Magic: the Gathering Storage Box With Laser-cut Card Tray & Dividers.

My Magic: The Gathering collection has grown exponentially recently so I thought it was time to sort out some nice storage for my cards. I wanted to move them away from the old Fat Pack boxes in the cupboard to something more presentable.

Step 1: The Box

I toyed with the idea of making my own box but as I'm fairly new to woodworking I decided to just buy a pre-made one.

After a bit of shopping I found this chest in Evolution. It was a bit too deep to comfortably fit my cards. I wanted them to bit a bit closer to the opening so I could search through them easily without having to take them out of the box itself.

Step 2: The Tray

After a fair bit of measuring I used http://www.makercase.com/ to create the plans for a laser-cut box that fit the dimensions of my chest. I then edited the resulting vector in Inkscape in order to add the handles, create the dividers, remove the top and add the middle piece.

After I had my plans ready I took them to the Hackspace and put them through the laser cutter. I used 3mm A4 birch plywood for the tray as it was the only wood I had on hand. It came out surprisingly well after a good sanding and a coat of stain & wax.

After the stain & wax I glued the lot together and left it overnight to make sure it stayed together.

Step 3: The Dividers

I created the design for the dividers in Inkscape and then put them through the laser cutter. I cut the dividers out of the same wood as the card tray.

I decided against staining these the same colour as the tray to give them a bit of contrast. I would like to stain them in their respective colours but buying 5 different coloured wood stains is a bit out of my budget at the moment.

Step 4: The Finished Product.

All that was left was to slide the tray into place and decant my collection into it.

The tray holds around 1500 cards (At a rough estimate, I don't have the patience to count them all) and two/three binders for rare cards.

In total this project cost me about £30 to complete, including materials and time spent on the laser.

Breakdown:

Chest: £18

Plywood: £6

Wood dye & wax: I used the communal wax and stain from the Hackspace, probably around £3-4 worth.

Laser cutter usage: 2 hours cutting & engraving in total so around £2, including all of my failed cuts.