Over the past week, James and I worked together to complete the crate project. We actually started pretty late (we didn’t begin cutting the wood until Thursday), but we still managed to finish the entire crate in about a day and a half. Both of us really like the natural color and texture of wood, so we decided not to use any stain or paint. Because of that, we spent a lot of time carefully choosing the wood we wanted to use. The look and grain of the wood mattered a lot to us. This was actually my first time working on a wood-related project, while James is very experienced. Throughout the process, he taught me many useful techniques and things to watch out for, which helped me a lot. I’m very grateful to my mentor and partner, James Clubley, for his guidance and patience.

 

Day One (Thursday during class time):

Step one: Choosing appropriate wood and cutting the wood to the size we want

This step may seem like just the beginning, but it was actually one of the most important parts of the whole process. Choosing good boards and cutting them to nearly perfect sizes made the later stages of building much easier and also helped the final crate look cleaner and more polished. Instead of measuring every single board to 12 feet or 14 feet and marking them with a marker, we used a different approach. We carefully measured and cut the first board, then used it as a reference to compare and cut all the remaining pieces. Since we knew that the miter saw always cuts a straight line, we felt there was no need to spend extra time measuring each board again. This method saved us a lot of time, but it also caused a small issue. Not every board ended up being exactly the same length—most of them were just very close. To fix this, we came up with a solution: we used a belt sander to sand each piece down until they were all the same length. Also, we cut some extra time just in case we mess up in any of the steps afterward. And this decision turned out to be a very smart one.

 

Step Two: Rounding and sanding the boards we cut

After that, we carefully sanded and rounded all the pieces of wood we planned to use. Since we wanted to keep the natural color of the wood, sanding was extremely important. It made the surface smoother, helped the wood shine more, and also made it feel much better to the touch. However, rounding the edges at this stage turned out to be a mistake. We didn’t realize the problem until we started assembling the crate. Because the edges were rounded, the boards didn’t line up cleanly when they were joined together. This not only affected how the crate looked but also weakened the overall structure and quality. Because of this, we had to cut some new pieces of wood and change our approach. We decided to wait until the entire crate was fully assembled before doing any rounding, so everything would line up properly first.

Day two (Saturday 10:30 – 5:30)

Step Three: Cut out the handles

For the handles, I used an excellent example that was shown in class earlier as my template. I sketched out the shape of two handles and then did some measurements to refine and finalize the dimensions. We first used the band saw to cut out the rough shape of the handles. After that, we used a cylindrical sander to smooth and shape the curves until they matched what we wanted. In the final step, we hand-sanded both pieces using sandpaper until the surfaces were smooth and ready to use.

Step Four: Begin assembling the bottom part of the crate

Then we started assembling the boards for the very bottom layer of the crate. We spent a lot of time trying to find the right tools, especially a good drill bit for pilot holes and a slightly larger drill bit for the main screws. Our first corner didn’t turn out perfectly, mainly because it wasn’t fully aligned. After that, when we built the other corners, we intentionally let one side stick out just a tiny bit and used clamps to hold everything in place. We did this because we noticed that the boards could still shift slightly while drilling, and even small movement can create noticeable errors. Later, we improved our method again. We flipped the corner clamp the other way so it could hold the wood more steadily. This helped us make sure the boards stayed level and flat against the ground, instead of ending up slightly uneven. Right when we were about to celebrate finishing the first layer, we realized a major problem: we put the 12-inch boards around the 14-inch boards the wrong way. That meant we accidentally made a cube instead of a rectangular crate. Because of that, the three 14-inch boards literally wouldn’t fit into the frame we built. At that point, we discussed a few options. One idea was to cut the three 14-inch boards shorter. The other idea was to re-cut four of the 12-inch boards. But since we still wanted to follow the original instructions and build the crate the correct way, we decided to start over and treat the first version as practice. This really taught us something important: you have to read the instructions carefully. If you miss one key detail, it can turn into a “fatal” mistake and waste a lot of time. After this major mistake, we moved quickly and assembled the three layers soon after, without attaching them to the four vertical posts yet. We were able to work at this pace because we had already found the most suitable tools, and more importantly, we had learned a lot from our earlier practice and mistakes.

Step Five: Final rounding and sanding

As I mentioned earlier, we didn’t round the edges at the beginning. Instead, we saved all the rounding for the very end and did it all at once. This part took quite a lot of time because the edges had to be shaped slowly and carefully, little by little. We mainly used 60- or 80-grit sandpaper for the rounding process. After the edges were rounded, we went through another full round of sanding to make sure everything felt smooth and consistent.

Step Six: Assembling the whole thing together

After getting every single part we needed for the crate, we started our final assembly. We first connected the bottom part with the four posts. Then, we used two wooden boards to control the space between one level and the other and connected the second level to the post. We did the same for the top level. At this point, the whole crate is nearly done. Because we were very precise in the previous steps, we spent very little time in the final assembly. Our crate fit almost perfectly on the ground and didn’t wobble much at all.

Step Seven: Final sanding and oiled our crate

We did our final sanding. After the sanding, our crate looked pretty shiny. We then applied oil to the crate to make it prettier while keeping the natural color and texture of the wood. At this point, we finished our crate, my first wood crate in my life.

Reflection:

We actually had a lot of mistakes and spent a lot of time fixing them. The biggest one is that we didn’t read the instructions. It was lucky because that mistake didn’t mean the end of the game, but actually gave us a lot of practice and helped us find the right tools to use, which did improve our efficiency after. It was a really fun and useful project, which taught me how to properly use those tools. Overall, I think we did a really good job, except for the bottom screws, which were not very well aligned with each other. We definitely need to improve next time. I hope our crate can be the example for the next EDES 210 class, jokes.

Cost Breakdown:

Materials Cost (estimated from Home Depot 2026)

1×4 lumber (14.5’) – 12 pieces, ~$15.00 per piece → $180.00

1×4 lumber (12’) – 8 pieces, ~$11.00 per piece → $88.00

2×2 lumber (11’) – 5 pieces, ~$7.00 per piece → $35.00

Wood screws – approximately 60 screws → $12.00

Wood oil – approximately 1/10 bottle → $2.00

Sandpaper → $15.00

Total Estimated Materials Cost: $332.00

Labor Cost

Total time spent on project: 10 hours

Number of people: 2

Estimated student labor rate: $15/hour

Total estimated labor value:

10 hours × $15/hour = $150.00

Total Estimated Project Cost

Materials: $332.00

Labor: $150.00

Total Estimated Cost: $482.00