By: Justin Xia and Surina Kishinchandani
For our crate, we opted for pre-cut wood. The first step of our process was gathering all the pieces we needed to build our crate.
Next, we began the process of assembly by clamping together two 1×4 pieces of wood and screwing them together. We used the process of pre-drilling with a 1/8″ drill bit and counter-boring the wood so that the screw sits flush against the surface before screwing the screw in using the drill and the star-shaped Phillips head bit.
We repeated this process for both sides of the first frame and then clamped and joined them together using the same methodology described above (pre-drilling, counter-sink, screwing).
After we completed the first two frames for our crate, we moved on to installing the floor on the bottom frame. We lined up 3 pieces of 1×4 wood and screwed them into place on either side of the frame to secure the bottom panels of the crate.
We routed the bottoms of the frames to give them a clean, rounded edge.
For our last and topmost frame, we fashioned handles by using the band saw and spindle sander to cut out the shape and then sanding them down with a 120grit sandpaper so they were smooth and were able to be picked up.
Next, we began to assemble our overall crate. We screwed in our four 2×2 vertical supports to our bottom frame using the same countersinking process we have been using during this entire process and placed our second frame over the first, using extra 1×4 pieces of wood to ensure even spacing throughout. We then secured the second frame to the vertical supports.
We repeated the process for the top frame with the handles, completing the assembly of our crate.
To polish up our crate, we used a few post-processing techniques to ensure aesthetic quality and make our crate safe to use. First, we used a low-grit sandpaper (around 60) to sand the entire crate. We then used a higher grit (around 120) and then finally a 200 grit sandpaper to make the surface smoother while still keeping the character of the wood.
To finish off this project, we decided to fill in the extra holes we had with wood glue and sawdust and applied a liquid finish in the form of a stain to our crate (we chose antique white wood stain). To achieve our desired color, we stained the wood twice.
That concludes our crate project! This is a picture of the area we used after cleaning up.
Estimating the cost of this project’s materials:
- Wood planks: 2 planks of 1×4 x 12ft – $27.24
- Screws: $9.98
- Wood vertical supports: 2×2 x 3ft – $8.91
- Sandpaper: $8.99
- Stain: $13.98
- Labor: 2 people x 4 hours x $20/hr = $160
- Total: $229.10
