Background

When I first began the project, I had the intention of creating a crate all by myself hence I opted in for pre-cut wood; however, I looked at the time we had to finish the project and a classmate was looking for a partner, so I jumped in on the opportunity. I decided to work with Andrew Sun to create a beginner level crate.

The Building Process

After inspecting our wood, we decided it was best to begin by sanding the pre-cut wood to make them all uniform in dimension and aesthetic. So we used the orbit sanders with 80 grit sandpaper to fix the slanted edges and blistered wood.

Next in the process was joining together the wooden planks into three identical rings. We used the right angle grip to join the planks together as well as two grips to secure the angle grip to the surface we were working on. To join the planks together, we drilled pilot holes, followed by a countersink, and screws.

Now that the three rings were joined, we routed them. Making the edges nice and round. We later proceeded to inspect our rings and label the order in which the rings would be layered. The top layer was the best looking one and the bottom layer was the.. less attractive out of the bunch.

Now that the order was decided, it was time to construct the floor of the crate, so we added three planks into the bottom ring. This resulted in a snug fit, which meant we did a good job in keeping our dimensions in tact. Even though the floor planks were a snug fit, we secured them with screws–4 per each plank (using the same method of pilot hole –> countersink –> screw) *this became a motif*.

The next step was to attach the rings by using 4 pillars on each corner within the crate.

But, after inspecting our pillars we decided that they were too chunky and would take away from the volume within our crate. So, to allow for more storage we ended up trimming our pillars with the thickness planer.

Now everything was ready to be assembled. We used extra planks to space our rings and secured them using grippers. The next steps were to secure them with screws *motif*.

The final product was then sanded even more to smooth over rough edges.

Finally, we stained the crate and decided to use a multicolor pattern for the rings.

Reflection

Throughout this project I felt as though I was simply garnering experience with tools I already knew about or have seen before. It was fun to go through the whole creation process. From starting out with raw materials to eventually staining and polishing the final product. Over the course of the project I gained insight into things I could have done better, but one that sticks out is to watch out for wood stainer, it can leave a difficult to wash mark.

Cost

Labor – 9hrs * $7.50 (x2 people) = $135

Materials – plywood, stainer, screws ~ $20

Overhead Costs – drilling, sanding ~ $20

Total: $175