Introduction

WE. ARE. BACK. with another amazing project. This time, Amelia and I set out to make a box…not just any box though; we wanted to make THE BEST wooden box ever scene. And once again, we did. Amelia had a little experience with woodworking, and I had a pretty good amount, so we knew we had to make something amazing.

Coming into this project I was pretty confident in what we would make, but the vision slowly took form over time. We didn’t really know what we wanted to do, just that we wanted to spray paint our wood, laser cut designs, use two types of routing, and get a clean sanding finish. Here is how we accomplished all that.

First Step: Cutting the Wood

Amelia and I first opted to cut our wood, following specs that were given to us. First we picked out the wood we wanted to use (preferably not warped or cut on the edges). Then measuring out the wood, we cut one slat of wood for the 14.5″ pieces using the miter saw, measuring it again after the cut to ensure that it was the correct length. Then, we set up a jig with the piece of wood, placing one end against the miter saw blade and the other against a clamp. Then, using that jog, we cut eight more pieces. We then repeated this process for the 12″ pieces and the 11″ pieces. By the end, we had all the wood that we needed to start to refine some parts of our box, always looking forward to the finished product.

Second Step: Routing the Edges and Jointing

After cutting the wood, we wanted to rout the edges. After talking, we decided to rout the top of the bottom piece, both sides of the middle piece, and the bottom of the top piece with one rout cut and then the top of the top piece with a different rout cut. So, we used the routing table to make most of the curves, but then our first trouble came up: we couldn’t figure out how to change the drill bit on the routing table to make the second type of cut. So, we tried using the routing drill, but the bit was the wrong size. Finally, the next day, we found a similar bit and finished routing the top edge of the top piece. We thought our routing was completely done, but we would do it one more time, but that came later. Also, we jointed the bottom edge of the bottom layer so it would be a clean right angle.

Third Step: Sanding (Part 1)

We needed to make our box smooth, but also needed to do it before spray painting so that we wouldn’t sand off the majority of the paint off. So, using orbital and hand sanders, we got to work. This took about an our in total, sanding our base, side, and post pieces, but eventually got it done up to 400 grit. I personally love sanding, its so satisfying and I also LOVE vacuuming up sawdust, its the best (I know, it’s weird.)

Fourth Step: Spray Painting (Part 1)

Following our sanding episode, we assembled our pieces, laying out the base, sides, and posts out to start figuring out how to paint it. We settled on the posts being white, each “layer” of the box being a color, and then the base pieces being gold and glittery. Taking all the pieces outside (and also shaking the paint bottles for over a minute), we started spray painting all the pieces. We tried our best to stay far away from the wood, but the wind was taking the paint, so we had to get a little closer. The first coat went on well with no hiccups except with one exception: the gold glitter paint ran out. After a quick convening, we decided to paint one side white, and keep the other gold. We left them overnight to dry and also because we were tired of work.

Fifth Step: Sanding (Part 2)

The next day, we retrieved our boards, only to find that some pieces were better sprayed than others. So, this prompted us to spray paint again to do another coat on most of the pieces. BUT, first we wanted to sand down the previous layer of paint to make it smooth for the next coat. So, back to sanding. This time, though, we found that the paint would sand off first along the grain of the wood, but we really liked how it looked. So, we left it, so the exposed wood is intentional on our project. We also realized at this point that we wanted handles. So we fired up the band saw, cut out some handles, routed the edges quickly on the routing table, and set them with the rest for spraying.

Sixth Step: Spray Painting (Part 2)

Back outside, we painted the majority of the pieces again, this time going much slower and better overall coverage. Once this dried after an hour, we sprayed the pieces with sealant to make sure the paint would mostly stay.

Seventh Step: Adobe Illustrator Work

While the paint was drying on the second sprays, we created our Adobe Illustrator files that we needed to laser cut our images. We settled on putting our names on one side and then album covers on the other three sides. We wanted American Teen by Khalid, the record by Boy Genius, and Dream Your Life Away by Vance Joy. So, we then got the albums on the ai files as well as our names, scaled them, cut them into thirds and exported them to my thumb-drive (which as I write this now, I realize I left it in the computer by the laser cutter ahhhhhh).

Eighth Step: Sanding (Part 3)

After getting the files, we once again got our final sprayed pieces and sanded them again, making sure to go to a higher grit to ensure smoothness. Finally, the wood was to a smoothness we wanted, so we then moved to the laser cutting room.

Ninth Step: Laser Cutting

This was by far the hardest, most frustrating, and most time-consuming part of our project. We made the most mistakes here as well. We uploaded our ai files to the computer and started some test runs with some of the engravings. Our names were engraved wonderfully, but we ran into problems with the album covers. The ai files were barely the wrong size, the wood on the picture for centering the picture to cut was shown incorrectly, and we also didn’t have the color scheme correct to cut efficiently. We eventually got a good cut on the upper third of American Teen, so we were confident it would all work out. BOY were we wrong. The first mistake was printing my name too low. On the picture, it looked like it was centered on the wood piece, but nope, it was too low (this was to be a common trend). So, we had an unfinished “Mina” on one of the pieces of wood. We then tried for “Amelia”, compensating for the apparent drop of the image. We were again wrong, this time printing it too high. But confident we could find that sweet Goldilocks zone, we started printing American Teen. This is our worst mistake. On the top third, we printed the wrong colors, so instead of engraving the words American Teen, we engraved everything but American Teen. Great. This proved to be an issue with all the ai files. Discouraged and ready to give up, we tried one last thing: altering the colors of the images and then engraving by color. This, somewhat miraculously, worked. We did cuts in black and white, 3 colors, 6 colors, and even 16 colors, cropping images, cutting out bits, outlining, and basically using every bit of Adobe Illustrator knowledge we had to wrestle out a good looking product. The pieces printed too high, too low, to the left, to the right, but we kept going, laughing the whole time. Finally, the chaos was over, and we looked at what we were left with: A beautiful Boy Genius album, and okay Vance Joy, a very scuffed Khalid, and two off-center names. We loved it.

Ninth Step: Assembly

The finish line was in sight. We started assembling the bits, first using clamps to square our corners and then piloting holes, counter-sinking, then drilling screws into the holes for each of the square “levels” of the box. I messed up once here, drilling a screw a little too far in and splitting the corner of the wood. We also found that often times, counter-sinking the wood would tear up the wood, so we reversed the direction of the drill which solved our issue. Following the levels, we put the bottom planks in the base level (sparkle side up), and drilled those pieces in. Following this, we put the corner posts in and drilled them into the bottom level. We then staked two leftover two-by-fours on each of the corners and set the next level on top (to ensure equal spacing of rows), and repeated the drilling of the posts. We did this for the final layer, and our box was so close.

Tenth Step: Finishing (Part 3)

Excited to finish, we sanded everything once more to make sure it was all smooth and then we using some acrylic paint to cover up some of our mess-ups along the way. We also painted over the screws to make them blend in a little more with the wood. And we were done!! That is how Amelia and I created the greatest box that has ever graced the OEDK.

Reflection

I really had a great time with this project, honestly. I love working with wood and it was a familiar thing for me, so it was really really nice. Amelia and I were laughing the whole time, I love how there is no stress between us to be perfect, just really we try our best. I am proud of our product and hope y’all like it too!

Cost Estimate

• 16 hours of work for $15/hr: $240
• 9x 14.5” long pieces of 1×4 lumber at about $3.40 per 8′: $4.62
• 6 x 12” long pieces of 1×4 lumber at about $3.40 per 8′: $2.55
• 4 x 10-11” long pieces of 2×2 lumber at about $3.35 per 8′: $2.34
• Spray Paint: About $5, I assume we went through about 3/4 of a can in total
• Screws: About $1

Total Cost: $255.51