Introduction: Door Box - Kids Toy

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My one and half year old son likes to play with keys, locks doors so my wife had idea to make something for Christmas like that. This is box with 10 doors each with different lock or way of opening. Also he can put his toys in.

This instructable is not going to be step by step but explain what I did, and what would I like to do differently next time.

Step 1: General Notes

Materials

I was using 10mm plywood and lot of glue. On table saw I cut basic shape. Size of box is around 450 X 150 X 150 mm. Like 3 separate cubes put together.

Lot of hinges and locks.

Notes

  • Sliding door needs to be installed before top is glued on. I did not leave too much space and ended up having to sand between track and top of box to be able to close slide door. My advice is leave more space between slider and top of box.
  • This was first time I used table saw. I liked it. I made all edges 45 degrees and then glue them but you can use any joint you like.
  • Cut door openings before cutting edges 45 degrees. Straight edges will help you measure and cut openings.
  • I made paper template to mark holes for hinges and knobs on doors. Just punched holes through paper template. that made it much easier then measuring all doors individually.
  • I painted doors different colour to be able to tech him colours later. :)

Step 2: Router on Badget

Cutting opening for doors was really hard. I tried first with jigsaw but it was not that straight. I don't have router, so I needed to improvise, on (no) budget. So I come up with few EUR solution. I added ball bearing on wood file drill bit and with that fixed up my jigsaw ruff cuts.

Pro:

  • Cheep
  • Did job (once)

Con:

  • My drill stand was not that good for pushing material sideways.
  • Ball-bearing was 19mm and bit was 15mm so I needed to account for difference.
  • Cut edges were ruff and it was ripping off wood
  • Drill bit shaft was 6mm officially but in real it was 6.15mm so I needed to sand it of a bit to be able to put ball bearing on it.

All in all good tool hack but no replacement for router.