Making a Crate with Issy and Liz | ENGI 210: Prototyping and Fabrication

We made a crate!

our crate

Since neither of us had much woodworking experience, we decided to ask the TA’s to cut the wood for us. After we got the pre-cut wood, we measured them and sanded them down with a belt sander to make sure they were even. We also discovered that one of our 2×2 pieces was less of a square and more of a quarter circle, though we decided to leave it as is.

not a square

We used the orbital sander (120 grit) to smooth out the surfaces of the wood, and Liz cut handles into two of the pieces. We decided to paint the 2x2s, which will be columns on the inside of the crate, and leave the natural wood look on the outer panels. I used the wood conditioner to polish the panels, while Liz spray painted the 2x2s light blue.

conditioning the wood

letting the conditioned wood dry

spray painted 2x2s

After letting the wood dry overnight, we start assembling the three wooden frames. We lined them up with corner clamps and began drilling. We used an 1/8″ drill head to drill a pilot hole, an 1/4″ drill head to countersink, and star screws to attach them. After finishing two of the frames, Liz took them into the wood shop to route the edges, as I worked on finishing the last one. This was when tragedy struck as I drove a screw too deep and ended up splitting the wood. Since the overall integrity of the frame wasn’t too affected, I decided to just fill the crack with some wood glue.

assembling the frames 1

assembling the frames 2

We decided not to use the router for the last frame and sanded down the edges by hand instead. We also sanded the previously routed edges so they were smoother.

Once the three wooden frames were assembled, we started to put the bottom of the crate together. While trying to fit the panels into the frame, we discovered that they were too wide to fit in together. We ended up cutting down the middle panel with a band saw to make it fit. We then mark, drilled, and screwed the bottom panels into the frame. Then, I attached the vertical columns of the crate.