dominion box

I made a pretty awesome (IMHO) box for all the dominion expansions to date, and here's the high level write up on how I did it.

I started by scouring the internet for ideas of what people had already done, and then used some of those to make my own. I modeled it after a tackle box style of cantilever pull out drawers over a base, and added dividers so it holds 8 rows of cards. I made the lid deep enough to hold all the rule books, and then painted it all to color match the boxes and display the 9 different icons (there were only 8 expansions at the time of construction). 

Part 1: Wood cutting

All necessary pieces were cut form one piece of 2'x4'x0.25" medium density fiberboard. I planned out the box, which in total was going to be 12"x12" for the base, and figured out the sizes of each piece. Luckily enough, I was able to oriente them so they would all fit from one big plank. Then, the jigsaw!

Part 2: Base assembly

Each section was gorilla glued together (and held in place by vice grips for 24+ hrs to dry) to make the bottom of the box and each of the two upper half boxes.

Before I glued on two of the sides, though, I drew three equally spaced pencil lines in the bottom section and one pencil line in each of the top sections. Then I used a handsaw to painstakingly cut a shallow groove along these lines.

In these grooves, I glued a thin piece of balsa wood. These will serve as the dividers for the cards.

A few more sides glued on and you get these:

Part 3: Legs and Cantilevers

Next, I added legs to the upper drawers. They tuck into the corners of the lower half of the box when collapsed, and when expanded, they add stability by giving the drawers a little extra support.

I also added the cantilever arms. After tons of 8th grade geometry calculations, I cut the arms so they would allow the box to collapse flush, and expand so that the two drawers overlap the just the edge of the lower box. I used 'furniture screws' to hold the arms on; they're basically a screw and a sleeve so both ends are flush with the wood on either side of a binding.

The basic shape is now complete:

Part 5: Lid

To finish off the wood working,  I made a lid deep enough to hold all the rule books, and attached it via chest latches on both sides. Straps will be added later to hold the rule books in place.

Step 6: painting!!

I used acrylic paint for the entire box. On each section, I used paint combinations to try to match the colors as best as I could.

On the two "busy" sides (meaning there's a lot going on with the buckles, the arms, and the four pieces of wood coming together) I just painted the base color of the original Dominion box, and then the castle logo in the center. 

For the two blank sides, I split them into four sections each. In each section, I painted the base color of the box of each expansion:

Finally, I added a 3" tall black icon of that expansion (regardless of how wide it turned out to be). 

This is what the two sides looked like after they were finished:

The lid is painted to be look like the back of a randomizer card. The outlining on the lid is the only thing not done in paint, which was sharpie. The stenciling on this step was by far the hardest part, but it turned out pretty well.

Two coats of polyurethane was added to protect the colors, make the sharpie look like paint, and to make the entire thing feel smoother.

Step 7: Finishing touches

Now, all you have to do is make some dividers which I cut into tri-tab dividers using a pair of scissors, hundreds of tall card dividers, and about 8 hours of Bojack Horseman.

Then I labeled them courtesy of all the wonderful label makers out there on BGG, and I was ready to add all the cards to the box!! 

Last thing to do was add some straps to the lid, put the rule books in, and go play!

When I was all done, I had turned this:                                              

 

into this:

Ikea bed frame instructions

Tools:

phillips screwdriver (preferably a very short one and a long one)
4mm hex wrench
little bit of duct tape

----

There's three sets of two longest pieces of wood. Start with the set that doesn't have the white boxes on them.

Next, overlay the two shortest pieces of wood that have the little notches at the ends of them like this:



I only have one screw somehow (I promise these are the only missing pieces and they're not that important), but you'll want to make a box and if you have extra screws, screw in all four joints so they make a full square.

Next, find the two sort of short pieces that have about a dozen little pegs sticking out from all sides of them, and you'll want line up the pegs in that piece with the holes in the outter parts of the short ends of the square in the previous step. It should look like this:


And it should be able to fold up like this since all the pegs hinge (so make sure they're lined up to hinge the correct direction):


Do this on both sides.

Next, find the long piece of wood that does not have a matching piece and line it up long ways right through the middle of frame (it should be dividing the bed frame in half, long ways). This part is tricky; you'll need to line everything up so that the long piece's pegs go into the holes in the middle of the two pieces that hinge. You'll have to hinge both sides at the same time; if you hinge one all the up at first, the other side won't have enough room to hinge.

It should look like this:

          



Next, find the piece of wood with four roller tracks on it. It should have one on each side, and then on both ends. Fit it so that it wedges onto the long piece you just added and makes a cross in the middle of the bed short ways:

     

Next, screw on the little wood block with two large screws on it. This is to add height to this section to make sure it contacts the ground when the bed is being used. It should now look like this:



Next, you'll add the two long pieces with the white boxes on them. They'll have more hinge pieces and you'll need to fit the pegs into the right holes, and screw them closed. There's two pegs on each side, and one along the middle piece.

These are the screw holes you'll need to worry about for this step:
          

NOTE 1: There's one corner that has a broken screw holder and doesn't let go of the peg. You'll know which one it is because three of the sets of pegs are currently in the long pieces, but one set is in the outter board. Make sure you line up everything so that each joint has two pegs. You'll also need a short screwdriver for this one since your angle is very tight:

NOTE 2: You'll need to unscrew at least two of the little screws on the roller track in order to get at the screw on the outter board. Bring down the roller track for a minute and put it back in place when you've tightened the little screw.


In the end it looks like this:

     

Screw in the little hex screw (4mm) to hold these in further hold these in place:



Next, find the other boards with the white boxes (the shorter set) and place them such that there is now a full white box running the whole way around the bed frame. Insert the pieces with the wood pegs and the hinge joints:
     

The two corners that don't have pegs will need duct tape. I put the tape around the outside and the inside of the joint and didn't have any problems at all with it.

You'll also need to screw in the screw that inside of the hold in the middle of the piece of wood:

    


This is what it should look like:



This is the bottom of the bed. (Carefully) flip it over so that you now have it right side up:


Lay the wooden slats across the top. There's two little pegs on both sides; make sure the last slat on both ends is on the far side of those pegs. So it'll be: [slat] [peg] [slat] [slat] ... [slat] [slat] [peg] [slat]
   

Then slide the four drawers into place and you should be all set.