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As an additional antisplinter measure, around the upper edge of all four sides, fasten wood molding or plastic bumper material from a boating-supply store (or collect three or four old bicycle tires; cut in half, snip sidewalls every few inches and staple around ply). You can install the sides around a second sheet of ply (with an inch trimmed off one end and one side) laid on the ground if you want to be able to shovel out the sand easily. There is little point of fastening bottom to sides.

Be sure you use outdoor-glued plywood that is smooth and splinter free, "finished-one-side" for the upper surface of the bottom sheet and inner surface of the sides—where kids will scoot around and might get splinters. Before beginning construction it is best to seal both side surface of plywood with a clear, weatherproofing finish to bind in splinters and retard decay.

A WOOD-BEAM SAND CRIB

I've built plenty of plywood boxes, however never to hold sand. The one time I did build soil bins above ground was to contain compost mixed with glass cullet made by crushing old bottles (this was in 1969—just before the first Earth Day when municipal recycling began to catch on). I used it to grow lovely, straight carrots, but the design would make a sturdy, quick, and easily disassembled/recycled sandbox.

The carrot crib was made of stacked 8"-square, 8'-long fence posts sawed from native Northern white cedar—which (along with redwood and red cedar in the West, Osage orange in the Midwest, and others) just naturally resists the terrors of bugs and rot. Cheaper is pressure-treated lumber used in ground-contact construction. However, the pressure-treatment contains copper and arsenic, two metallic poisons that I didn't want near the carrots and you surely won't want holding in your kid's sand pile.

I notched the ends log-cabin—like with the chain saw and stacked the posts three high on a flat and level area of sod. Their weight held them in place, but they were warped enough to wobble, so for good measure, I drilled 3/8" holes down through the corner joints and dropped in 6" spikes as lock pins.

To get sand, I recruited an assortment of kids and made them sit quietly in the pickup truck bed while we drove to a natural gravel and sand bank. After the kids chose the best sand in the hill, we all started shoveling it into buckets and dumping it in the truck. We picked out roots and clumps of sod and rocks large enough to do damage in small hands. Back home after a stop at the swimming hole, we dumped the larger rocks into the dry well I'd sunk in the center of the pit, then shoveled in the sand. It took three loads—wet sand and a half-dozen wet, bouncy kids being heavy enough that a third-of-a-yard (9 cubic feet) made the truck's rear springs complain a little.

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