2. Workshop

Munchkin Case

A wooden carrying case for our game of Munchkin.
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I started this project with a plain old block of wood that seemed thick enough for my purposes. I chose one block because I was hoping to line up all the grain after my cuts and glue-ups to bring it all together in as close to original appearance as possible. This didn't work out perfectly in the end, but it was part of my aim.
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I started this project with a plain old block of wood that seemed thick enough for my purposes. I chose one block because I was hoping to line up all the grain after my cuts and glue-ups to bring it all together in as close to original appearance as possible. This didn't work out perfectly in the end, but it was part of my aim.

  • I started this project with a plain old block of wood that seemed thick enough for my purposes. I chose one block because I was hoping to line up all the grain after my cuts and glue-ups to bring it all together in as close to original appearance as possible. This didn't work out perfectly in the end, but it was part of my aim.
  • With a freshly cut block planed flat on all four sides I lines out the dimensions for the cards and walls of the box. Ultimately I wound up losing a bit more width in these cuts than I had anticipated, but that comes in later.
  • For my first cut I chopped off the top of the box. This was done slowly and carefully to ensure I didn't steer off somewhere in the middle of this long cut. I'd start on one side and follow the line at a very shallow angle to set the course and cut until the farther edge of the blade reached the outside edge of the box, and then I'd flip it over and repeat, so the visible part of the saw was always precisely on the line with each stroke, and the rest just followed along in the cut.
  • The wood I used for this was pretty poor quality, so the lid split in two pieces before I even finished cutting it. I actually wound up gluing several parts back together simply because of two or three large splits that transited a major portion of the original chunk. In this glue-up I used a few cauls to keep the lid flat while clamping it in two directions.
  • With the lid off I planed the saw marks out of both sides of the cut. After this whole process was completed I found I had actually removed about a quarter-inch of wood per cut, which was more than I had budgeted for in my plans. I had to rectify that later.
  • After removing the lid I was able to bring in my bandsaw to remove the sides, and then planed both sides of those cuts smooth as well. This shot is while removing saw marks from one of the side pieces.
  • I kept the bottom and ends together to keep my cut marks minimal, but my bandsaw broke on me so I had to clean out the inside of the box by hand. I made a bunch of cuts roughly to depth and then removed the wood with a chisel, mallet, and lots of noise.
  • Once the chisel had done all it could do I used a carving axe to flatten the remainder and get it close to the depth I wanted my box to be. The broad blade of the axe worked really well for removing lots of wood and keeping it flat while working within the confines of the ends of the box, and then I finished some of the tricky parts with a hand plane and chisels.
  • Addressing my misjudgment of the width of the box I chose to stretch my boards by adding in a chunk of Morado down the middle. I cut the entire box carefully down the center line and then planed those edges smooth.
  • Using a coping saw, I cut a piece of Morado roughly to fit into the body of the box, again keeping the bottom and ends intact.
  • I glued my board stretcher into place, and then worked using chisels to smooth it level with the wood on either side of it.
  • The results after planing the bottom of the box. I failed to match the direction of the grain of the morado with the fir around it, which led to some minor tearout while planing. One of these days I'll remember that important part of combining woods and planing...
  • Since I left the ends on the box I had some trouble planing into the corners, but I did a reasonably decent job of it using chisels, and then sanded the whole thing through a couple grits to bring it all together. You can see in this picture I didn't touch the ends of the box much through the whole process of building.
  • With the box body stretched I also had to stretch the lid exactly the same. I just used the same piece of morado, which was decently planed when I got it and didn't need anything further before gluing, so the widths of the two sections matched perfectly.
  • My plans were for the lid piece to be cut from the top at a slightly wider width than the body of the box. I drew out some lines and started my cut by pressing the pin out of a coping saw blade, passing the blade through a thin slot made in the wood using a dremel with a cutoff disk, and then pressing the pin back in and re-assembling the coping saw. It turned out I didn't need to spend all that effort since the piece split in like three places while cutting it, but hey, it worked pretty well besides that! I carefully cut as straight a line and as neat of a radius as I could with the coping saw and removed the lid piece.
  • I used sandpaper to smooth the inside of the top piece. The fir I used had quite a variance of hardness between the different parts of the grain, so the ends didn't sand straight and smooth and I'd try to find a better way to do that part if I did it again. The sides sanded fine though.
  • After repairing some splits and planing the bottom flat, the edge of the top piece was glued back onto the body of the box. The lid cutout being wider than the box cutout left a neat edge all the way around for the lid itself to sit on, and having it all cut from the same block meant the grain lines up nicely on top and almost nicely on the ends.
  • With the body of the box all together I planed a wide curve into the long sides and then sanded it smooth to clean up the plane lines. By this time all my hand planes had been pretty well dulled, but I hate stopping in the middle of things to sharpen, so I just did a bit more sanding.
  • I thought through a bunch of different latching options before deciding to build a blockier mechanism and housing, which I pieced together out of Morado as well. I started with a big rectangular block just wider than the lid itself, and chopped the corners with a chisel. Once again I encountered the problem of dulling my tools faster than I finish my projects, but that's just who I am right now so I lived with the small scratches and blowouts.
  • My initial design for a closure mechanism was to use a carved plastic spring sliding against a plastic cammed point, using some plastic I had handy that doesn't have a whole lot of friction to it. After a couple variations I wound up with this piece, which I paired up with a piece of morado for a stem. Ultimately I moved away from the plastic spring, but these pieces already fit nicely so I didn't bother replacing the plastic with a wooden piece, and I kept it.
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