the Diels-Alder reaction, I banished Jeremy from my box project forever. But he did end up helping me cut the wood, so that was useful.

 At first I used MDF because of its uniformity and aesthetic appeal, and after learning how to cut 45 degree angles into the wood using the table saw, I began to fit it together. I soon found out, however, that when MDF is screwed down with less than two or three millimeters of wood between the screw head and the joined wood, it will rip off the head, as shown below. As shown below, you can see where the countersinking has created unviable connections between the two pieces of wood, resulting in tears and large holes in the MDF.As shown below, you can see where the countersinking has created unviable connections between the two pieces of wood, resulting in tears and large holes in the MDF.
Because of this failure, I decided to create the exact same box out of grained wood, thinking that the material would hold up better to the 45 degree cuts I wanted to fit the corners together. Once I cut the new pieces, and chamfered the edges using the router, I set them up for sanding before joining them together, knowing that I would be unable to sand the inside of the box once it was joined together. While using the router, the pieces jumped at the end of each piece. This resulted in an almost uniform dip in the chamfer at the end of each piece, which while imperfect, I think adds to the box as they all come together nicely.To achieve smooth sides, I used the orbital sander. Once the sides were well sanded and ready for joining, with small imperfections in the table saw cuts corrected, I used the corner clamp to set up the pieces for joining. I did two pieces at a time, using a top and bottom clamp to ensure uniform compression at the top and bottom of the seams. this use of two clamps ensured minimal gaps between the wood, and a good controlled environment for drilling. To join the pieces together, I drilled 1/8th inch pilot holes through the two piece, then used a 1/4 inch drill bit to form a divot for countersinking the screws. I used No. 6 3/4 flat head wood screws. It can be seen below that the countersinking sometimes tore out extra wood. I would fix this with wood puddy later. Below you can see a successful countersink hole, and a less than perfect version with the screw embedded.Once all four sides were joined, I attached the bottom plate using the same countersinking techniques. Pictured below is one such screw that I placed too close to the edge, and if you look closely you can see a small bump in the side of the box along the top edge created by the screw pushing the wood up. I sanded this down.  The method I used to join all four sides together involved two sets of 90 degree pairs, I then joined these pairs by placing all the screw heads in the same piece, creating the four screw plate seen below. I think this allowed for easier use of puddy and sanding later in the process.  Even though I tried hard to ensure no gaps were present at the time of joining, imperfect cuts on the table saw resulted in some unavoidable gaps in the base and joints of the box in some parts. One such gap is shown below. I wasn’t too worried though as I planned to use puddy to fill these in. To create the wood puddy, I made some saw dust from an old piece of wood using a drill and mixed it with wood glue. This mixture was then stuffed into all the countersinking holes and gaps in the box. The box, including puddy, but before sanding is pictured below. The puddy created large bumps where it was placed, but I planned on using a sander to bring these down to the level of the wood. I left the puddy to dry for 30 hours or so.  Finally, I sanded out all the puddy bumps and other imperfections around the box. Sometimes my hand slipped and I took out a chunk here or there, but in general more sanding= better box. I foolishly tried to use an orbital sander to sand the inside of the box and ended up taking a chunk out of the top edge instead. Pictured below is the final box, I like it. The cost of this box is $$$. I used a 1×10 plank of pine wood that measured 5 ft, which at Home Depot costs $0.98 per foot, meaning I used $4.90 worth of wood. A $6 bottle of wood glue was used, and the screws would cost $8.50 for a box. The corner clamps I used cost $10 each, resulting in $20 to be able to join the wood accurately. The drill I used cost $135 and the sander was $60. I worked about 10 hours on this, and at my tutoring rate of $40/hr that comes out to $400 for labor. All in all this box was VERY expensive at a whopping $634. Don’t buy my stuff.