Jens Wet Panels Box

One year ago I started to paint with oil. Oil paintings stays wet much longer than both acrylic and aquarelle paintings. To make it possible to attend model sessions and also paint outdoor etc I had to create a method that works for me, so that I can go to a location and paint and when done pack my things and go home without the risk of spoiling the wet painting.

Many times standard panels for oil paintings are one and a half cm thick (almost an inch) and when I am painting many of these I would get a storage problem so the panels need to be thinner. You can buy thinner panels as well but I have tried to figure out an affordable system, compact and easy to use.

I create my panels from hardwood triplex 5 mm. At the DIY shop I they can saw the boards to any size and I get the most out of the boards if they are made into 30 by 40 cm panels. I prepare the panels with gesso. See other post about preparing panels. In this posting I will show you a box that I can use for storing and transporting the panels when they are wet: Jens Wet Panels Box.

Here is schematic drawing of my box. It is very simple and it can be done in a various ways but this is how I decided to make it. I create the box for four panels. I make grooves in two wooden studs and put two side plates around these and one stud in the bottom. Based on the sizes of the studs used I came up with the measurements for this construction. I leave a gap of one millimeter on each side of the panel so that the panels will not get stuck in the box.

I use a router to create the grooves. I use a straight 6mm router bit in the router. I fixed the guides of the router carefully so that the groove will come at the correct place in the stud. The depth of the groove is 4 mm.

Here you can see a finished stud. In it is a test panel lying. I made the two studs symmetrically and when finishing the box I make sure that the grooves made are on the opposite side of each other. It is just a precaution. I measuring exact this is not necessary.

Here I apply glue on the stud before placing it on the side board.

Fixing the stud with glue clamps.

Screwing the studs. This is done first by drilling a hole with the inner diameter of the screw. That ensures the wood will not be split. Next I use a countersink bit so that I can use a countersink screw.

In my case the grooves nearest the first side had the good measurement but the outer grooves were too tight. To overcome this I had to put some tension to push the studs outwards before putting on the second side of the box.

When preparing for the screws on the opposit side it is important to avoid screwing directly on an already present screw.

Here is the end result with one of my panels lying in the box.

I moved from Sweden to The Netherlands in 1995.

Here on this site, you find my creations because that is what I do. I create.