Canadian Woodworking Forum 2x4 Challenge!

The Canadian Woodworking forum has just announced a 2×4 challenge and I accepted the challenge. It’s a contest and the winner could possibly get their entry in the Canadian Woodworking magazine. All you have to do is build something out of one 8 ft spruce construction grade 2×4. I have a lot of old 2×4’s so it worked out. I am making a larger version of my acorn box out of a 2×4 and I am going to show you what I have done so far and how I did it.

First I surface planed the two faces of the 2×4 and then cut the rounded edges off on the tablesaw. Now I have a square board. I then cut a pice off of it. That piece is for the main shape of the box. here it is:

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I then cut that piece into 4 “6 1/2” pieces. I edge glued two pieces together and did the same for the other two. Now I have two blanks for the top and the bottom of the box. As you can see, I traced the pattern on to one of the blanks.

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Next, I cut the acorn shape out with the bandsaw on both blanks.

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Here’s what they looked like afterwards.

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I then sanded the two pieces on the drum sander and glued them together. After the glue dried, I trimmed the edges with the bandsaw to make sure they were the same size. It is very rough so far but that will change.

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I then started to make the blanks for the lid and the bottom with the other part of the 2×4. I used the technique Mot used in his 2×4 bowl blog for this part. I set the miter saw to 15 degrees with a stop and cut 12 pizza slices.

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I then milled each slice to 1/2 an inch with the bandsaw and glued them together. I made another pizza for the bottom using the same procedure. This is where I wished I had a Performax drum sander but a random-orbital sander did the job. If you notice big black lines between some of the slices, they aren’t gaps, it’s just marker. The slices glued together very well.

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After that I traced the acorn pattern onto each pizza and cut them out on the bandsaw. This as as far as I’ve got so make sure you check out my projects page when I show the final product. I hope I win the contest!

-- Remember, measure twice, cut once