Building a box is easy. Building a GOOD box is much harder. This project definitely taught me that beauty is in the details. Here’s my step-by-step the process.

I cut my own lengths of wood for this project, and this is the one part of the process I forgot to get pictures for. Using the ruler and the square, I measured the first piece of each length (so, one 9″ plank, one 14.5″ plank, and one 10.5″ post) as accurately as possible. For this project, it was way more important for the pieces to be exactly the same length than it is for any of them to be exactly the measurement I was going for. So, I put those three pilot pieces against the blade and clamped down a piece of wood on the end of it to make multiples of the same length. Again, I didn’t get any pictures, but this stock image below is about what my setup looked like, minus the laser sight.

Source: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/house-one/21349979/how-to-cut-multiples-miter-saw

After cutting them to length, I set the planar to 0.75″ inches and put them all through one way. I wanted my pieces to all to be perfectly square. I did not accomplish that even a little bit, and plane-ing them actually gave me way more work, because the planar left chip-like scratches on some of the pieces, and because it was set to exactly the depth of the wood, it didn’t really straighten them out much (shown below). I’ll definitely be making use of the planar and jointer in future projects, but I’ll mark the wood so I know a level has all been taken off all at once, and I’ll probably put it repeatedly with each side facing up intermittently through the jointer so that both sides get evened out.

     

After cutting came sanding. My only goal at this stage in sanding was getting the worst of the marks off and taking off that darkish varnishy layer that new wood comes with. I used 60 grit sandpaper for this and stopped there.

I sanded everything by hand, so my little reward for getting through four pieces was assembling them into the frames that make up the crate’s walls. At this point I learned that setup is super important- I probably spent five times as long getting the pieces square as I did drilling. I found that the thinner blue square clamp worked way better than the heavy red ones- it held both pieces level with each other, and it clamped both pieces separately, so you can focus on lining up one plank at a time. I clamped the bottom with the blue clamp and used one of the lower-intensity square clips at the top.

The time spent clamping definitely paid off! I didn’t get any huge ridges or unevenness in my frames at first. However, I should’ve gone a little slower through the drilling. I didn’t line up my screw-holes, and that’s one of my biggest regrets with this project. It would’ve been so easy to do and I think it’s a small detail that makes a big impact, both positively and negatively. Plus if I had mapped it out ahead of time, maybe I would’ve realized that a lot of my screws were way too close to the edge to allow for router-ing the external corners of the frames. I used the french corner bit for the top and bottom, and if I had been able to do the corners going up the sides of the frames, it would’ve looked really sick 🙁

Rushing through the drilling AND the screws being super close to the edge set me up to screw one right out of the corner of my plank. I see no reason why more trees should suffer because I didn’t take the time to check that my drill bit was straight, so I employed my favorite fix: Hiding It. In this case, I just unscrewed the beam I messed up and flipped it so it was on the inside by drilling a new hole slightly below the original.

     

Then, I did it again 🙂

Any lesson worth learning is worth learning twice, right? With this one, because it was a whole piece and not a hole, I put wood glue under it and clamped it down, but didn’t re-position the piece.

My frames were much more square than I was expecting after drilling, but I wanted all the joints to be smooth to the touch, so I used the sanding belt to take all the edges off. It was delightful. The edges were so smooth. I did get a little overzealous and put some nasty divots into the side of my planks, but I got the worst of it out with the power sander, and the remainder out with the router. I’ll be more careful next time, but it was so worth it. On one edge, the screw-holes were so close to the edge that I couldn’t use the belt, so it was back to the iron age for me. The chisel worked well and I was able to sand that one side to a decent finish after. Here’s photo evidence and how that side looked post-chisel.

Once all my frames were square and a little more sanded (~120 grit), it was time for assembly. By this time it was Sunday night and I had the benefit of looking at all the crates that were already finished. I decided I didn’t really like the look of the three-plank floor that the design called for. There are like a million screws across the bottom edge of your box, and it looks cluttered. It also looks like overkill, because each of those screws can hold like 80 lbs in sheer, and the plank would probably break before any one of the four different screws holding one plank on would. I know there’s lateral stability to keep in mind, but still. Cluttered and unnecessary, in my opinion.

Anyway, I went with an inlaid floor. I also had the benefit of using a plank of wood that was already cut to the width of the box. I traced the inside edge of the bottom frame to the plank, and used the jointer to cut it to the approximate shape. This is the fit without any fasteners. (I was pretty proud, even with that one janky edge.) I also took this time to use the round router bit to round off the inside edge of the frames.

       

When I had the floor done, I could put the whole box together. This was kind of the procedure to get everything pieced together. I lined everything up and got the first frame attached to the column, and then screwed the floor into the column. I spaced out the frames going up the columns as suggested and made sure to clamp the column and frame so that they were flush (the column was not super straight).

Once the box came together and I was starting the post-processing, the extra drill holes/ gap between floor and frame/ random chip from the belt sander started to really bother me. I knew that sawdust and wood glue can be used as filler but I’d never tried it myself. These are those flaws, that mix, and me applying that mix with a popsicle-stick shank.

         

I put masking tape over all the parts I filled in in an attempt to level them out. I definitely should’ve used wiped off more of the excess because the result was this stain that was super hard to sand off by hand or power-sander. And, the finishing stain didn’t stick to dried wood glue. So the whole crate is a bit smoother, but I really just moved the flaw a little to the left.

   

I  routered the top and bottom edges with the french corner bit, as discussed, and it looks really really cool, as discussed. I ended up having to replace the router bit myself and had some difficulty with positioning it at first. Luckily, I started on the bottom edges so you have to look pretty hard to find the unmatched corners. The first pic is the slightly jacked-up bottom corner. The second is the top, where I had mostly figured it out.

     

I experimented a little with staining. I had the idea to try and create a gradient effect by wiping off the stains at progressive intervals. The first side I did in four 30-second intervals (total time two minutes) and the second I did twenty 15-second intervals (total time five minutes). I couldn’t see any difference between the extremes of either of the pieces, so I scrapped that idea.

   

Full disclosure, I started staining my wood about an hour before the piece was due, so my stain options were limited. There was maybe half a cup of walnut stain left, which would’ve been my preference, and a ton of black, which was my second choice. Google said mixing stains was fine, so I did, and this color was the result! I really like it- I think the brown of the walnut persevered and weakened the opacity of the black, so you can still see the woodgrain through it. I love how dark it is, it’s almost like a burnt wood finish. Here’s a close-up of the color! And of the wood glue stain on the right edge!

  

And here’s the final result!!!

     

Cost analysis:

Material Prices approximated from Home Depot’s website:

52 x Wood Screws

–>  $7.50

Planks: 6 x 9″ + 6 x 14.5″ + 11 x 0.125″ lost to saw blade = 11. 9375′ of common 1 x 4 lumber

–> $17.43

Posts: 4 x 10.5″ of common 2″ x 2″ lumber = 2x2x6 furring strip board

–> $3.55

Bottom panel: 9″ x 13″ x 0.75″ finished plywood = 2′ x 4′ by 0.75″ plywood

–> ~$30 (avg)

Wood stain: Mix of black and walnut wood stain = 2 x Behr 8 oz cans

–> $12.96

There are many many ways to calculate the labor/ resources needed for this project. You could consider buying all of the power tools that I actually used, including a miter saw, power sander, belt sander, drill, and router. There are also the sandpaper disks and sandpaper for the hand-sander, the bits for the router and drill, a ruler or square, pencil, safety goggles, paintbrush and paper towels for the wood stain. Then, there are the overhead costs of electricity for all of those power tools, lighting, AC. I’m not going to calculate all of that. Instead, I’ll report what I actually paid for it, and call it a fifth of my tuition to Rice this semester.

Cost of materials: $71.44 * tax = $77.16

Cost of access: $6,071.17

Total: $6,148.33

*However! Over the summer I used Denver’s Tool Library, which would’ve allowed me to check out 3 power tools (including all of the ones used in this project!) and seven hand tools at a time for $120 annually. So that price might go as low as $197.16 for a single box*