There’s no Killer Dwarfs box set, so I made one

As recent Metal Monday posts show, I lately became a big fan of the Killer Dwarfs. I’ve loved their songs since first seeing the video for “Keep the Spirit Alive” waaaaayyy back in the winter of 1986-87. But it was seeing them live not just once, but twice, within a year in 2019 that got me hooked. I began searching out their back catalogue. Easier said than done! And sadly, there is no Killer Dwarfs box set. So… I made one.

To start with, I’d been fortunate enough to pick up their 2013 album Start @ One, and their 2018 live album Live, No Guff! at one of their shows. I bought Russ Dwarf’s Wireless at another show. But finding the Dwarfs’ earlier albums is something of a challenge.

I had never bought Stand Tall when it came out, despite “Keep the Spirit Alive” being one of my favourite songs, nor Big Deal, despite the brilliance of the video for “We Stand Alone.” However, thanks to searching out music stores and resellers online, I was able to put together most of a collection on CD. Stand Tall and Reunion of Scribes — Live 2001, were by far the hardest to come by.

Sometime around the second Dwarfs show I went to, in late 2019, I started thinking: of all the bands that have released box sets, who better than the Killer Dwarfs, whose signature crate would make the perfect case for it? But as mentioned above, there is no Killer Dwarfs box set. If you’ve searched for one online and ended up here, you already know that.

So, being in no way a carpenter or marketing genius, I decided to make one. Here’s how I did it.

Filling your Killer Dwarfs box set — the albums

Obviously, it’s not a box set unless it is in some sense “complete.” So, absent any bootlegs, I figured I needed:

1. Killer Dwarfs
2. Stand Tall
3. Big Deal
4. Dirty Weapons
5. Method to the Madness
6. Reunion of Scribes — Live 2001
7. Start @ One
8. Wireless (Russ Dwarf album)
9. Live, No Guff!

The easiest way I found to get the recent CDs (i.e., released since 2013) was at the Killer Dwarfs’ live shows. (I’ve tried ordering other CDs through their Bandcamp site, but just cannot get it to work.) They really ought to sell their complete back catalogue at each performance (hint, hint).

The hardest albums to track down on CD were Stand Tall and Reunion of Scribes — Live 2001. Good luck finding either for less than $200! I found the first on eBay, eventually (search early, search often). The seller was in Russia, and it was going for around 10 bucks… so for that price, either it’s not a collector’s item there or this is some kind of copy — which, upon receiving it, I think it likely is. But the sound quality was fine and I have the original album on vinyl, anyway! I just wanted to have a complete collection to go in the crate.

The second hard-to-find album is one I have now owned three times. I reviewed Reunion of Scribes for Uptown magazine when it came out in 2002, but it wasn’t my favourite album, so I gave it away. (It’s a decision I rue now). Recently I tried many used record and CD stores, locally and online, to no avail. To make a long story short, I bought a digital copy from Russ Dwarf’s Bandcamp page, and then, ironically, found the CD for a decent price from a seller on Discogs the very next day — so I bought that too.

Designing a Killer Dwarfs box set

First, I figured out how big to make it. I chose to make it a cube with enough room to hold at least 10 CDs, to allow room for the entire Killer Dwarfs back catalogue, as well as a future album or two.

Then I had to figure out materials. I thought of building it around a plastic CD rack, but couldn’t scrounge one that would work. I decided to go with lightweight wood.

For the inner box to hold the CDs, I went with ¼-inch fir “good one side” plywood. For the outer appearance of the crate, I took screen captures from the videos for “Keep the Spirit Alive” and “We Stand Alone” and stumbled onto a workable selection of materials in my basement: ¼-inch wood panelling, which on its unfinished side looks like “crate” material, and wooden stir-sticks for paint that could look like framing.

Fortunately the folks at Rona were willing to sell me a bunch of long stir-sticks that were also ¼-inch thick, making the math of figuring out how the materials would work together way easier (and, it looked better than a thinner stir-stick like the ones I had).

I looked up online some ways to build small wooden crates, but to be honest, since I’m no carpenter (see above) and since the look of the crate in both videos, while slightly different, isn’t particularly finished, I didn’t go for any complex, jewellery box detail in the assembly. Let me say here that all the apparent blemishes and mistakes in the final look of my CD crate were TOTALLY INTENTIONAL AND AESTHETICALLY NECESSARY.

Anyway.

Building a Killer Dwarfs box set

I cut pieces of ¼-inch plywood for the interior box. I cut them so the outer dimensions of that cube would be 6 ½ inches — so the top and bottom  pieces were 6 ½ inches square, two sides were 6 ½ inches by 6 inches, and two sides were 6 by 6 inches.

I always dry-fit pieces before I try to put them together since I am Not A Carpenter ™ and don’t fully trust that my designs will work before I put them together. Also, I was figuring this out mostly as I built. Lots of measuring and re-measuring. By the way, building a cube that is perfectly square on all sides when you don’t have a working table saw is SUPER HARD.

I painted the interior walls black.

I decided to add something a little extra on the bottom — a Killer Dwarfs logo. I found one online, printed it out large, and then scaled it to fit, using a geometry set and a bit of junior high algebra. Then I did the lettering on the wood in pencil as well as I could.

After I had tweaked the imperfections in the logo, I painted it black. After it dried, I erased more of the visible pencil lines and painted a second coat.

I put two pairs of sides together with glue, and when that had set, I glued each two-side pair to the other and used elastic bands to keep pressure on the joints as they set.

Then I glued the four-side construction to the bottom. The front side showed no joins, since I wanted to use the fake “slats” I would be adding to the sides to help hold the joined side of the inner cube together. To be honest, given the number of pieces of wood I would be adding and gluing, I’m not sure it would have made a difference. But since the wood was all too thin for me to nail, I wanted to make sure it had as much strength as I could.

Making the “slats” of the crate meant cutting the stir sticks so I could have a square frame, which would go over the horizontal slats.

I painted the outside of the interior box black where it would show through the slats. That was for the illusion of it being dark inside, as well as allowing the glue to hold directly to wood on both sides, instead of paint.

Once both sides were done, I started working on the bottom, using the 1/4 –inch panelling. It was just right for the dimensions I needed. In a perfect world I could have cut the tongue and the groove off the edge, I suppose, but it looked pretty good to me.

The back and the front were also ¼-inch panelling, running horizontal. This duplicated the look of the crate, in my opinion, and let me cut the tongue and groove off the top and bottom for a more finished look on the top.

I put the back on first, partly because I needed to paint the front of the crate before gluing it in place.

Painting a Killer Dwarfs box set

For the front, I had to recreate the “DANGER / KiLLeR DWaRf / INSIDE / THIS SIDE UP” signage. I felt the lettering for the front of the crate would be much more difficult than just the logo, so I did it on paper first, using the images from both music videos.

It’s not an exact replica. (And the crates in each video don’t match, either!) But I was pretty happy with doing a rough draft, because it took several tries (and a lot of erasing) to get it right.

I debated using the paper version as a guide only, and re-drawing everything on the wood. Then I thought: maybe I can use it as an actual template.

So I made copies, cut the shapes and letters out, and used that to get the lettering right. I still used a ruler to get the lettering as straight as I could, even with the paper template.

Then I painted the lettering on the front of the crate. I did two coats.

Once the front was painted, I glued it on. It might have allowed more stability to do the lettering afterward, but I felt it would be much more awkward to letter and paint on the assembled box.

I left the top until the end, in case I had to cut or sand down the top of the interior CD box to fit within the outside construction. (Did I mention how hard it is to make everything perfectly square when you don’t have a table saw?) As well, the wood panelling tended to have curves or warps in it. Even with the use of clamps when gluing it on, it was not perfectly flat. (TOTALLY INTENTIONAL.)

And, for the top of the crate, I decided to add a little extra. Leaving it blank would be more accurate to the crate in the music videos, but I thought it needed a Killer Dwarfs logo on it. So I stencilled the name on it and painted it to match the one inside.

Finishing touches

The final touch was to add some Russ-Dwarf-esque hands to the side of the crate. It was harder than I expected. I searched through used toys at the second-hand store, online makers of marionette parts, and eventually stumbled onto a hitherto unknown (to me) fandom, namely ball-jointed dolls. FINALLY, after racking up many a weird search result for “doll hands,” I found a supplier with two that looked like they might work.

I needed them to fit flush with the side of the box, so I used a mitre box and saw to get a nice, flat cut.

I also wasn’t totally happy with the colour of the hands as they were, so I painted them before gluing them between the slats of the side of the crate.

Now, for the finishing touch — I enlisted the help of my friend Mike Aporius to take some “official” shots of the finished product. As you can see, he made it look fantastic.

So, there you have it. Until there’s an official Killer Dwarfs box set, you’ll just have to make your own. But for me, at least, it was a fun project to work on for several months!

Questions? Comments? Have you ever concocted something for your personal fandom because it didn’t exist yet? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!