Making 100 Beer Flight Boxes
Here's how I made 100 beer flight boxes for Cartridge Brewing! These are solid walnut and feature rabbet joinery reinforced with once fired 9mm casings, branded leather badges that are brass tacked on, and a chalkboard to label the libations that Catridge Brewing will serve in the boxes! I mean, how could I make beer flight boxes for a brew pub called Catridge Brewing that's going in an old ammunition factory and NOT use brass casings in it somewhere? If you're in the Cincinnati area or just love great beer, be sure to follow instagram.com/cartridgebrewing or https://cartridgebrewing.com to visit them as soon as they open in 2020!
This post contains affiliate links, for more information see my disclosures page.
Check out the tools I use.
Many thanks to Will for coming over to help me out! Check out his work at YouTube.com/jkcanvas and instagram.com/jkcanvas
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TotalBoat 2:1 Epoxy: http://bit.ly/TB21Epoxy
TotalBoat Halcyon: http://bit.ly/TBHalcyonAmber
Starbond CA Glue: http://bit.ly/StarbondBundle “YCMT2” for 10% off
Starbond Black CA Glue: http://bit.ly/StarbondBlackCA “YCMT2” for 10% off
10mm drill bit: https://amzn.to/2vRbsHO
Brass casings: https://elitereloading.com/reload/once-fired-brass/
Leather Badges: https://amzn.to/3bbIsuJ
Leather Conditioner: https://amzn.to/373kwWY
Branding Iron: GearheartIndustry.com
Tiny Brass Nails: https://amzn.to/31uESaq
Larger Brass Nails: https://amzn.to/2tA662V
I’m building this with a stash of rough 4/4 walnut I have on hand that’s perfect for making a ton of small items.. Meaning, it’s pretty warped and knotty. I start by skip planning everything to get a better look at what I’ll be working with. I may seem to go out of order as I mill then, but I’ll explain my reasoning as I go.
Now that I’m looking at bare wood, I switch to the miter saw and start chopping these 8 and 10 foot boards down to more manageable lengths and reduce any crook and warp. I have a stop block set up at about 3 feet from the saw to help me keep pieces pretty consistent. But if it doesn’t make sense to cut down a board more.. I don’t. But I do take care to remove any pieces too wasted to be useful.
My mobile bench turned out to be super handy during this build. I used it to organize all my pieces by how many long pieces I expected to get out of each piece, which I wrote on them.
Wheels are a must in my small shop, and right now I’m really glad I sprung for some nice big wheels. It’s probably time to sweep when you can bury a bone in the shop.
Now to get a straight edge on the pieces before they get ripped. I have a love/hate thing with my jointer fence. I have to move the bolts depending on where I need it positioned, but the alternative would be to have a giant tail sticking out the back that gets in the way when I’m working with larger wood. But, it’s always worth the time to adjust and make sure the blades are covered by my stock since this beast doesn’t have a guard. I also take some extra care to make sure my fence is dialed in as close as I can get it since I just moved it.
And I’m all set to joint a straight clean edge on these boards. Of course taking time to identify any crook and see which way the grain is going to make sure the grain downhill.
Instead of pushing my bench back through all the shavings I figured I should stop being a sloppy lazy bum and sweep it all up. Unsurprisingly, it pushes a lot better on concrete. Damnit, I missed a spot.
That clean edge gives me a reference for my table saw fence so everything can start getting ripped to width. Of course, I take some time to verify machine set up. That’s going to be a trend with this project. Double checking calibration and making jigs. Normally it’s faster to finesse any issues with hand tools than to take test cuts and adjust everything as close as possible. But, since I’m doing 100 of these.. it makes sense to spend a few extra minutes before each procedure to be as accurate as possible.
Then I reposition everything and bring it down to thickness at the.. thickness planer. By ripping first, I created more pieces to feed through the planer, but reduced the amount of cupping that was present in a lot of the boards which will help them stay thicker. Also.. if it seems like the dust collection isn’t work, then it probably isn’t. Took me way too long to realize my hose was clogged, doah. Make sure to take breaks to clean your hose to avoid performance issues.
Everything is thicknesses and ripped to width, so now it’s time to cut to length to create blanks. Of course, this starts by checking that my saw is cutting square and setting up a stop block.
Now I can dive into cutting blanks to length. Of course being sure to remove undesirable bits as I go. Some defects in the wood won’t be a problem, but a knot on the end where the joinery will be cut is a no go, that won’t produce a tight joint, and nobody likes a loose sloppy joint.
The outside of the blanks will actually be in the inside of the boxes… Just trust me, this’ll be a lot of beer boxes but I don’t drink enough while I’m in the shop to mix up my insides and outsides. Anyway, that’s why I’m loading up my spray gun with some TotalBoat Halcyon. I figured it’ll be easier to finish the inside of the boxes while they’re on the outside, because that makes sense. What makes more sense though right now is the Halcyon because I can recoat in an hour, which means in an afternoon I can get two coats on both sides of everything. The best part of this was getting to trade my ear muffs for a respirator. Actually I’m kidding, respirators suck.
Earlier I set aside some of the rough stock that was thicker than the others after skip planning to be bottoms because I’m hoping to resaw three bottoms out of each piece. But they’ll need the same processing as the others have already had, which starts at edge jointing. But first.. plugging in the machine. And, tightening the fence. And, pointlessly picking at wood to jab a splinter under my nail. And, remembering the fence is out of whack since it’s been moved.
After other unspeakable errors that will never be publicly admitted, I can finally rip the bottoms to width.
Then on to my old nemesis, the band saw. Fortunately, these are pretty narrow pieces so there’s less chance of issues with resawing.. a shop procedure that has taunted my for years. But since I started coaxing myself to sleep every night whispering “you’re a good woodworker” it suddenly turned a page. I also watched an Alex Snodgrass video on tuning the bandsaw and changed the blade, but I’m pretty sure it was the positive self messaging that did the trick.
And with those few, quick, simple steps knocked out.. now I can measure the bottoms and discover what thickness my dado stack needs to be to rip a dado on the sides to hold the bottom.
And I can get to ripping said dados.. Fortunately, I only did a few before I remembered that I have a feather board and this is the perfect time to use it. Settling in to really repetitive tasks like this is where accidents are prime to happen. Anytime I’m doing something I know is a bit risky I’m fully alert and present, anticipating any indicators of pending disaster. But ripping 300 dados it’s easy to lull away and loose presence once you get a rhythm. So it’s at these tasks I go further than I normally would to set up extra safeties to mitigate the possibility of injury in case I make a mistake.
Up ‘till now I was just ripping the pieces that’ll be long sides. These same blanks will actually be the short sides, the difference is they only get a dado on one side because they’ll be thicker.
Again, I’m thankful for this mobile workbench. Moving material around my small shop normally isn’t an issue… but this isn’t my normal kind of project.
Now I’m ripping the blanks that’ll be the side pieces to their final thickness. I had to make them thicker than the long sides to have enough room to drill out for the brass dowels that will be added later to reinforce the joint.
And now that I have the actual width of the short sides, I was able to set up the dado stack and my stop block to cut the rabbets on the end of the long pieces. I’m doing them now before splitting them to minimize how many pieces I have to handle. Normally that’s not a big deal. But it does take longer to set a piece down and pick up another one than it does to just flip over a piece that’s already on the saw… multiply that time difference by 100 and all the different procedures being done, and it can be some real time savings.
All the joinery is cut on the long side blanks, so now they can be split in half to create two sides. To set up my bandsaw to rip them in half I use a trick I picked up from one someone on YouTube.. most of those guys are arrogant hacks, but occasionally they have some nuggets. Anyway, the trick is to get as close as possible, make a cut, and then put the “offcut” side of the piece against the fence and try to slide it into the back of the blade. Once that happens, you know you’re cutting in the middle. I do that on some scrap and then get to ripping all these pieces. I’d probably go crazy if I made it any number into these and realized my saw wasn’t set up right from the beginning. Granted that’s probably not saying much, since I’m obviously already slightly deranged for taking on this kind of order in my shop.
With the long sides bifurcated, I can partially mock up a box to get the proper width for my short sides. I test on some extra blanks and make sure this width gives extra room for the bottom piece to float between the sides. I don’t want the bottoms too tight. Wood expansion is unlikely to be much an issue.. but as much as I’ve tried to be precise, there’s always a margin of error. So especially with the groove that’ll hold the bottoms I want enough play that every box will come together without issue but that it’s still adequately supported. And then I get on with turning the about 50 blanks into 200 sides.. plus some extras, just in case. I’m sure some folks will point out I’ve generated a lot of waste. Each one of these blanks is oversized and could’ve been smaller to save a little material. True, but that would’ve come at the cost of extra time.. and would’ve given me less room for error. I saved time by having all the side blanks the same size as I was processing them and then could pick shorts from longs. Also.. it would’ve been tragic to realize that I’d made an error somewhere and my short sides would have to be a touch longer.. but that meant my blanks would now only yield 3 instead of 4 sides.. leaving me 25% short, or having to completely re-do an earlier process. Also, the extra length gives me some play to cut out defects and still get 4 pieces from most boards.
Next up is my best time saving tip, and the sanest thing I did all project… ask for help. My buddy Will, link to his YouTube below, came over and spent a whole day helping me. First he sanded the little nubs off the bottom of all the bottom pieces while I tacked together some assembly jigs.
But before we got to assembling.. there were some bottoms that needed a little repair. These were extras, but with Starbond CA glue it’s super fast to do simple repairs like this so I went ahead and did them before we got going incase we ended up needing some of them it would already be done.
Now for an exciting moment, the assembly! This and the next step were two were an extra set of hands really made a difference on speeding up the process. I made these two jigs to help hold everything square and together. It took a little experimenting, but after a few tries we find a process that took us both about the same amount of time to perform our tasks so we could be the most efficient. Will put some TotalBoat 2:1 epoxy on one of the long sides, slides in the short sides and bottoms, then passes them to me. I applied epoxy the other long side and set it on the box, then shoot 2 pin nails into each joint. Flip the box over gingerly, and then pin nail the first side. Watch carefully and you’ll see that I angle each nail slightly in opposite directions. Doing it that way creates opposing geometry that adds a lot of strength. Pin nails are headless which is great because I won’t have to worry about covering the nails, but that also means they’re not very strong. Creating that opposite geometry adds mechanical strength to the joint instead of just the friction of the wood squeezing the nail. Another handy thing about pin nails is it’s really easy to know when you’ve run out of nails (box drop) really easy… But the upside of doing this many boxes is that only happened to me about 5 times before I didn’t learn to pay attention to when it ran out.
Then we set off to rough sanding the boxes. We’re doing it now after assembly for the same reason I mentioned earlier.. less handling. Instead of sanding 400 pieces, now it’s 100 pieces with 4 sides. Also, apparently some of the short sides ended up getting ripped a little narrower than others. Will set those aside as he went and I used a flush trim saw to even them out.
Next up will be finishing, so everything gets dusted. A wiser man would’ve been wearing a dust mask for this. A wiser man.
And I busted out the TotalBoat Halcyon and sprayer again. The inside of the boxes have been pre-finished, except for the bottom. But it was pretty easy to spray the bottom of the inside and then all of the outside. Fortunately, Will was still around and this was another time his help super sped things up. With him handing me boxes and stacking sprayed boxes, I was able to pretty much constantly spray.. and by the time we finished the first go around, the first boxes were ready for a second coat. Luckily my spray gun isn’t very heavy, but there’s no amount of teenage debauchery that could’ve prepared my forearms for a 3 hour spray gun marathon.
Before the next step I need to dial in my drill press using an old machinists trick. I noticed while doing the recesses that the table was slightly out of square with the quill. So I bent a welding electrode, a coat hanger would work too, and chucked it up and then turned it around the table until it had even contact. If I really wanted to get down to beep hair accuracy I would’ve busted out the feeler gauges, but that’s excessive for my needs.
Anyway, why did I need to tweak the drill press? Well the rabbet joints holding the box together are end grain glue ups, which aren’t very durable. The pin nails add some, but they were really just to hold the boxes together while the epoxy cured. A stylish way to reinforce the joints would dowels. But, since I’m making these for Cartridge Brewing, a brew pub that’s going into the old Peter’s Cartidge Factory outside Cincinnati, Ohio I figured how cool would it be if I used once fired 9mm brass casings as dowels? Fortunately, the owner agreed. In hindsight, 380 shells may have been a better choice and would’ve given me more wiggle room. But anyway, I’m drill a 10mm hole in about 15mm thickness board.. so my out of square table could’ve ended up spelling disaster for me drilling these holes. Of course once again I whipped together a quick jig to make lining up each hole automatic.
It probably sounds stupid, but it wasn’t really until after drilling all those holes and moving them back onto my bench that it set in just how many a hundred is… it’s a lot.
A short push to my assembly table and it’s time to start pushing brass into holes. When I made the first prototypes I used epoxy but had a problem with it. Due to the viscosity of the epoxy it created an airlock when I tried to push the brass into the hole which made it near impossible to get the brass all the down into the hole. So I switched to Starbond CA glue. It’s a lot thinner and I only had airlock issues on a few.
Now to start working on some of the accoutrement… like the leather brand badges. I decided to hit easy mode and fortunately my local Tandy leather had these practice pieces pre-cut to the perfect size. I just had to heat up a brand and try to burn the logo in the center of them. This was probably the most straight forward process, unfortunately I think only Hannibal would enjoy the smell. And then off camera in my pajamas I got my Netflix and chill on with these badges and a big tub of leather conditioner.
The other accoutrement to make is a chalkboard to go on the boxes for the servers to label which glass has which beer in the flight. For those I broke down a 4x8 sheet of 1/8” hardboard into individual pieces. I really enjoy working with real wood, but it was actually nice to switch over to an engineer projected where I wouldn’t have to worry about defects or tension in the material… Also, I was thinking completely backwards and cut all these upside down from how I should of.
And for the third time my sprayer was a huge help in this project. I thinned the chalkboard paint a bit and went to town. It took me a while to find a flow though because I wanted all the edges to be well painted also. Spraying before cutting would’ve been easier, but I was afraid that cutting would cause chip out on the paint and I would’ve still had to paint again to get the edges anyway.
But I knew trying to hammer tacks through these.. and be consistent was going to be a super pain. So I whipped up yet ANOTHER jig at the drill press and got to drilled. Thankfully, for once, FINALLY, I was able to gang drill and plunge my bit through several at once. It turned out that 4 pieces at a time seemed to be around the right amount.
And now, to add the accoutrement and finish a box. Will passed the great idea of picking up some tiny $2 pliers at harbor freight to hold the small tacks for the leather badge, which are a huge pain to hammer. The chalkboards went on a bit easier because the holes help hold the tacks to get them started. Unfortunately, off camera I had a box split while hammering in the tack, so I started predrilling all the holes for the chalkboards on the boxes… so only 396 more holes to drill and to drive 792 brass tacks through chalk boards and leather badges.
I hope you enjoyed this, learned something, or were at least entertained. If I earned your subscription don’t forget to do that and ring bell. When this video goes up I’ll probably still be working on these, and if you don’t hear from me for a while… well, send help and then make time to make something.