It’s a Box!

• Niyah Troup

Once again, after completing this project, I have gained a newfound respect for woodworkers, carpenters, and those who build wooden objects as a hobby. Since I already have some experience working with wood and power tools, this project was much easier to get right.

First, my partner and I cut long planks of 1×4 and 2×2 wood down to size using the Miter Saw. We also had to account for the thickness of the blade in our measurements. Therefore, we measured the pieces we needed using the previously cut piece of wood, rather than measuring the exact value and cutting all at once. After all the wood was cut, we moved to the downstairs area to sand down the edges and remove any splintering or chips that we saw. Once we deemed it smooth enough, we began to construct our box.

We wanted to make sure our box looked uniformly built, so we carefully measured where each screw would go and made the spacing the same all around the box. We used the corner camp to get 90 degree corners and countersunk our screws for a cleaner look.

Assembling the bottom of the box was a bit more difficult than what we expected. Trying to figure out a clamping method that wouldn’t get us kicked out of the OEDK as well as keeping the wood from warping during the process proved to be quite laborious. We eventually settled on the setup shown in the picture below, and we successfully finished the bottom layer. We chose to space the remaining layers using some extra 1×4 pieces of wood and sanded the entire thing one more time using the belt sander and sandpaper to get rid of any imperfections.

All that was left to do was stain our box. We chose a cedar stain color and did one layer, following the directions on the can. We let it sit overnight, and behold, our finished product!

Successes and Failures

I would say that during this process, a success we had was getting good at the countersinking process. At first, we were having a little difficulty predicting how deep we had to drill to make sure the screw was flush with the surface, but after a while we gained a little intuition. Pro tip: always go deeper than you think you should.

For failures, after successfully completing the bottom and middle layer of the box, we discovered that the top layer was not wide enough to fit over the support pillars. Thankfully, we were able to quickly readjust by slight unscrewing the supports and fitting the top layer over them.

Cost

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