jimmyben
New member
Thanks for reading! First post.
I’ll start by saying I’m not an experienced woodworker. I’ve made a few things out of pallets with L-brackets, butt joints and just started using pocket holes but nothing fancy. I also don’t have a massive amount of tools: drill, jigsaw, circular saw, random orbital sander, router and a few basic hand tools.
I want to make something like this:
However, I’m concerned about having a big, thick sheet of plywood in my boot if i was to be involved in a crash. I want it to be strong but also collapse if I was to be rear ended as my daughter would be in the back seat.
My ideas so far have been to cut the top up into long, horizontal strips and then pocket hole them together to make a panel. This would hopefully be strong in terms on downwards pressure but would buckle and collapse with any impact from behind. Also, rather than use a complete piece of plywood for the side legs, to either jigsaw holes out or to have smaller pieces acting as legs. Furthermore, I thought 1/2” plywood (12mm) would suffice, but not sure if another material (MDF, particle board, etc) would be better as although it wouldn’t be as strong, it would fall apart easier in a crash.
Sorry if none of this makes sense, it’s hard to describe everything!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I’ll start by saying I’m not an experienced woodworker. I’ve made a few things out of pallets with L-brackets, butt joints and just started using pocket holes but nothing fancy. I also don’t have a massive amount of tools: drill, jigsaw, circular saw, random orbital sander, router and a few basic hand tools.
I want to make something like this:
However, I’m concerned about having a big, thick sheet of plywood in my boot if i was to be involved in a crash. I want it to be strong but also collapse if I was to be rear ended as my daughter would be in the back seat.
My ideas so far have been to cut the top up into long, horizontal strips and then pocket hole them together to make a panel. This would hopefully be strong in terms on downwards pressure but would buckle and collapse with any impact from behind. Also, rather than use a complete piece of plywood for the side legs, to either jigsaw holes out or to have smaller pieces acting as legs. Furthermore, I thought 1/2” plywood (12mm) would suffice, but not sure if another material (MDF, particle board, etc) would be better as although it wouldn’t be as strong, it would fall apart easier in a crash.
Sorry if none of this makes sense, it’s hard to describe everything!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
