Project background

Started in 2010, Woodcase was a self-initiated physical product design project, born out of a love for minimal wood products and a curiosity for small-batch manufacturing techniques. After posting photos of a prototype machined solid cedar wood CD case on my portfolio, a handful of design blogs picked them up and I quickly received emails asking if they were available for purchase. Curious as to where this could lead, and motivated by the influx of interest, I teamed up with manufacturing specialist Ben Tindale.

Approach

As a team, we needed to hone the design of the case and produce a series of small production runs to test the market. The target market we had in mind was musicians with special and collectors' edition album releases being the core. Our focus with the product was to precision-machine batches in an array of interesting and practical woods, but hand finish each case - not only as a method of quality control, but so as to add value to the product.

Result

With just over 700 produced, we have sent limited runs far and wide, from snowy Vladivostok to the deserts of Colorado. We soon realised our market was not the music industry, but in fact professionals who deliver high value work on CDs, for example wedding photographers or architects. This market not only has the budget for such items, but truly understands the value of the packaging, and in many instances had been on the lookout for ways of adding value to the physical transactions of their business.

Variances and protection

Produced in a variety of soft and hard woods, the cases are book matched and slide fit to allow for variations in the timber. With a raised spindle, we kept the CD's surface clear of the wood to prevent any scratching during transit.

CNC milling & tool paths

Almost 80% of production is done by our CNC milling machine. The path which the router blade takes through the wood (illustrated by the diagram on the left) is constantly being refined, depending on the hardness of the wood, and the speed at which we to run production

Although the CNC time has been reduced, every unit still has to be hand-finished with varying grades of sandpaper. This is the part of the process we have no desire to speed up. After all, it's the stage the customer pays for as it allows us the opportunity to carefully examine each case properly.

Trying different woods

Early on we conducted numerous experiments to find the best timber to use. Soft woods such as pine were prone to splintering and warping during the hot milling stage. Very hard woods such as oak had a habit of taking much longer to process (both by machine and by hand). We also noticed router blades wore significantly faster with oak, which we had to take into consideration for much larger production runs.

Ash gave the best results. It has the tight grain of hard wood, which means it feels solid and pleasant to the touch, and is also much easier to finish by hand than other hard woods.

Lessons from failure

One of the biggest issues was shipping the cases to international locations with vastly different climates. The hard woods we'd chosen, while beautiful and durable, was also highly responsive to changes in temperature and humidity. As the cases travelled from a temperate UK workshop to hot or tropical regions, the moisture content in the wood shifted, causing the lids to cup slightly and the snap-fit joints to misalign.

We ran a series of experiments to understand the extent of the problem — testing different milling depths, grain orientations, and even alternative finishes to control moisture exchange. Although these tests helped reduce the issue, they also revealed a deeper truth: precision-engineered tolerances are difficult to maintain in a living material.

In the end, we admitted defeat. The design worked beautifully in controlled conditions, but the realities of global shipping and natural material movement made consistency impossible. After countless refinements, experiments and replacements, we stopped production — disappointed, but a little wiser about the limits of perfection when working with wood.