Crate sides

Liked the article.  Don't forget that early crates were first made up from slats of lumber, later, fir plywood (the same color as the trim 1x4's), and now import plywood that is nearly white.  Look around for pictures of siding, etc. to use for older crates.

Slats

Older crate slat siding could be scanned from tongue and groove siding. But even easier would be to draw some narrow lines on the scanned wood to simulate slats.

Changing the lightness of the siding is pretty easy with photoshop (or equivalent)

Charlie