I thought this project would be a lot easier. Difficult isn’t the right term to describe this experience, after all, it is just a box, what could be simpler than crafting a box? Perhaps the struggle lay more in the process than the complexity of the task at hand—to execute each cutting, sanding, routing, screwing, and staining with precision; to do the little things expertly.
This wooden box was constructed in collaboration with Sumin Jeong, another student enrolled in ENGI 210 this semester. Though I have worked minorly with wood tools before in the summer in the form of handsaws and drills, that was an incredibly rough prototype. This was the first time I tried to make something presentable out of wood.
Out of two 1/4″ planks, we cut 9 planks of 14.5″ and 6 planks of 12″, as well as 4 pieces of 10″ 2×2″ lumber for corner support as per the instructions given. The quality of the wood left more to be desired with splintered edges and holes within the planks. We did not think much of this at the time as there wasn’t much we could do about it, but this would come back to cause us problems later. The cut wood was then sanded down first by hand at 60 grit, then to 400 grit by orbital sander when some of the weaker edges of the blanks broke off entirely. We sanded down the imperfections so they didn’t feel like a bother.
The wood planks were cut to size and then smoothed out via an orbital sander to 400 grit before assembly
The planks were smoothed to 400 grit by orbital sanding. Chunks of splinters and wood chips flew off into the sawdust that was loose on the plank.
It was at this point with the sanded planks that we made our first mistake. Following the steps of the instruction, we simply went on to the next step and assembled the triple-layer frames that would make up the wall of the box. Both Sumin and I were familiar with this process and drilled the screws into the wood corners secured by corner clamps with little problem besides a few instances of wood splitting and drilling the screw too deep. In reflection, these variations likely happened because the wood’s strength is not uniform on the plank face, some regions are weaker which makes it significantly easier to drill pilot holes and countersinks but also fails to secure the screw tightly which would come up again at the final step of assembly.
Sumin drilling a pilot hole for one of the box walls.
This screw ended up going in much faster and deeper than other screws which led to overscrewing and slight wood-splitting.
The screws were so close to the edge of the plank that there was insufficient clearance for routing.
Sumin and I decided to rout the top and bottom of the open faces of each layer instead.
The next step following the instructions was to rout the corners so they were less sharp. However, as you can see in the image on the left, the screw was placed so close to the corner that there was insufficient clearance to use the router. If we routed, the bit would’ve hit the screw and destroyed the corner, screw, or even the machine. If we had routed the wood before assembly, this problem would not have existed. As a result, we had to change our design to instead rout only the open faces of the box and opt for filing down the corners instead.
The corner support was attached to the box base with this creative clamping configuration we developed.
The final steps of assembly were to form the box base, attach corner supports, and screw the wall frames onto the supports. It was when attaching the base planks within the frames to form the box base that we realized the variation caused by the miter saw and splintering from sanding led to little gaps in the base that would’ve otherwise been a perfect fit. Although this was not ideal, we still went forward with the design because the box was never meant to hold fluids or objects small enough to fall through the box plate.
Everything went smoothly until we tightened the fit the final layer of wall frames onto the supports at which point one corner couldn’t take the stress anymore and the screws corner popped straight off. We suspected it was because the screws were turned too many times which loosened the grip in the corner, but it was easily reattached by clamping the corner back into place, reversing and screwing in the loose screws once more, and screwing the frame into the support columns. We finished up the project with a layer of teak oil stain and a final bit of orbital sanding to yield the final product.
The box was finished off with a coating of teak oil to protect the wood.
The main lesson this project taught me was the importance of working with the end goal in mind. Many mistakes could have been avoided if we reframed our mindset from working to accomplish the next immediate task, to understanding how each step formed the final product. If we had considered the clearance required for routing, we would’ve routed first and then screwed the planks together; if we had test-fitted a wall frame to the 3 base planks before assembly, we could have avoided the gaps in the box base.
As a whole, we spent 7 hours on the box, 16.9 ft of 1″ x 4″ and 3.3 ft of 2″ x 2″ pine which cost an estimate of $117.23 assuming $14/h of manpower at Home Depot prices ignoring quantity discounts.
