Background

Prior to this project, the only woodwork and hand tools experience I had was from the ENGI 120 workshops last spring and also in my sculpture class last semester. I was excited to further my skills, but I was also pretty nervous since making a box seemed like a hard task to take on.

Making the Frames

I was glad we had one class day to work on our box, because that is when Milene and I cut our wood. We stayed back an extra 30 minutes since there was a line for the miter saw.

Afterward, I spent extra time in the woodshop using the planer to make sure all the wood had a consistent thickness. Additionally, we used an orbital sander to smooth out all the wood to ensure we wouldn’t get any splinters while working with the wood (and yet, we still got some). We first used sandpaper with a lower grit, and then finished with a grit of 220.

Cut wood!

The following Tuesday, I knew that my friend Brendan had his lab assistant hours from 8-10 PM. He agreed to help us and also adjusted the router in the woodshop. First, we used a corner clamp to clamp our first two edges together. Milene and I came up with an efficient process for each screw. First, she would create the pilot holes with the 1/8″ drill bit while I helped hold the wood in place. Next, I used a larger drill bit that was taped at the end so that we could counter-bore the hole that we just drilled into. Lastly, we traded off screwing in the wood screws.

 Left: corner clamp featuring Brendan; middle: Milene drilling our first pilot hole; right: creating our counter-bore hole with a wider drill-bit

After creating our first frame, we realized that the dimensions were off. We noticed this when we tried to fit three of our 14.5″ pieces of lumber on the bottom and it didn’t fit. We realized that instead of putting the 14.5″ piece into the 12″ piece, we did the opposite by accident. We decided that we would have to cut new wood and redo our first frame. Of course, we were very inconvenienced and we had to spend about an extra hour in the OEDK that night, but we were already more familiar with the process at that point so we moved a bit faster.

 

Left: frame with the wrong dimensions; right: frame with the right dimensions (noticeably longer)

After finally making our first frame, we also used the router to round the edges of each edge. However, we noticed that the router left an interesting indent in our wood (shown in the image below). We fixed this issue by sanding it off the next day with an orbital sander.

 

Left: Milene using the router; right: the router left an indent in our wood that we eventually sanded off.

The next day (Wednesday), we spent another 1-2 hours repeating this process for two more frames.

All three frames done!

Bottom of the Box and Attaching the Pillars

The next step was to screw three 14.5″ planks into one of the frames to create the bottom. After Thursday’s class, we spent another 2 hours in the OEDK working on the bottom and also attaching the 4 pillars to the box. To create the bottom, we used two clamps to clamp one of the frames to the table. We then positioned the planks and used two screws per plank to screw them into place. We used a ruler to evenly space out the screws on the bottom.

Left: top view of the bottom; right: side view of the bottom with screws in place

Next, we attached each of the four pillars. For our setup, we placed the box at an angle so that a corner was sticking out from the table. We used two clamps to clamp the box to the table, then a smaller clamp to clamp the pillar to the box. We used two screws each to attach each pillar to the box.

Our setup of attaching the four pillars.

Putting the Frames Together

The next day, we spent our Friday afternoon attaching the two other frames to the box. To space out the frames evenly, we used a piece of hard foam in between each layer. However, in attaching our final frame, we noticed that it didn’t fit. We had to spend extra time sanding down the sides of each pillar so that the top frame would fit in well. At first we just sanded by hand, but we then had to use an orbital sander to quicken the process and so that we could remove more material.

Left: using the foam to separate each layer; right: Milene and I sanding down the pillars

After a lot of sanding, we attached the final frame!

Milene holding our final box before staining.

Final Sanding and Staining

Saturday was our final day of working on our box. We spent a couple of minutes doing some final sanding using a higher grit. Next, we took it outside and found a stain that caught our eye: Weathered Oak. We followed the instructions on the can, first painting a layer and then wiping it off in the direction of the grain with a paper towel. However, I guess you can never do too much sanding because Milene got a splinter while wiping away excess stain with a paper towel. Luckily, she was able to get most of it out. The rest may just be stuck in her finger forever though. We left it out to dry, and we were finally finished!

Left: painting the bottom of the box; right: our final box drying

Failures/Reflections

• Reading the instructions more carefully so we know how to create the right dimensions the first time.
• It’s better to cut wood longer rather than shorter because you can always sand it down. We noticed that when we were attaching the bottom planks, some wood planks were slightly short so there was some gaps.
• Make sure to sand every crevice to avoid injury.

Making this box made me more comfortable with using hand tools and working in the wood shop. I hope that I can create future projects out of wood!

Cost Estimate:

• 3 pieces of 8 ft 1 x 4 wood = $9 (Home Depot)
• 1 piece of 8 ft 2 x 2 wood = $3 (Home Depot)
• wood screws = $7 (Home Depot)
• Weathered Oak stain = $9 (Amazon)
• paint brush = $2 (Amazon)
• $12 per hour x 10 hours = $120
• TOTAL = $143