DIY wooden crates for storing canning jars

[moolie]

By request I am posting this here in the DIY section of the forum, originally posted in my journal

So we've been doing a bit of spring cleaning and organizing around the house on the more rainy days, especially as we've had some really rainy weekends that didn't allow for garden work, and I thought I'd post a few photos (really giving the mobile phone camera a workout lately!) of what we've accomplished.

In addition to the outdoor projects I've already posted about, we've also really done some organizing in our food and canning closets.

Over the past few months hubs measured some cardboard jar boxes and made me some custom wooden crates for all the jars I've been collecting over the past couple of years via kijiji and freecycle, and has bought more wood to make more:

3 different sizes: half pint jam jars, pint/500ml, and quart/litre

And here's our newly organized back door pantry closet, and what it looked like before hubs built the new shelves and crates
before and after:

Had a request via PM for more info on the wooden boxes hubs has been building for my canning jars, here's a few more photos and some info and measurements:

half pint jam jar box made out of 1x6 pine

half pint boxes have two screws at each corner, larger boxes have 3 screws

bottom is made of hardboard, hubs cuts a groove on his table saw to receive the bottom board--just like building a drawer

most of the hardboard hubs bought for the bottoms of the boxes is painted white on one side, some is just brown throughout--both kinds are textured on the bottom/smooth on the top side

Box Measurements:

125 ml/half pint jam jars
-finished outside box dimensions are 10 1/4" x 13 1/2" made out of 1x6 pine
-front and back boards are 10 1/4" pieces of 1x6 pine
-sides are 12"
-don't know the size of the bottom board but the groove is 1/4" up from bottom

500ml/pint and 125ml/half-pint wide mouth jars, pint Gem jars
-hubs made two sizes, half are made out of 1x6 pine, half out of 1x8 pine--just measure your jar heights
-outside box dimensions are 12 1/4" x 15 5/8"
-front and back boards are 12 1/4" pieces of 1x6 or 1x8 pine depending on jar height
-sides are 14 1/8"

quarts and litres
-outside box dimensions are 13 1/4" x 17" made out of 1x10 pine
-front and back boards are 13 1/4" pieces of 1x10 pine
-sides are 15 1/2"

Hope that helps if anyone is interested in building some really sturdy jar crates I think they would also work in plywood, we just had some pine on hand when hubs first started building these, and then he just got some more of the same to make more boxes.

He built them because most of my jars are second hand and didn't come with boxes, and because jars don't really come in boxes anymore--the jam jars pictured above came in a shallow tray with the divider you see in the photos, wrapped in shrink wrap plastic. Once the plastic is gone, the sides of the jars are exposed and can easily get damaged/broken/chipped. I wanted taller boxes, and couldn't find anything that fit my jars properly, so hubs decided to make me some crates--these babies will last forever!

 

[moolie]

Nice.

I've made jar boxes out of 1/4" plywood with corners reinforced with 3/4" stock. My next improvement will be handles.

Looking at your design, it may be faster to make than what I've been using.

I'd love handles, and hubs played around a bit with trying to drill out holes and cut between them, but the stock was a bit thick for his drill. For the next set I'm thinking we could make the ends out of two pieces of wood and leave a gap in between as a handle, I've been looking at old crates I see in various places for inspiration

(Deleted huge long quiz because it was annoying me every time I updated my journal title )

Oh, yeah... the fact that you do update your journal title leads me to a thought...

Your discussion and set of pics about your canning-jar wooden boxes is great! But after a while, it will just blend into your journal (and the title about the boxes won't be there) - and then people won't be able to find the post very easily. So might I suggest that you copy and post the very useful post into a new thread, posted in the Do It Yourself subforum here at SS?

It's often the guys who make things out of wood in the shop, and the guys are more likely to look through the DIY subforum. And find a posting (a copy) about the boxes there.

Will do, I usually just keep everything in my journal so that "I" don't lose it, but I can totally see the value in having specific topics more searchable

Great looking crates. Are you using them to store filled jars or empty ones? Just wondering.

g

Both

For now I don't have enough for all of my jars, but the crates are super for bringing empty jars from their various storage spots around the house to the kitchen for use while I'm canning, and then for transporting downstairs to my canning shelves and under the bed in my basement guest room.

Wonderful boxes, pics and details. These are real gems and will stack nicely inside a closet or pantry. Thanks Moolie

They do stack nicely, I absolutely love them--thanks for the kind words, I'll pass them on to hubs

 

[TanksHill]

 

[moolie]

Here's a couple of photos of what we're thinking with regards to adding handles to future crates:

Like this, with solid sides and two end boards with a space between to use as handles:

This shows the end construction better, but we'll stick with solid sides and only two horizontal end boards:

And we'll keep doing the same style bottom that we're doing now.

 

[Zoldani]

Those are nice, but you could save yourself the time by going to the grocery store and asking the produce manager to save you the wooden veggie crates. Not being any way.

 

[moolie]

Those are nice, but you could save yourself the time by going to the grocery store and asking the produce manager to save you the wooden veggie crates. Not being any way.

Would love something like that, but I've never seen wooden crates used for anything around here, except wine bottles--and those are few and far between, come with expensive wines, and don't fit canning jars

Veggies and fruit come in cardboard boxes or re-usable plastic crates at a few places. I can get the cardboard boxes, the ones that hold bananas or tomatoes will hold 20 quarts (I have two of them full of jars under my basement guest room bed) but they get heavy when they are full of jars even when they are empty and I don't want to drop one by accident and possibly end up with 20 broken jars.

 

[Corn Woman]

So nice.

 

[CountryKat]

You rock.

 

[~gd]

OLD pallets! some already have handle holes to use when the pallet is empty and moved by hand.

 

[moolie]

OLD pallets! some already have handle holes to use when the pallet is empty and moved by hand.

Hard to come by pallets of any sort around here. There are a few businesses that leave them out back with big "free" signs on them, but they are usually in really rough shape and only suitable for firewood (which is great when I'm heading out to Girl Guide camp) or they are the pressure-treated ones that I wouldn't want for much, and certainly not to keep food in and put in my pantry. I've actually noticed lately that some places that use pallets are using weird looking black plastic ones lately.