The fabrication process
day 1
First we started out with the plan of how we would cut out the wood. The dimensions of the box were set to 12 x 16 x 12. We decided to have the pieces on the width reach into the corners and then have the posts sit on top of the bottom floor. This informed the exact lengths that we would need to cut the board into. The board was 97 inches so we chose the most efficient way to ensure that the least wood was wasted by using 95.75″ of that board.
Because we now had exact measurements, we used a clamp to set a marker for each size that we needed. This allowed us to efficiently cut the board down piece after piece.
Day 2
The next steps were to use to the table router in order to route every piece. We made sure that every edge of each piece was routed so that the box would look uniform all around. The initial bit that was attached to the table router was too small so we switched it out for a slightly bigger one and used test pieces to calibrate before moving on to routing our actual pieces.
Then each piece was sanded down using a 120, 320, then a 600 grit for a smooth finish using the orbital sanders.
Then using a bit that would be able to set the pilot holes and the countersink we were able to finish the first two layers of the box. However, an issue that arose was that the bottom pieces wouldn’t lay flush. We tried to fix this by spending a lot of time sanding the pieces down and placing heavy weights on top of them when screwing them in. This failed because the rectangular frame on the outside was not clamped and did not remain level with the flat bottom. So we had to redo the bottom. It wasn’t as flat as we wanted so we decided to add wheels to the bottom (3 points of contact make a plane). We went down to the donor depot and found 3 wheels that were all the same and spent time cleaning them and refining them in for our box. We also took time to use WD-40 in order to make sure that the box would roll as smoothly as possible.
day 3
Now that we had all of our parts we were going to screw all of it together. For all of the posts and other pieces we used clamps in order to make sure that they were aligned. To get the spacing between the slats we used the 0.75 inch thick wood as spacers before placing the next layer onto the box.
To cover up the countersunk screws we made a mixture of wood glue and sawdust and plastered the holes with it.
The holes were not uniform with the surface after this however so they needed to be sanded.
day 4
Once the sanding was done (using 120 then 600 grit), for post processing we used butcher block conditioner on all surfaces of the box.
Once that had dried we had our final crate finished.
cost
(costs informed by https://www.homedepot.com)
Wood: 3 x (1inx4inx8ft pine boards) = 3 x 8.52 = $25.62
1 x (2inx2inx4ft wood) = $2.50 (using $5 for 8ft)
Screws: $3.90 (using $9.98 for 184 wood screws)
Gorilla Glue Wood Glue: $4.98
4 Caster Wheels: $30
Labor: 25 hours total across 2 people = $250
Total cost: $317
The bulk of the costs came from the time it took in order to put everything together. To reduce costs a simpler design might have reduced the hours spent. Our process was pretty efficient as we used the ability to work as a team in order to expedite processes in and out of the woodshop.
Clean workspace after
