Door From Trashed Wood Baskets

In this instructable I will show you how to recycle fruits/vegetables wood baskets into a door for a closet. I will do my best to give you a step by step guide but feel free to adapt this instructable to your needs.

The door I will make will be 6ft6.7in (about 2m) high and 2ft1.6in (about 65cm) wide. I'll recycle about 40 pieces of wood board!

• wood baskets : usually use to carry fruits or vegetables, the number of boxes will be related to the size of your door, in my case I needed 8 boxes
• thick wood boards (1 long and 4 small) to give robustness to the door
• 4 metallic corners
• 2 metallic hinges
• screws
• epoxy resin + hardener
• protective equipment: gloves, glasses, mask
• a clamp
• a ventilated room (especially when working with epoxy resin)
• sanding paper
• lin oil + a big brush
• 3D printed: staples, door knob, locker that can be found here on my Thingiverse account: https://www.thingiverse.com/3DIY-Captain/designs
• magnets x4
• paint + brush

First, protect your hands with gloves and eyes with glasses!

Using a clamp, remove the metallic staples, you can use a wood chisel to lever up the staples.

It took make a couple of hours to harvest enough wood for this door.

Once you have your wood boards, you can lay them on the ground and check the size of your future door. I made mine so it will partially cover the wall behind (1in on top and left side).

Sanding is optional but I recommend it strongly, it will give a better aspect to the wood, especially if you want to paint the door after.

Using lin oil is good to protect the wood: I applied one layer of lin oil since the board are thin.

Info: applying lin oil will limit the kind of glue you will be able to use after. Hot glue or wood glue won't stick on lin oil. But epoxy resin will hold perfectly.

Place the wood on the floor like before to prepare the assembly.

I use the wood assembly describes in the picture so some pieces of wood will overlay. Using epoxy resin between the overlay allow a strong link between the wood boards and contribute to robustness of the door.

Working with epoxy resin you need to protect your hand, eyes and use a mask. Also, it's very important to work in a ventilated room.

The epoxy resin I had need a mix of 1:1 of epoxy resin and hardener. I used a scale and old yogurt cup to do the mixing. The waiting time was 12h, so I leave heavy objects on the board during this waiting time.

Warning: if the epoxy resin is too liquid you might glue the door to the ground... well it's a kind of modern art to have a door on the floor but your closet will be jealous... so if the epoxy resin is too liquid, wait a little bit, it will be more viscous after several minutes.

I use a wood frame made of one long piece and 4 shorter one. This frame will give more robustness to the door. I made sure that the long one was in contact with the door panels from bottom to top.

The long piece will hold the hinges, so it need to be place at the edge (here left side of the door).

I used 4 metallic corners to link the frame.

Then, using epoxy resin I glued the frame to the door. Don't forget your protective gears!!

To add robustness to the door, I designed and 3D printed a kind of staples (60 of them!). I glued them to the door, placed between each panel, again using epoxy resin.

Once the epoxy resin dried, you can lift up the door.

I used 2 metallics hinges + wood screws to Hodor, sorry, to hold the door. It's good to be two people during this step, alone it can be tricky to place the door where you want and screwing at the same time.

Finishing touches was the best part for me! It was fun to do the painting, fixing, adding a lock, making this door prettier. So here is what I did:

• adding a door knob, I found a knob to print on Thingiverse, there are so many of them
• painting in black the corner and the staples
• fixing uneven board using a 3D printed staple

What would be a door without a lock? so I designed and 3D printed mine to use a couple of magnets I had. The file can found here on my Thingiverse. I glued it using epoxy resin (again!) then paint it in black. The magnets are strong enough to prevent the door to open by itself.

Door project complete: made of mostly recycle wood!!

What do you think? Was this project interesting? if you have any comments or questions I'll be happy to help.

Thank you for staying till the end of this instructable.