But enough whining... my nephews have both reached the age where their respective toy piles are not only larger than themselves, but would also represent a significant challenge to a majority of attempts at storing them. So, what do you get them for their birthday/Christmas gifts, why more to.... wait.. no, that's going at it backwards... :P You get them a toybox. The only trouble is the ones you can buy are either worth more than a small car and made of mdf or particle board, or inexpensive and large enough to store precisely one Tonka truck. So, I decided to set out and actually build something for them. In the end, this actually spawned it's way into 4 separate toy boxes and a host of other projects that I'll blog about at a later day, but that's beside the point for now.
To start, I _HATE_ plywood, particle board and MDF. The stuff is a cop out. Easy to work with, cut and route, but it's like those little capsule dinosaurs you can buy for kids. Get it wet and it expands to 10x it's normal size! Amazing! Or not so much... mdf and particle board are the only materials I've ever worked with that will swell and distort when you try to stain it. One drop of water is enough to lift the surface as much as an eighth of an inch, and the moisture in glue can actually swell it so much it blows the bond apart. Plywood is a bit better, but requires a ridiculous amount of sanding to clean up the surface, and then what do you do about that multi-layer endgrain? Cutting veneer is doable, but for the amount of work you'd have to do, it's worth it to use real wood.
So, off we go to Home Depot. Why there? They don't charge 10% more to let you root through the wood pile and actually choose a board that doesn't resemble prime hockey stick blade material. Now, a disclaimer is in order I believe. "Premium Grade Spruce" should have a note below it, something to the effect of "Now with 10% less knots, warps, bows, shredded spots, blueish mold runs, splits, oozing sap pockets, and huge gouges from the steel bands holding the pile together!". Yeesh... here I am in Home Depot with the entire lumber pile torn apart sorting wood when an ever so helpful sales associate asks if I need a hand, to which I promptly reply "Sure! Show me where the straight wood is please!".. and he didn't find that funny.. kids these days... An hour later I've got 60 moderately straight 1x6's at the 10' length, some fir 2x2, and enough glue to satisfy the collective appetites of an entire room of kindergarten students.
To make life easier, after I finished the first box I purchased a second hand Ryobi planer from a work acquaintance. It's older, but the blades are still razor sharp, and an hour worth of work with it has everything milled just a hair thinner, but the majority of the imperfections are gone. Run the boards through the tablesaw and the worst of the edge damage is cleaned up and they're ready to use. One important thing to note at this time is I do not use nails or screws, except for attaching the hardware. There's no reason for them IMO. All they represent is a mechanical weak point in the joint, something that can work back and forth, attract moisture, and eventually fall out. As such, I use a biscuit jointer and some very good carpenters glue. The biscuits swell in the slot you place them in while the glue is setting, and the resulting bond is extremely hard to separate. In short, it's something that should last for years. With the planks cut and jointed together, 20ish hours of sanding is enough to smooth them all down completely, then a little more saw work and some more jointing, and you end up with a box and lid. More sanding at this point, then out comes the router to clean up the edges and remove the sharp corners.
For the lid, I ended up working backwards. What I wanted was to personalize each box, so that would require a name, but I didn't want something tacky. What I came up with was cutting a window in the middle of the lid, and with the help of some aluminum channel, affixing a slab of 3/8ths glass with the name of the person sandblasted into the middle. 3/8ths (or 10mm) is thick enough that with the edges protected, someone would be able to stand on it without fear of it ever breaking. More than strong enough for my purposes. A coat of hand rubbed stain later, and it's time to varathane the project to protect it. Across 4 boxes this was something of an experiment. There are precisely 4 high gloss protective clear coat types available in Lethbridge, so one box from each was enough to let me know what to use in the future.
Lacquer - leaves a nice coat, but it's very gummy and takes a long time to dry. Doing a knockdown sand with 800 grit between coats is annoying because the paper clogs very fast, and the finish also tends to whiten if water is left on it a long time. Needs 4 coats for a high gloss finish
Waterborne - yech.. it does smell better than the others, and the brushes are very easy to clean, but it has downsides. The finish is very, very soft.. to the point I can dent it with my thumbnail. Takes _6_ coats to get the same high gloss finish, and takes better than 10 hours for each coat to dry. _Not_ my favorite
Minwax Polyurethane - stinks, but does a very nice job. 3 coats for high gloss, sands well. However, the solvent in it eats poly paintbrushes (dollar store, here I come!) and the finish doesn't always come out consistently.
Varathane - This is the cream of the crop, and the most expensive too. It also eats paintbrushes, but after three coats you have a finish that is very nearly a perfect mirror. Sands very well, and dries rock hard. Definitely the one I recommend to anyone doing their own projects.
Once the stain and finish are complete, I attach the hinges, chains inside to prevent the lid from thumping back, feet so it can sit level, and handles for easy lifting and voila!
Not to shabby for a white guy eh? Next update (whenever it occurs) we'll get into some of the side projects and a box that was built a bit differently :)
