2x4 Box vs Walnut Box - What's Worth More? Wood Box SHOOTOUT!

[Music] what's up everyone welcome back to the shop can you believe it i have made almost 150 videos on youtube it's mind-boggling did you just say mind bottling yeah mind-boggling you know when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped like in a bottle but one video stands alone as my most viewed my most popular my most subscribed to yet my most hated video on youtube which is can you do fine woodworking from a two by four oh man the comments got so bad i had to actually turn off the comment section of the video so what made so many people so angry about it well i went through the comments to try to figure it out and really what it boiled down to was a lot of people could not see the 2x4 from the box since the box was made from a 2x4 they assumed it was all 2x4 quality so let's do a case study today let's build two boxes identical in every way one made from hardwood one made from construction lumber and let's do a side-by-side comparison i found some construction lumber in the corner of my shop it's been there for a long time so i know it is super dry now prices vary depending on where you live at but based off my area i figure i will probably use about five dollars worth of material to build the box for the other box i'm going to build it out of walnut so i grabbed a walnut board that was in my shop now again prices vary depending on where you're at it costs me about eight dollars a board foot for walnut so depending on how much lumber i use i will probably spend about fifteen dollars in material to make this box this is just a rough estimate of materials i'm going to need to make the boxes based off my experience in making them so this video is not supposed to be a tutorial on how you should run your woodworking business that's a personal thing the one thing i want to keep in mind is i want my boxes to be built exactly the same so i am going to mill down some lumber so i can build the outside carcasses of those boxes i'm going to do all of that at the same time i got all my pieces cut out so now it's time for the joinery i'm going to go with box joints because well i think they look kind of classy so i've got my sled here i've got a taller auxiliary fence so i have plenty of space for my work piece to fit onto and i put a ripping blade in my saw now if you want to know exactly how to do this step by step i already have a video on it so you can check that out i go over the whole process and it requires no measuring [Music] [Music] the box joints look good so now i got to work on the tops and the bottoms now usually whenever i'm cutting grooves for that i'll use the table saw just run it across the blade but if i did that there would be little notches cut out here on the ends of the fingers and i don't want to see those so instead i'm going to go over to the router table and do a plunge cut and that will prevent it so we don't have those cutouts [Music] [Music] [Music] after i made the box bottoms i dry assembled them in they look really good so now i know i can glue them up so while the glue is drying on this i'm going to go ahead and start working on the lids for each one of them [Music] all right nice and square the lid slides in really nicely but i need something to put my finger on so i could pull it in and out really easily so what i decided to do was to mill down some wood so it's the same thickness as the perimeter of my box so i just took it over the band saw cut a piece down did some sanding and then i cut it to length and width at the table saw so then whenever that piece fits in there it all looks seamless so looks really good so what i'm going to do is i'm going to glue this into place i'm going to use the old wood glue ca glue trick you use some wood glue for the strength put a couple drops of ca glue basically to serve as a clamp once all that's glued up then i gotta do a whole bunch of sanding [Music] i sanded both the boxes down to 180 grit rounded over all the edges and they look fantastic so now is the really exciting part which is applying finish when it comes to finishes i tend to like to keep it simple if i can so i'm just going to go with a hard wax finish [Music] [Music] comparison time we have two boxes that are built exactly the same the same amount of time the same amount of tension went into them the only difference is one is made from construction lumber one is made from walnut based on my experience of selling boxes i think most people are gonna gravitate towards the walnut box because well they like that walnutty look at the same time though this is a fantastic box now with the design of this i think you could do some really cool engraving some personalization on this and let's say that you do all of that and then you list it for sale for fifty dollars for easy math purposes obviously well based off the comments i received on the last video on this topic there were a lot of people who said they would not pay five dollars for this one and well is that really fair five dollars if you look at it everything's exactly the same with the exception of maybe ten dollars worth of material in the one compared to the other would it also be fair if we said this was a five dollar box and this was a fifty dollar box i don't think so i also said in that last video i could probably make 200 to 250 worth of boxes from the construction lumber that i was using well i took those two boxes i made i listed them for sale i sell them to complete strangers for thirty dollars each so that would put me right in the ballpark of what i said in the video at the same time i think i would have sold them faster if they would have been made out of walnut instead of pine and if you're rushing to the comments to say well i have to have ten thousand dollars worth of machinery to make these you're missing the point that's not really what we're talking about here what's our takeaway from this comparison well my personal takeaway is if you want to hone your skills as a woodworker but at the same time you want to impress others with what you made if you got a few extra bucks spend money on good materials because a lot of people cannot see the book past the cover at the same time though don't let that deter you if you don't have those few extra dollars because i am proud of the box that i made and i'd be happy to have this at my house and there's a lot of people out there who can see the craftsmanship you put into it beyond the wood species what's really important is that we all get into our shops try to make something cool and try to improve our skills hopefully you enjoyed this video until we meet again get in your shop and build something awesome

Channel: Newton Makes

Views: 45,631

Keywords: diy woodworking, woodworking projects, workshop tools, do it yourself, newton makes, do it yourself box, 2x4 woodworking projects, 2x4, beginner woodworking, make money woodworking, woodworking projects to sell, save money woodworking, woodworking projects that make money, money woodworking, 2x4 challenge, pine wood box, weekend wood working, easy wood working projects, cheap woodworking projects, 2x4 lumber projects, 2x4 lumber, fine woodworking on a budget

Id: -PzY9Evbm4g

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 25 2022