Adding strength to a box with thin walls

[Richard D]

My own fault, really; I've managed to make a box out of, well, wood of some description, and the wood is both very light and susceptable to picking up dings. It's harder than balsa, but softer and weaker than pine (no idea what it is; "not cedar" is about the best identification that I can make). In addition, the box has various partitions, some of which are thinner than I would like them to be.

Now it doesn't *really* matter - this box was only ever supposed to be a prototype for something to be made from a stronger, tougher wood, but rather than just throw this one on the fire I might be able to get some use out of it if I can toughen it up a bit.

So what should I use to finish it? I don't want to use anything expensive (this box was made out of a few quid's worth of someone else's offcuts), or tricky to handle (nothing requiring spray booths or special equipment). The only stuff I have on my shelves at the moment is a hard wax oil, danish oil and a tin of quick-drying varnish (oh, and a tin of some sort of wood hardener that I acquired cheap for no other reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time). Which one of them would do the least-worst job? Is there anything else that people could suggest?

 

[GraemeD]

Hi Richard,

Been planing timber nice and thin have you?! Well, my suggestion would be to use some varnish....unfortunately the proper solvent based stuff rather than the quick drying kind you already have, which is water based and won;t penetrate into the wood surface.....which is what you need here. I'd thin the first coat or two with white spirit to help it to penetrate into your soft wood, and then harden off. I reckon it would help toughen the surface quite well. I suppose you could also try the wood hardener if it's going begging....that is designed to penetrate and then harden. Then go over the result with your QD varnish, just to seal the surface.

Dunno, what do others think?

Cheers
Graeme

 

[Richard D]

Yup.

 

[Richard D]

Planing timber? Just a bit Mostly oak, for something that's not been finished yet, but I also ran this stuff through the planer a few times to make a box for a card game called "Dominion".

It's only a prototype for something bigger and better (to be made from either cherry or oak, I haven't decided yet), but I'm pleased with the way it worked out (especially the dovetails; nice and tight now I've calibrated the woodrat and understand what it is I'm actually doing when cutting dovetails with it; I need a beefier router though).

I didn't want to use plywood for base/lid inserts, so I re-sawed the 25mm thick piece into the thickness I wanted for the box (12mm), and then planed the offcut down to 6mm. I swear I could snap the stuff just by staring at it hard. But the assembled result is better than I'd hoped it would be (and it was only an exercise in avoiding a more expensive mistake; I can already see about 6 improvements that I'll make to the "proper" box when I start on it).

I've got an offcut out in the garage now that I treated to a dunking in the hardener earlier.

 

[GraemeD]

Wow, you really have moved on with those dovetails....they look lovely and tight!

The wood looks to me like some kind of "whitewood" softwood, with really widely spaced grain....it grows so quickly and hence is very light and very soft. Not sure if you'll be able to harden that much with varnish, but maybe the wood hardener is worth a bash. It will be interesting to see what your experiment yields. That also probably explains the bit of tearout around some of the joints.....impossible to avoid with such timbers. Once you switch to your oak, you'll have no such problems!

Nice bit of work Richard, especially given the materials you're working with!

Graeme