Stackable Crates

Very clever idea!

Just taper the ends a little so they are easier to mate up.

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

Now that is thinking “Outside the Box”

Great idea

Jamie

-- Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Fantastic idea and a timely one for me as about to move house. Looks like I’m spending the next few weeks making as many crates as possible. Good point from Topa on tapering the ends.

Hadders

-- Hadders - "Arghh! Where's my persuader?"

Great job! Very useful.

-- Jack, Albuquerque

A jig for spacing. I think it would work better/easier if the dovetailed slats were a bit loser than your typical dovetail. Given the length of the slats a tight dovetail would likely prove tough to align when putting two boxes together and portentially even tougher to pull them apart. I think your idea of a 12 or 15 degree would allow for the slats to “lock” without being overly tight if they are spaced with about a 1/64 clearance between slats.

-- Shameless - Winner of two Stumpy Nubs Awards

I love the dovetail idea. But yeah, a jig of some kind to space them correctly is probably necessary.

That aside, straight box joints would be my next best bet.

Thanks for the good feedback. I am pretty sure that my issue is with alignment of the adjacent edges. I actually mated the adjacent sides into each other (rather than making a jig) and then temporarily joined them together with two vertical members across all the slats. I had to use a hammer to knock them out to build the other crate, so I knew I would have a problem mating them up. By the way, I used material on hand to make the crates, so the second one has pressed board slats—they do not take screws very well, even though I predrilled the screw holes!

After considering the comments, I am thinking now about just making one dovetail with a 15 degree angle on each mating edge, and just putting square-edged slats in between. The two dovetails would oppose each other to lock in. I will also sand the edges of the sliding dovetails and rub some beeswax on them to ease making up the connection.

-- People say I hammer like lightning. It's not that I'm fast -- it's that I never hit the same place twice!

Have you considered using a type of French cleat instead of dovetails? Make one side a receiver and the other side the hanger. Then you can alternate sides of several boxes to fit.

-- RTex, Wood Wranglin' Cowboy

Coincidentally, I just watched a Wood Whisperer Mini about French cleats for storage hanging. I think that might work better as the interlocking mechanism instead of the sliding dovetail. One at the top and one at the bottom should work, with rectangular slats in between.

-- People say I hammer like lightning. It's not that I'm fast -- it's that I never hit the same place twice!

Don, Nicely done. I just recently made some smaller crates for our new craft show display, did not think about being able to interlock them I think I am going to do that with another set in the future. Look forward to seeing the next version from ya.

CtL

-- Chris L. "Don't Dream it, Be it."

I would just put a one sided tapering dovetail on each end. It would lock up solid and be easy top align ;-)

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence Wake Up America!! Please read; http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0