For this project, I am paired with Emma Liu in building a wooden crate!

Process:

We asked to receive pre-cut wood for the crate, which consists of 9 pieces of 14.5″ 1×4 lumber, 6 pieces of 12″ 1×4 lumber, and 4 pieces of 11″ 2×2 lumber. However, the wood we received was not in its best condition, with knots, holes, and uneven surfaces. Before we started to assemble the wood, We used the planer in OEDK’s wood shop to smooth and level the wood to a consistent thickness. We also noticed that the pieces of wood were not in the same dimension, so we taped the blocks together and used the miter saw to trim down the size to ensure the uniformity of the wood’s length. 

First, we go through multiple runs of sanding. To start out, we used the sanding machine with a grit of 120 sandpaper. We clamped the wood onto a working table’s surface and did multiple runs of circular motion with the sanding machine to create an even surface. After sanding all of the surfaces with the grit of 120 sandpaper, we marked the location of the screw on the wood. I first marked the midpoint of the height of the wood and measured around 3 centimeters twice as the two points where the screws go. We first created pilot holes using the ½” drill bit and created a countersink with the countersink drill bits. We used a corner clamp to secure the wood and create a clean 90-degree angle when screwing. The process of screwing was pretty successful, and the wood had no cracks after screwing. We did need to make some countersink deeper occasionally, but the overall process is pretty smooth. 

While assembling the crate, we noticed how we were doing it in an assembly line process. One person would be in charge of creating most of the pilot holes, and when assembling pieces with screws, the other person would work on creating countersinks on the other unfinished wood pieces. This way, we did not have to reload the bits of the drill multiple times, making our process a lot more efficient. 

After assembling the side frame pieces of the crate with the drill, we used a router to fillet the edges. We decided to do this after assembling each piece together because we wanted to create a smoother fillet at the points where two pieces of wood connect. We chose a router bit with a small radius because we wanted to keep the clean angular feeling of the wood blocks. After using the router, we used the sanding machine again from 120 grit to 240 grit for a smoother finish of the surface.  

After sanding each of the side frames for the crate, we drilled in the bottom panels of wood, which we had to trim with the miter saw to get them to fit. We then clamped two of the wood posts that will hold up the sides of the box to the bottom and then screwed them in, following the pilot hole to countersink to screw sequence. Afterward, we slid the middle piece and top piece with handles, making sure that the top of the top piece was 12 inches from the bottom of the bottom piece. We clamped it and screwed it in. We then shifted the middle piece around and centered it between the two already screwed-in frames and screwed that in. 

After we screwed in the side posts for one side and fixed all our frames on it, we turned the box around and repeated the process on the other side, also starting out by fixing the top frame in place and then the middle one. 

After that step, our crate was completely assembled. We then sanded everything again with 220-grit sandpaper, paying extra attention to the areas around our screws before we used compressed air to clean off all the sawdust from the crate. After cleaning off the sawdust, we moved to our next step, which was staining.

We chose the stain color: North Sea because we were interested in the blue tint and were curious how it would look. However, we made the mistake of not testing the stain on scrap wood and instead only searching up the color of the stain on Google, so we were quite surprised by the effect it made on our box when we actually painted it on with the sponge brushes. The blue was a lot more bright and emphasized the yellow-orange parts of the wood more than expected. The grain of the wood is highly visible and contrasting. At first, we didn’t like it, but as we painted more on the stain, the color and effect slowly grew. It is very flashy. We chose to stain our box with it fully assembled because we wanted to make sure that every exposed area of wood was covered. We noticed some of the crates that had wood that was stained before assembly had a bit of the raw wood color showing around screw areas, and we didn’t really like that look.

The next day, after the stain dried, we hand-sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper, wiped it extensively with soft paper towels, and used the air compressor on it to ensure that it was as smooth as possible and had no oily residue. After that, we were done with the crate!

The process of building the crate, in general, was quite enjoyable and successful. We only ran into one issue with the dimensions of the crate. Due to a combination of trimming off messy ends of the wood planks and accidentally attaching the sides of the long pieces to the end of the short piece instead of vice versa, the dimensions of our crate are off. Instead of the dimensions being 16x12x12, it is more like 14×12.5×12. We didn’t catch this mistake until we were screwing together our last frame, and by then, it was too late to take it apart and redo it because of the countersinking marks and holes that would be visible. If we were to make this crate again, we would definitely triple-check the dimensions before any sort of assembly, no matter how seemingly self-explanatory or easy.

In all, this was a very fun project that taught us how to use various equipment in the wood shop and how to finish wood to make it look refined. It also showed us things that we need to improve on, which is always very helpful and appreciated.

Cost estimates:

• About 17 feet of 1×4 lumber: $4.47/8feet* 3 = $13.41 (including excess which is also necessary)
• About 4 feet of 2×2 lumber: $4.98/8feet *1 = $4.98 (including excess which is also necessary)
• Dark Walnut Wood Stain: $13.96/can *1/10 can = $1.39
• Tools: didn’t account for since were available in OEDK, should also be free to workers
• 2 people labor of 6hrs: $23.34/hr * 6hrs* 2people = $280.08

      Total: $299.86

Here are pictures of our workspace after we cleaned: