INTRO

I was excited going into this project as it has been a while since I’ve actually worked on anything functional and practical. I’m also always running out of places to put things so I was doubly excited for that. I knew I didn’t want to use screws at least in the conventional way to preserve the cleanliness of the wood surface.

Strategy

I really liked the color of the lighter planks of wood and wanted that to be the walls of the box. The issue was that I did not have enough of those planks to make a three plank high box so I opted to make a shallower (two planks) but wider box. I also did not want there to be slats between the planks as I found that while dry fitting, the seam between them was really nice.

DRY-FITTING OF THE PIECES

As for the fasteners, I debated between using pocket screws, wood pins, and some sort of intricate wood working finger joint. I ended up choosing the wood pins as it would allow me to maintain the continuers surface of the plank but also not take too much of my time.

Wood dowel pins

Making

Due to the slight redesign of the box, I had to trim some pieces of the wood I was given. I was able to join the planks by drilling holes and hammering in round wooden dowels. The holes were just slightly smaller than the dowel so the friction would hold the pieces quite well. I originally thought I would need wood glue but the natural forces of compression seem to be doing the job so far.

Wood pin insertion pic

To put together the box, I originally had tried to drill a hole through the front and back piece all at once with a hand drill but it lead to some messy edges and chipped wood. I found that using the drill press to predrill holes on the front piece would help guide and stabilize the drill bit when switching back to the hand drill. This made the process much faster and also resulted in a cleaner end result.

Pre-drilled front piece

For the handle, I had originally debated against having a handle as it could take away from the minimal look of the box. However, with practicality in mind, I added some large round handles that added both visual interest but also functionality.

reflection

While I felt confident going into this process, I felt that making this box still challenged me a fair amount. The scale of both the box and the material made the process of making the box slightly different from what I’m used to. I think also thinking about the durability of the box was another aspect I don’t often have to worry about. Overall, I had fun and I am glad I got to experiment with a technique I’ve never done in the past. 10/10 would recommend wooden pins.

Cost breakdown, total = $215