I wanted some boxes to sit in my Billy bookcases and hold my DVD collections on their end, making it easy to pull out and see if I wanted, but otherwise less noticeable.

Materials

• I used a 4’x8’ plywood sheet (12mm non-structural) - you could do this with a 1200x600 piece.
• Wood Glue
• Nails (having a nailgun makes this fast to build)

Making the box

Cutting Things Up

• Cut 3x200mm wide pieces, along the width of the sheet. ie, you want pieces 1200x200, not 2400x200. 😆
  • If you’re using a big sheet, measure each time - remembering the kerf will take a little bit.
  • Small sheet? just cut it in thirds.
• Stack two of the slices up, clamp them together so they’re all aligned and cut two pieces 710mm long for the sides.
• Mark the other piece to match the length of the sides, then deduct two thicknesses of board off that length and then cut there - that’s your bottom.
  • The “ends” overlap the bottom, so they grip it from the sides (and the nails help).
• Since it’s the same width, the offcut can be cut down to make the “short” sides to the height you need - it should be 200mm, but match it up since we’re not robots.

Assembly

• Lie the bottom piece with a long edge facing up, then glue + nail a “short” piece to one end, to make an L shape.
  • The reason I don’t do it with the bottom laying flat is it’s really hard to get the alignment right, the nails in and the glue from dripping on the bench.
  • To help hold the pieces upright, you can just attach clamps on the non-working end at bench-level, which is enough to provide support.
• Glue + nail a “long” side on top of that, starting in the corner of the L and working out.
• Glue + nail the extra “short” end.
• Glue + nail the other “long” side.

At this point the box structure’s done!

Adding Handles

• Cut a ~260mm long piece of cord/rope/whatever and seal the ends so they don’t fray.
• Drill two 5mm holes about 100mm apart, wherever you want the handle.
  • I put a handle on the long side to allow you to pull it out of the bookcase, so they’re ~300mm from each end, and 30mm from the top edge.
• Tie a knot in one end of the cord and feed it through one of the holes from the inside, then back into the other one from the outside.
• Tie a knot in the end of the cord and pull test it a bunch of times to check your work.

That’s it, you’re done! One day I’ll chuck some stain or varnish or something on them, but not today!