Christmas is coming. The Secret Santa theme for our study group was "ethical, reclaimed, recycled, fair-trade" etc. So I decided to build a rustic money box out of relcaimed pallet timber I'd scavenged the year before.
I had some BEAUTIFUL redwood timber of varying red-li-ness that I ripped lengthwise, and sash clamped together to form a workpiece. The alignment isn't fully optimised to "left justify" one edge, as the timber is quite bowed in all directions, and seating them in a best fit scenario was quite the tetris-challenge.
Doweling is for chumps. Just glue together and hold everything down from exploding under pressure somehow. The F-Clamps are used to align the stray ends. Pallet timber is warped like the Enterprise (groan). ...one day I'm buying a thickness planer.
Test fitting, rough n ready.
I've said this before. BUY YOUR MAN MORE CLAMPS. There are never enough.
I decided some coins inlaid into the top would look nice.
A small swinging polycarbonate access door for the base. I've positioned it so that it can't swing out of the user's reach as it bumps against the side in both directions before getting too far away.
I got pressed for time, so took it to work on the day it was to be gifted in order to finish it off throughout the day!! Here I'm about to attack it with my electric planer before routing the edges and giving it a final sand down.
It looks awesome!!
Coins are hot-glued into the top. A few coats of Tung-Oil are applied.
I attached this letter to the box.
I don't know where other people's interests lie, but to me this thing is gorgeous. I was actually quite mortified to give it away, particularly in a random Kringle style gifting method. I got lucky and my boss ended up with it. He lives in Ferntree Gully so hopefully there's some appreciation for that rustic timber look. :)
I have enough leftover timber to make a 2nd one. (as seen from an earlier picture). I may keep that one for myself. :D
