Not liking how the wrapped floorboards looked on the front of the Sam & Max roombox, I bought some thin basswood strips to cover the base. I never really liked the paint color but couldn’t have stained it since the roombox is made out of MDF, so this gave me an excuse to trim out the whole base.

First I ran an Xacto knife along the floorboards. These hadn’t stuck well so when I cut into them I was left with two loose pieces. I pulled off the bottom pieces and glued down the top pieces. Tacky Glue wouldn’t stick so I used Super Glue.

I trimmed around the front edge of the base first.

The thin basswood and curled up from the glue.

I used a lot of tape to flatten the pieces and left it alone to dry.

While those were drying, I capped the tops of the walls with 1/8″ tall basswood, and added molding flush with the top of this.

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With the doors finished, the time has finally come to glue the foamcore walls into Sam & Max’s office. The walls are a snug fit and I had to be careful to make sure the edges of the two side pieces were exactly flush with the bricked sides. I didn’t want the walls sliding around during gluing and accidentally drying in the wrong position, so I used a lot of clamps to hold the pieces in place.

Next I applied wood filler along the seams to cover up the cracks where the wall pieces meet.

This was tricky around the windows, since I had to be careful not to get wood filler on the stained trim.

I kept the tape in place while the wood filler dried, then painted, and then removed the tape. Unfortunately some wood filler had seeped under the tape — very close to the trim. Yikes.

I taped over it again and used the tiniest brush I have to paint over those spots.

Next I cut down the wainscot pieces, which I’d purposefully left slightly too long, so they fit exactly.

And then I added the trim pieces to form the panels.

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