How To - Secret Compartment Box II

today I'm going to show you how to build a secret compartment box just like this one using a 2x4 my first step was to chop this wood down and make it a little easier to work with using the jointer I flattened two sides of every board I referenced those two sides on all the following cuts to make sure my boards are perfectly square now I'm bringing the thickness down to a little over an inch these boards are flat square and parallel so I chopped them in half at the bandsaw now I'm going to book match these boards and glue them together using tight bond three so I'll have some decent size material to work with now I'm going to cut these down at the table saw to create the four size of the box it'll be roughly nine inches by six inches by six inches using the router table I cut rabbets in the short sides now I'm using the table saw to cut two grooves for the bottom and the false bottom to get the quarter inch that I need after the first cut I'll move my fence over just a little bit and take another pass the grooves are about seven eighths of an inch apart I'm using quarter-inch Baltic birch plywood for the bottom and the false bottom now I glue up three of the four sides and the actual bottom I leave the false bottom and the fourth side loose so I could fit everything together later I put a little wax mixture on the inside corners of the false bottom to keep it from accidentally getting glued in place this is when I find out if the wax worked it did I'm using clear pine for the secret compartment blank since it's more stable than a two-by-four I leave it extra long and extra thick so I can trim it down to fit perfectly I make multiple passes on the thickness planer to get the thickness just right once I have the blank fitting perfectly I cut a small piece of the excess off to make a spring block and I glue that in at the back to make the hole in the side of the box I use a drill press to remove the majority of the material and using the cavity as a template with a bottom bearing router bit I clean up the hole things get a little bit tricky here because we have to line up the wok spring I think we have a simple four-sided box and we have to know how thick our liner is going to be you should have the spring block in at this point the little red square is the removable section of the liner and that's where you're locking spring needs to line up this is what my compartment is going to look like with the top left corner overlapping the removable section of the liner that allows the pin to contact spring when the liner section is flipped around to lay this out start by installing the false bottom slide in the secret compartment link and push it all the way up against the spring mark that line pull it out install the fourth side and Mark the inside line I cut off a small piece of my liner stock and use it to mark the thickness the tip of the lock spring needs to end up between those lines then I transfer those measurements over to the blank and lay out my compartment there are a hundred different ways to cut out the compartment I use a CNC router but since I don't want to hear everybody whining that they don't have one I'm not even a bother showing this BAM has time to fit the spring this little riser is about two inches long and a quarter inch thick I use it to prop up the spring I'm going to use brass for the spring on this box but anything springy could work I've done it with wood in the past with no issues now I'm going to make a corresponding groove in the false bottom slide the false bottom all the way to the back push the compartment all the way to the back against the spring and make that line again now I measure the distance from the line to the tip of the spring and then I put the compartment back in to mark the location of the spring because I forgot to do this first time then I transfer those measurements over to the false bottom using a caliper and a marking gauge that little thing is called the marking gauge then I attack those lines savagely with a chisel I carve out the material until it's a couple mils deep Q test fit with satisfying click that's it I marked the center of the groove on the other side of the false bottom so I know where to drill out once the case is fully assembled don't drill any holes just yet it's finally time to glue in the false bottom in the fourth side a quick file to get the rounded corners square and using an extra-long 8 inch drill bit I drill it the hole I just marked with that hole drilled I can test fit make sure everything still lines up and it does the piece I'm using is the lid is slightly oversized so I can trim it flush with the router now I lock the top of the box off at the bandsaw I cut the liner stock to height at about 3/8 of an inch taller than the inside of the box then I cut the four pieces on the table saw sled I cut rabbets just like I did on the outside of the box but for the liner you do it to the long sides that little pre-cut is to prevent tear-out this requires some finesse but once it's fitting I glue it in place then I glue in the non removable short side I make my feet by cutting a long piece with a 45 degree angle and chopping that piece in half at the bandsaw well nearly half I take the two pieces together and lay down some glue fold it up and tape it some more the tape provides more than enough clamping pressure then I can cut four identical feet on the table saw sled I use some scrap quarter inch ply as a spacer while I glue the feet on making sure that the feet don't cover the hole next I'll set the release pin into the removable section of the liner this piece of scrap helps to hold the pin in place the pin is made out of 1/8 inch brass rod that I've sanded a slight taper into it gets placed in the hole taper down I slide the liner section into place and push it hard against the pin to leave an indentation now I drill the hole and set the pin I'll flip the liner around and put it back in place give it a slight tap to leave another indentation I drill that hole out directly into the secret compartment that way the pin will act as a fail-safe lock locked released locked now I mark the secret compartment tray so I can trim it flush now I fit the four trim pieces and glue them in place I'm very careful with glue placement on the secret compartment side because I don't want to glue the whole thing shut at this stage I care a little bit off the outside edge of the liner so that the lid doesn't fit too tight I'm purposely doing a rough job and you'll see why in a few minutes I clamp the live in place so it doesn't move around while I'm placing the hinges I use an awl to mark the hinge holes and pre-drill them with a 1/16 inch drill bit these brass screws have a tendency to strip so I use a little bit of wax on the threads to make sure they go in nice there's no good way to make this box look like it was built out of anything other than a 2x4 so I'm just going to distress it by rounding the corners over giving it some good scars and just generally roughing it up I'm using attrocious sanding techniques with some 220 grit now I'll do my best to give it a horribly splotchy staining I start this by staining all the edges corners and tight spots where it build up would typically be if this was older than it actually is then I try to do a horrible job on the rest of the box I was really disappointed with how good the color came out I think does very thin wood stain is idiot-proof a couple hours later I hit it with some brie wax the solvent in the wax pulled a lot of the color off and gave it that distressed look that I wanted with all the dark spots in the edges and corners thanks for watching there's more details in the description and don't forget to check out my patreon page if you love what I do

Channel: dustin penner

Views: 896,996

Rating: 4.9306459 out of 5

Keywords: 2x4, diy, woodwork, secret, compartment, box, hidden, dpmakestuff, treasure, how to, stash, weed

Id: KeqfWnguKiY

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2016