Choice of wood - what would you advise?

[Richard D]

I'm going to be setting about building some boxes to hold a card game. I've made a quick prototype:

As you can see, it's about 10mm thinck with a lot of slots routed into it, each about 4mm deep and 6mm wide, with 6mm between slots.

What timber would you recommend? It needs to fulfil the following criteria:

(i) have veneered plywood available to match the front/back/sides,

(ii) be strong enough to have all those slots cut into it without compromising the strength of the box or weighing a tonne,

(iii) not be so hard that it blunts my router bits (there is a *lot* of routing required; and no, I'm not going to do it any of it on a table saw),

(iv) not suffer from much break-out,

(v) be reasonably easy to obtain and not cost the earth.

My first choice is cherry, I think, but it's not particularly cheap. I don't want to use anything too cheap, though, as some of these boxes are going to be sold to collectors of the game.

 

[Richard Findley]

Hi Richard,

I made a CD/DVD presentation box a while ago for a customer:

I think the idea is similar to what you are proposing. The main difference being that I used inserts for my routed/slotted area rather than slotting the body of the box. The main reason I did this was because of the position of the lock but it also made construction a bit easier.

The thread with a few wip pictures is here: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/oak-dvd-cd-presentation-box-t38589.html?highlight=dvd box The wood is European Oak.

I hope this is some help to you.

Richard

 

[Ironballs]

I'd go with your first thought, cherry, it takes a fine edge for a good joint, is relatively soft on your router bits and with an oil finish will look fantastic with your cards

 

[Richard D]

Thanks.

I'm making "prototype number 2" from oak, but any more that I make after that will be from cherry. Assuming that my router bit handles cutting 200-odd channels in the oak.