Hello readers,

It’s Siddharth Jadhav, and I’m back with another blog post about another project that I took on in our  Prototyping class. This project was a partner-based project based on creating a box or crate from pre-cut wood. My partner was Ravi, and I will be taking y’all through the steps of the project.

To start, we began with pre-cut wood. We wanted to ensure that we weren’t spending time in the woodshop cutting this wood, and this saved time would let us focus on post-processing for our box, which is something that Ravi and I decided was a priority. Initially, our plan was to use the table router for each piece of wood, but since it was experiencing some issues, we opted to switch to the hand router instead. This includes nine 14.5-inch 1x4s, six 12-inch 1x4s, and four 2x2s. You can find the cost distribution at the end of this blog post.

Initially, we had to assemble the outside frames of the box. This process, while tedious, was fairly straightforward and involved similar steps for each portion. The wood that we were piecing together had to be clamped down, either with a C-clamp or a corner clamp and then drilled together. This was done with 3 different parts: a pilot hole (1/8”), the countersink (3/8”), and then finally drive screws into this hole. We utilized 2 screws for each corner. After having these frames made, we went over the inside and outside edges of these frames with a hand router. While the table router would have been much simpler to use, the hand router was still capable of ensuring a smooth and rounded edge for our frames.

After this, we wanted to make sure the wood was sanded down before assembling these frames into the crate’s outside. We sanded the wood down, initially starting with 100 or 180 depending on how rough or smooth the piece of wood was, and then going as high as 800 grit with the orbital sander to really ensure that the wood was smooth and fully sanded down. I’m really proud of the effort that Ravi and I put into this part of the project, and our sanding got many compliments from the TAs and our fellow classmates such as “buttery smooth”.

Next, we needed to assemble these frames together. This portion required us to clamp down the wood frame appropriately so that the frames’ corners would be aligned perfectly so that we could install the 2×2 pillars without suffering any gaps between the pillars’ edges and the frames’ inside edges. We also had to make sure that while assembling and installing the base of the crate, we drilled with accuracy as there was a very small margin of error when drilling holes from the frames and joining them to the base planks. After installing the base, we moved to stacking the crates and installing the pillars. This portion was done with gaps in between each level by placing a piece of spare wood to create enough separation to ensure equal gaps between our frame levels. Finally, after drilling in our pillars and bottom two frames, adding in the top frame was a very tight fit and required some teamwork and a mallet to ensure that this frame would also slide in. We had finally finished the assembly portion of our box, but there was a lot more work to be done in terms of sanding, staining, and adding oil.

We then had to move outside in another session to sand down the entire box and ensure that there were no splinters or rough areas in any region. Two of the planks on the sides and the bottom of the crate came from fairly imperfect pieces of wood, causing us to really have to hone our sanding skills to ensure that these pieces looked and felt smooth. Then, we applied a dark walnut stain to our box and then wiped off any excess liquid in 10-15 minutes. After waiting for a long period of time (11 p.m. to 6 p.m.) and then adding our second stain, we decided to apply linseed oil as a final coat to our box to make it look really glossy and fantastic. In the end, after many sessions of hard work, our box was done and we couldn’t be happier.

Overall, I really feel like Ravi and I found our strengths and weaknesses with woodworking with this project. He was definitely better than me at routing, but I can say that I was a better sander and countersinker. Watching the other person do tasks that you are not as good at was a great learning experience for me, and working as a team on a project helps you learn how to divide work up effectively and come to a consensus in terms of design, meeting times, and ideation.

P.S.: I believe someone might have accidentally taken our box and drilled a hole in one of the pieces of wood. It makes that side look uneven compared to the rest of the box, and we noticed this in between staining sessions. Looking back at the pictures, it’s clear that this hole existed even when we were assembling the frames. However, we know that it was not us who made this hole even by accident since their pilot hole is much larger than our pilot hole ever was.

Cost Breakdown:

Material	Cost	Source	Quantity	Total
1×4 Wood	$6/14 feet	1×4 Wood	17 feet	$7.50
2×2 Wood	$3.50/8feet	2×2 Wood	3 feet	$1.30
Screws	$0.04/screw	Screws	48 screws	$1.92
Sandpaper	$10/15 papers	Sandpaper	10 papers	$6.67
Dark Walnut Stain	$16.49/quart	Dark Walnut Stain	5 ounces	$2.57
Operator	$15/hr	Operator	7 hours	$105
Prototyping Engineer	$38/hr	Prototyping Engineer	1 hour	$38
Facility Costs	$13/4 hrs	Facility Costs	3 hours	$9.75
Quality Control	$41/hr	Quality Control	1 hour	$41
Total				$213.71