Customizable Quarantine Game Box

Playing board games is something I grew up with in my childhood. During the pandemic I spend hours with my family getting away from the screen by playing board games. This project came from many sources and inspirations that I will mention throughout this Instructable.

I made this project customizable so that you can adjust and put the games you like in/on this game box. I have included all files I have as well. If there is something I missed, please let me know in the comments and I will try to dig and find any files I may have missed.

Games for this project:

• Shut the Box
• Football
• Baseball
• Cribbage

Consumables

• 1 - 1"x4"x8' (I used pine)
• 1 - .25" Diameter Dowel that is 12" long
• Some Rags
• 3 - Printer Label Sheets
• Wood Glue
• Wood Sealant (I used spray lacquer)
• Wood Wax (Optional)

• Stain (Optional)

Equipment

• Miter Saw
• Table Saw
• Drill with 1/8" and 5/16" bits
• A Printer
• Blow Torch (Optional, but come on....how can it be)
• A CNC (Optional)
• A Laser Engraver (Optional)
• A Wood Burner (Optional)

The goal of this project was to get my students and kids away from the screen and to do something sociable in person. As an added bonus, I also design this project to let my students practice all of the skills necessary to obtain their WCA SawBlade Certification for school.

I have included my plans for this project that also has a cut list. You can make everything from a single 1"x4"x8'. I have listed all of the cuts below:

Cut List

• 2 - 3" x 9 1/2" (Long Sides)
• 2 - 3" x 6 3/4" (Left and Right Sides)
• 1 - 3/4" x 8" (Runner)
• 9 - 3/4" x 1 3/4" (Number Blocks -You may want to cut a few extra, just in case)
• 2 - 3 1/2" x 9 1/4" (Bottom)
• 3 - 3 1/2" x 10 1/2" (Top)

I cut the following pieces to length on the miter saw and then ripped to the proper width on the table saw.

Inspiration #1

Steve Ramsey did a wonderful video documentation of making almost the exact same box on his Wood Working for Mere Mortals YouTube page. If you become stuck at any time or would like to see how a step is done in video, take a look.

To cut the smaller pieces safely, I used a miter gauge and cross cut all of the pieces on the table saw. I set up a stop block so that I could consistently cut the Number Blocks with avoiding the chance of kickback. For the narrow cut of the runner I used a Micro Jig. This yellow contraption allows me to keep my fingers safe from whirling blades of death.

You only need 9 blocks, but I would cut a couple of extra because you may have some break during the drilling step.

Dimensions

• 9- 3/4" x 3/4" x 1 3/4"
• 1- 3/4" x 3/4" x 8"

The bottoms and tops are cut long so that you can square up the boards after glue up. To be honest... I cheated here. I am not ashamed about it, either. I had a 1"x10" laying around in the scrap pile, so I just used that to cut the top and bottom. But a person faithful to the plans could glue up these boards and trim them to their final dimensions.

Final Dimensions

• 3/4" x 8" x 10" (Top)
• 3/4" x 6 3/4" x 8" (Bottom)

I did wait on trimming the bottom down until I glued up the box. This way I could get a good fit.

Now if you do not have a dado stack for your table saw, that is fine. You can get away with a single blade and some sanding. Steve Ramsey does a great job demonstrating how to use a single blade to do this in his video at the 2:34 mark.

I used a 3/4" stack with a blade height of 3/8" and cut rabbets along the length of all four side pieces for the box. I then cut additional rabbets on the two edges of the long side pieces. What you are looking for here is that the shorter left and right side pieces can sit in those rabbets for the glue up. If you're confused by all of this, I would recommend watching the video mentioned above.

With a rough shape of a box, I could now cut rabbets on the 4 sides of the lid of my box. I just kept bumping over the table saw fence until I got a good fit for my box. I left the height of the blade at 3/8".

With a scrap 2"x4" I made a quick jig for the drilling step in the future. I do not want to hold those little Number Blocks while drilling. With a scrap piece of 2"x4" that I had lying around, I cut a groove 3/4" wide and 3/4" deep for the length of the board. Now my number block can be held in place while drilling.

I changed the table saw back over to a single ripping blade so that I could cross-cut the bottom of my board to its final length and width. I did not measure here. I just laid the board over the gap and marked the board with a pencil. I then trimmed and repeated until I got a fit that worked for my box.

I did a quick sanding of the inside sides of the box before gluing it up. After I the let the box sit overnight, I sanded the outside of the box and smoothed out all of the edges and corners.

Using a 5/16" drill bit and my jig, I drilled holes in the sides of all the number blocks. Go slow here. I had one break, out of the nine I needed. Having a couple of extra blocks cut out is a good idea. I used a 5/16" drill bit and drilled 1/2" up from the bottom in the center of the block.

Next drill a 5/16" hole in the short sides of the box. Some people may ask, "Why did you wait until the box is glued up to drill the hole?" Good question. The answer is I may have forgotten earlier, but you could say it is a safety precaution because you could have easily drilled a hole on the wrong side. I had many students make the left and right sides identical. This would make for a hole in the top right and lower left hand corner of the boxes. Whatever your reason, drill the whole 7/8" down from the top of the box and 1 5/8" from the outside edge of the box on the short sides of the box. Make a matching hole on the other side.

Rough cut the 1/4" diameter dowel at around 11". Dry fit the box together with the number blocks.

Remove those blocks and now glue in the runner that you just trimmed to size for the box 4" from the inside edge of the long side of the box. This 4" will give you enough room to roll dice and store all of your game components.

I wanted the box to reflect our true feelings about the length of this pandemic. We are burned out. So, naturally, fire. I used a blowtorch that I use for plumbing.

Do not go over the top here, making charcoal out of the box. We still need to do an ink transfer of the games onto the box. After burning the box to your heart's content, do a quick sanding of the box to smooth out the burn.

Remember that pair of underwear that used to fit prior to the pandemic? I bet you threw yours away...I did not. Not because I was using them for motivation to lose that weight. No...no...no. I just figured they would make a good staining rag. I used a oil based stain with a natural color. This really made the toasted wood pop.

You did good, underwear.

Inspiration #2 and #3

Before the pandemic hit, my brother-in-law sent me the photo of the baseball game pictured above. He wanted me to make him one.

Also around the same time I found this football game at a resale shop.

I thought to myself, "Self, I can make some improvements on these." Long story short, I did. I made a couple of games on a laser and sent them out to him.

For this project I chose to use Football and Baseball on my box. I have already done projects with cribbage, so I decided to skip that option.

For this ink transfer, I did not use any medium. I printed the reversed image on the waxy part of a address label printer sheet. I just removed all of the labels and used an inkjet printer. I then carefully taped the image to the location of the wood and, using a credit card, I smoothed out the image onto the wood. Immediately after, I sprayed the wood with a coat of lacquer to seal the ink. This was my first time ever doing this. You can use color if you would like to, but I thought the text looked best just as a black void...just like our souls while we sat in front of computers for 8 hours a day.

Using a 1/8" drill bit, I created a flag with some painters tape 1/2" up on the bit. I then drilled all of the holes for the game. It is a good idea to center punch all of the holes for the game before drilling. This way your holes do not go all over the place and there is some sort of balance. Enter your own pandemic joke about balance here.

Using some carbon paper, I transferred over the numbers onto my number blocks. I did try an ink transfer, but the numbers were too small and difficult for me to do this. Instead, I just used a wood burning tool and went to town...unlike during the pandemic.

I applied 4 total coats of spray lacquer with sanding, using 220 grit in between. After the lacquer I applied a couple of layers of wax. Then, it was time to play.

Here is a student example of the same project. On this project, I had the students use a laser engraver and CNC to make the holes. I also changed out the logos to be the school's name and logo. This student choose to use football on the bottom and cribbage on the lid for his two games on the outside.

You may ask, "Why not put all of the games on the box?" The holes just do not line up well. You could put cribbage on the top of the lid, baseball on the underside of the lid, and football on the bottom, but the holes run into one another and are a nightmare to drill.

If I would do this project again, I would add a couple more choices for student games. I will have to do some hunting for soccer, basketball, and hockey board games. There are also classics, such as Aggravation and Chinese Checkers. Really, the choice is up to you and what you would like to do.