Memory Box with lid-triggered audio

After having our son, my partner wanted me to make her a memory box where she could keep all the trinkets and keepsakes from his birth.

As it is something of an old stereotype that such things would be kept in an old shoe box, I wanted to mimic that aesthetic.

The box is made from iroko, sides of approx 1cm, joined with box joints.
The base is simple hardboard, rebated into the sides.

I didn’t really want to add hardware such as hinges as I felt it would detract from the shoebox aesthetic, so I opted for a simple lift off lid.

The lid itself is made from a thicker piece of iroko, with trim added around the edges.

In order to provide a good friction fit, a piece of plywood, wrapped in t-shirt fabric, matching the boxes internal width and depth was added to the lid. This holds the lid on without rattling around, and incidentally hides the “bonus feature” of the box.

The bonus feature

Of course I can’t do anything normal like just make a box.

During his first few weeks, whenever our son sneezed, he would follow it up with a little noise that sounded like he was saying “oh..”. Of course it was incredibly cute and a memory we want to cherish forever.

What my partner didn’t know at the time, is I had managed to catch this on video, and I wanted to surprise her with it. 

A few years ago (around 2015-2016 I think), Sainsburys brought out a Christmas biscuit selection box which included a gadget for recording a message that would play when the biscuit tin was opened.

Somewhere along the line somebody I know must have got one, I scavenged the gadget from the tin once it was empty, and it spent the past few years sat in my electronics junk drawer, waiting for a project to be used in.

 

 

The circuit board is clearly designed as a disposable product – it is powered by 3 button cell batteries, which are riveted to the PCB itself. Whatever microcontroller powers it is hidden under an epoxy blob, and the only other notable features are a small microphone, speaker, a light dependent resistor (which is how it detects if the box is opened), and a small switch used to start and stop recording.

First thing to do was to drill out the rivets and get rid of the dead batteries.
Rather than replace them with more button cells, I opted for wiring in a AAA battery holder, I just had to follow the PCB traces and connect it at the right point.

 The microphone is pretty much as crap as you would expect for something of that size in a ostensibly disposable product, so I needed a better way to record the audio.

To do that I replaced the microphone with a 3.5mm jack and coupling capacitor. Once I’d copied over the recording, I removed that as well to save space, and also removed the record button to avoid overwriting.

 

Then it was simply a matter of hiding the electronics in the box. This was done by carving out a hollow in the middle of the lid. The ‘inner lid’ of plywood that was also used to create a friction latch, added sufficient depth to the lid in order to hide the battery and PCB.

The underside of the lid with hollow for PCB/battery and speaker.

The t-shirt fabric that covered the inner lid also hid the circuitry, while also allowing enough light to pass through to activate the recording.

Hardwood slim line LED panel light fitting with accent lights

I recently purchased a pair of low profile LED ceiling lights from a charity auction on Ebay.

It seemed like the kind of thing that I’d find a use for eventually, and it was for a good cause.

After buying I had a message from the seller to tell me that they only had one driver for the two panels – I went ahead with the purchase because at the end of the day I wasn’t expecting them to be new and pristine from a charity auction.

My curiosity was piqued when they arrived. I noticed another label sticking out from underneath the address label. I peeled it back, and revealed an Amazon delivery label to a different address.

Initially I figured perhaps it was an Amazon returned item – one of the drivers was missing, therefore the original purchaser returned it, and it was sold on to the charity as one of those wholesale return pallets that you see advertised.

I did also think that the wires on the mains side of the LED driver seemed a little bit thin. However I tested it with those panels and they actually seemed to work okay, so I didn’t think much more of it.

Losing faith

So, I started to put together a project plan to make a light fitting with them.

I wanted to add in a few extra accent lights but everything I had was 12v, and the light fittings driver was 18v. While I was mulling over options – adding in a separate transformer, the space and heat issues to work round, etc. I noticed a couple of other things.

The case of the driver seems to have fake screw heads stamped on them. Not in itself a problem, but kind of sketchy.

And the panels themselves are stamped with 18w, not 18v.

The output of the driver says 9-18v at 300ma.

W=V*A.

There’s no way that if those panels are 18w, the driver can provide enough power to them.

This made me rethink my theory on the background of these lights.

Having a look on Amazon I can see very similar products, with identical looking drivers – the only difference being that the outputs are rated differently.

My guess is that this set of lights came with incorrect drivers, and the original purchaser damaged one whilst trying it.

It’s only a theory and not enough to make a claim against, it ultimately is enough to destroy my faith in these lights and make me not want to use them as they are.

Rebuilding the electronics

I had built the design around the size of these panels, so I decided to rip out all of the electronics.

On doing so I realized that the panels were just flexible LED strip edge mounted to a diffuser.

I swapped out the LED strip that was there with some white 12v strip LEDs. I had to trim about a millimeter off the sides of the diffuser in order to account for the slightly larger LEDs.

In an initial test the LED light was quite patchy, so I took the diffuser from the second light and doubled up. This makes a notable difference.

To drive the strip I’m using a regular RGB LED control box.

Initially my choice of this was simply because it was available and had a small profile so would fit well in the fitting.

However this also gave me the idea I could run the accent lighting and the main light on different color channels, allowing them to be controlled separately. It would also allow me to dim the light.

The design

Because I don’t want to carve out my ceiling to flush fit the panel I planned to build a small mitred frame, with another frame mounted at forty five degrees behind it. The back frame would contain some accent lights, with the front frame housing the main light fitting.

the fitting needed to fit in with the of our lights in the room, so I disassembled the original fitting and spray painted it black.

For the wood frame I opted to use zebrano.

The frames are simple squares with 45 degree mitres, and a 2mm deep by 10mm wide rebate to fit the light fitting frame flush with the surface.

The back frame was turned at a 45 degree angle, and screwed to the front frame.

The back frame also had a pair of key hole plate mounted to the back, which will be used for connecting to the ceiling.

Accent Lighting

Rather than cut up the filters from the second light, I opted instead to use a stack of filters from an old PC monitor. It was simply a case of measuring out the triangles, cutting them and then gluing them in place with hot glue.

Each corner would have a single segment of white LED strip (3 LEDs per corner). These would be connected in series and then connected to the RGB LED control box, on a different color channel to the main light, allowing them to be used independently.

The rest of the electronics

The IR receiver from the control box sticks out behind the front frame, so it is not visible from ground level, but catches enough reflected light from the ceiling to function.

However, this didn't last long and soon found itself wrapped in black tape because what I didn't realise at the time was that the IR receiver worked on the same encoding as our TV remote and we soon bored of having the lights change as we scrolled through TV guide menus.

PSU

The power supply is provided by an AC-DC “wall-wart” – I had to be quite selective in which one I picked to fit within the frame. The one I opted for had a removable face plate which allowed me to remove the socket pins and wire directly into.

The end result

 

“Picture and Collection Bar”

This is another one of those projects I found on Pinterest & decided to make a DIY implementation of. The original pin describes it as a “picture and collection bar”.

Essentially using a wooden strip to trap marbles in such a way that they have a little movement but due to the sloped design will always try to move downward and towards the wall.

This means that if you push a piece of paper through the gap at the bottom, there is enough movement for the marbles to get out of its way but they will immediately roll down, providing just enough friction to hold the paper – but not enough friction to prevent you from easily removing the paper again if you need to.

It’s kind of like an ultra slim pin board, but without having to put holes in your paper.

Design
The original design I found used pretty thin strips that appear to be jointed it mitred angles.

Instead I opted for using a larger piece of oak, but then cutting out an angled gap for the marbles.

The cross section looks something like this:

Construction
The actual construction of this was very simple, just a series of rebate cuts on the table saw, occasionally making one of them angled, and making one very us at the bottom of the piece, so that when it’s up against the wall there is a slight gap as can be seen in the above diagram, which will allow paper to pass through.

Then I capped off the ends with a little piece of mahogany, to prevent the marbles from rolling out the sides – this is simply glued and pinned in place – and then finally some finishing.

As the piece of oak I was using was reclaimed and had a couple of screw holes, I patched one which looks a little bit like a knot in the wood, and the other two which were at the edges, I decided to patch using brass tacks, as the holes were in a position where if I were going to screw this to the wall I would have put holes anyway.

Mounting
The tricky part of this project is mounting it to the wall. My design does not have a back piece because I did not want it to protrude too far from the wall. The downside of this means until it is on the wall, the marbles could fall out the back.

So, firstly, I filled the back with some marbles.

 I then used gaffer tape across the back of the marbles and the lower part of the bar – leaving the side top bit exposed as this is where the adhesive is going to go. I left enough excess gaffer tape to be able to fold it round so that there was a ‘handle’ hanging off the bottom of the bar.

Obviously the next step is to mark out a position on the wall to mount it, make sure that it is level, etc. Then apply the glue to the back of the bar, and stick it to the wall.

Once you’re confident that the glue set, you can put on the gaffer tape ‘handle’, to peel the tape away from the marbles on the back, releasing them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Result

Planter from old shed

When working on the patio and fire pit, I took on the challenge of 'zero-ish' waste - not having any more waste than could fit in the regular household bins. No skips, special collections etc.

On the opposite side to where the fire pit was built, there was an old shed, which wasn't in bad condition, but was unwanted.

It was taken down so that we could make use of the paving slabs which were being used as it's base.

Along the side of where the raised patio was being built, there was a gap which used to have long-dead roses in - the area marked in brown in the patio-plan model below

Just eye-balling it, I could see that the length of the shed (approx 8 feet), was about the same, and came up with the idea of using the sides to create a raised planter there. 

It also helped the zero-ish waste plan, as the planter would provide space for re-homing soil removed during the fire pit and patio builds, as it could be filled up from ground-level

The frame was simple, just the four sides simply screwed together - leaving the bottom open for drainage.

The front panel was cut down from the front of the shed (below the windows), and the back of the planter was one of the roof panels of the shed. The sides were the other roof panel, cut lengthways.

The back of the planter is higher than the front - I considered cutting it down, but it does provide some utility in that it gives a place to mount things like chicken wire/frost protection/cold frames over the top of the plants if need be, and as it is still lower than the fence itself, I decided to leave it alone.

And finally some miscellaneous bits of shed timber was used to add trim to the top of the panels, which also served to pin the plastic liner in place.

The wood was treated with normal fence stain/wood preservative.

The insides of the frame are lined with plastic sheet (which as it happens, is also up-cycled from some packaging.) and stood on some slab offcuts to protect the wood from moisture caused by contact with the wet soil.

 

 

Dartboard Cabinet

I got a dartboard for Christmas, which I have on the wall in my home office.

Darts is a great excuse for getting up and stretching your legs between video meetings, or while thinking over a problem, rather than just pacing back and forth.

However up until now it's simply had an old piece of hardboard as a backing, so thought it's time it got a proper cabinet.

The design is to have two compartments, the main dartboard cupboard (obviously!), and below that a small compartment which can be used as storage for the darts and accessories, and will open to provide a platform to help catch bounce-outs.

The Frame 

The frame is made from a reclaimed iroko desktop - I believe it was from an old school chemistry lab. It's about 5cm thick, so ideal for covering the thickness of the dartboard.

This was ripped down into 4 lengths to make the sides of the frame.

These are jointed using lapped mitre joints, screwed through from the back for extra support.

The divider between the main dartboard compartment and the lower storage compartment is joined into the sides with pocket screws.

The backing of the main compartment is hardboard, reclaimed from some dismantled hollow-core doors, simply pinned into rebates in the frame.
The backing of the lower storage compartment is reclaimed laminate flooring, which helps to add rigidity to the structure, again, screwed into rebates in the back of the frame.

I layered some cork over it, to try and prevent bounce-outs and reduce impact noise, although in hindsight I regret that decision, as the thin cork veneer seems to disintegrate at the slightest provocation. But seeing as it's there to catch errant darts, it's pretty much a consumable anyway.

The doors
The doors are iroko, edged with oak to add some contrast.

The fold down door for the storage compartment is reclaimed from a previous project which didn't pan out, and is already built in the same manner.

It also has a leather lining, again from a previous project - I don't know how well that's going to withstand some dart bounce-outs, but I don't think it's chances of surviving being ripped out are much better, so opted to leave it in.

For the storage compartment, a leather lace is used to create a limiter to stop the door folding down too far. This simply threads through a hole drilled in the divider and is knotted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A simple latch for this is mounted in the side, made from miscellaneous brass hardware from the junk bin.

On the door side, the lace is threaded through more brass hardware (I believe a Chubb keyhole cover), and knotted. The knot is recessed into the door to hide it, and the hardware screwed to the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The handles

The handles for the doors are made of leather. This is done by creating a loop as shown below.

A hole is drilled through the thickest part (the 3-layer section). Between the second and third layer only, a small screw is placed with a washer.

The first and second layers are stitched together, and the handle screwed to the door. The hole in the first layer provides access for the screwdriver, as the head of the screw is hidden.

When that's done, the hole in the first layer is hidden by the rivet.

  

Finishing touches

In the back of the cabinet, keyhole hooks were recessed into the top and bottom of the frame. The sides would've been preferable, but the placement on the wall would have collided with cabling behind the wall.

A whole was cut in the centre of the dartboard compartment, this is to allow the existing wall mount to pass through - so the dartboard does still have a direct mount to the wall, which aids with it's positioning on the wall - we can make use of the calculations we did when it was first hung.

Finally, a couple of coats of danish oil were applied to bring out the pattern of the grain.

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Tray Stand / Foldable Table

While lockdown has prevented me from being able to get back to many woodworking projects this year, I did manage to cut a few offcuts to size and sand them in order to fashion a stand for a bamboo tray. The idea being for it to be a temporary table or drinks stand in our small patch of outside space.

The construction is a simple X-frame, with horizontal bars at each of the four points - 2 to support the tray, 2 to act as feet. These are joined to the X-frame using a 3D-printed bracket - the SCAD file for this is up on GitHub.

In order to stop the frame from spreading out and collapsing under the weight of the tray and it's contents, the feet were joined with some denim fabric, courtesy of an old pair of jeans. This allows the stand to be folded up, but providing plenty of rigidity during use.

Sewing things other than leather is a pretty new thing to me, my only prior sewing-related project being the lanyard I made a while back. So I'm the first to admit it's not the neatest work, but it does the job, so can't complain.

With the benefit of hindsight, the hinges allowed a bit too much flexibility, allowing the cross-bars to roll. The fabric on the feet alleviates this at the bottom. On the top, the base of the tray has a small lip which helps latch onto the cross-bars - whilst they still roll, it's impact is minimised and the tray/table works fine.

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Drinks display stand

This is another small part of a larger modular project.

The aim is to create a display for drinks bottles and miniatures, which will present them nicely, while at the same time securing them to protect against small amounts of movement. i.e. I'm not expecting them to be secured if the whole stand is tipped over, but they must be able to tolerate the stand being wobbled side-to-side without the bottles clinking or falling over.

There is also the need to balance the trade-off between the display aspect of the unit, and the amount of storage it provides.

After iterating over a number of designs I settled on the idea of having a central area which would display a number of larger bottles, with a frame/shelf element around the back and side edges to hold miniatures (the front would need to be left open to allow access to the bottles).







The base

The base is simple plywood, with foam to support the larger bottles. The foam is spray-glued to the plywood, with cut-outs to place the bottles, and is wrapped in fabric - also spray-glued and stapled.

The frame

The frame is oak, attached through the bottom of the plywood, and supported by the miniatures shelves and the top frame, which is mitred, and screwed to the uprights with dowels to cover the screw holes. The sides are left open, but the back is enclosed with iroko (there is a logic to this that will become apparent later). The mixture of woods creates a nice colour contrast and adds additional support. 
 

The miniatures shelves

The basic idea behind the miniature shelf is to use a forstner bit to cut out grooves for the bottles to stand in. But this alone raises a couple of problems

• If they're just sat in holes, it won't be possible to see the labels and know easily what they are.
• There's no definitive standard size/shape of the bottles.

The latter question has an easy answer, just pick the smallest forstner bit that covers the most bottles that I have to hand - this turned out to be 41mm.

The solution to the first point is to cut the groove off centre, so that it has an open front, allowing the label to be seen, but again, this raises the next question - if the groove is open-fronted, then what's to stop the bottle just falling out?

I'd already planned to line the bottle slots with leather to prevent rattling. By over-sizing the corners of the leather (see below illustration), the leather also acts like a clip to hold the bottles in place, with a sturdy leather disc glued in the bottom to provide extra support.

The finished display
 

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Standing Desk

I was asked by a family member if I could build them a standing desk.

The problem was, being family I couldn't really say no, but they included these specifications:

• "Nothing too fancy"
• "Just cheap timber will do, nothing too expensive"
• "...but 'good' wood - not old pallets or anything like that"

They thought they were being helpful by making an easier job of it, but truth be told, they were making it boring. Might as well nail a bit of plywood to some 2x2 legs and call it a day.

So to make it more interesting, I set myself a challenge - to build it with no screws/nails/fasteners, and no glues. All pure wood joinery.


The desk is for a laptop user, they also use external multimedia speakers and have a large, old-fashioned laser printer.

The Video
While doing the write up of this project, it was getting difficult to coherently describe how it was all put together without writing a huge wall of text.

I do a lot of sketching of designs before I build them, and it occurred to me that I could make this more of a feature, so I put them all together here:

I quite like the general style of the videos and will probably start documenting future projects this way as well - although I'm sure over time the process and output will improve.

Stitching Pony for Leatherwork

One of the great parts of being a multi-disciplinary maker is the ability to use skills from one discipline, e.g. woodworking, to help out with a project that uses another (e.g. leatherwork).

A "Stitching Pony" is a leatherworking tool used to hold leather securely, freeing up both hands for doing the actual stitching. In woodworking parlance, it's comparable to a vise or a clamp.

The construction is a flat base, with one fixed jaw extending vertically, and the second jaw being connected to the base with a hinge, so that it may open and close.

To control the movement of the jaw, a bolt extends through both jaws, and is controlled by a wing-nut, and a spring situated between the two jaws serves to maintain a bit of tension and avoid the movable jaw becoming floppy or loose.






To protect the leather being clamped from indentations, the jaws themselves are covered with some leather offcuts, which were simply attached with contact cement. Brass tacks were used to hold the leather in place while the glue dried (and help to add to the aesthetic of the piece).

The jaws of the clamp.
The bookend woodgrain was a fortunate coincidence

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Wooden Pallet Mallet

I typically don't do much woodwork over the winter as the weather has a tendency to suck the enjoyment out of things.

When I set-up to start again in the spring, I usually find that I need a simple project to warm up and refresh my techniques before I get involved with something more complex.

Normally it's a bit of a throwaway project that I wouldn't put online, but this one was very simple to create and has been very useful, so I thought that it might be of use to others.

This year I made a wooden mallet as I needed one for leatherwork.

The handle was two strips of pallet wood glued up and shaped around a hammer handle.



The head of the mallet is one of the end blocks, also from a pallet.

The finished mallet. Simple, but effective

The technique is simple - drill through the centre of the block to create an opening that the top of the handle can fit through, but is narrow enough to make a tight fit.

Then drill through the part of the handle that protrudes from the top of the block and wedge a dowel in place to prevent the block from slipping. (The block is actually a tight enough fit that this is a little bit unnecessary, but it adds an extra layer of safety, and a bit more of an aesthetic quality to things).

Everything after that is just a matter of sanding and shaping.

Woodturned Pen

This isn't a project as such but last weekend I attended Makers Central in Birmingham.

It was a brilliant event, and great to be amongst so many creative people and share the wealth of knowledge and experience.

This pen is the result of my first attempt at wood turning courtesy of the Record Power stand.

It's certainly not perfect, but as a first attempt I'm pretty pleased with it, and a lathe is certainly on the workshop wishlist.

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Wedding Cake Stand

Off the back of the "Dutch Courage" sign that I made for the wedding, I was asked if I could also help with a custom cake stand for their wedding cake.


They're not having a traditional wedding cake, instead they've opted for brownies, in 7 different flavours, so the cake stand needs to accommodate them all and at the same time be able to differentiate between them.


In addition, there's a multi-colour theme to the wedding, so that needs to be included with the design.

The obvious thing to do was use different colours to separate the flavours, and my initial ideas centred around something like a painter's palette.



I was looking at a segmented circular design, but it was looking a bit strange with an odd number of segments, so I opted for six segments with a smaller platform in the middle to provide for the 7th segment.

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To calculate the size I was told that there will be one tray of brownies per flavour, and that would be about equivalent in size to about a Roses tin, which is roughly 9 inches diameter by 4 inches tall.
Using that as I guide, I based the design on a circle of 18 inches diameter divided into 6 sectors (so 6 triangles with two 9" sides and a 6-and-a-bit" rounded side).
This equates to approximately equivalent size.


Construction

The back segment (red in the original diagram).
This one also has a small solid tip added
as it will overlap the central segment

• The base was cut from some chipboard up-cycled from some flat pack furniture.
• Each segment was cut from 3/8" marine plywood.
• Six 9x4" rectangles were cut to create the face panels, and attached to the sides of the raised segments (2 for the rear segment, 1 each for the other raised segments.)
• Supporting posts for each of the raised segments 
• The central "tip" of each segment was trimmed to allow room for the wooden pole that will support the centre segment.

These were secured to the base of the stand, but could be easily disassembled.



Rounded supports were attached to the underside of the curved edge of the segments. These were made from scrap, and supported a thin hardboard which was curved around to provide a solid outside to the segments. This was attached with staples, as the hardboard was too soft and nails passed straight through.

Each segment was wrapped with coloured fabric, fastened in place with staples and spray adhesive.

The centre segment was a smaller disc with a segment removed to allow the red segment to overlap. The supporting pole was approx 1.5" diameter and attached to the centre segment with a combination of glue and nails.
This assembly was wrapped in white fabric and attached to the base with a couple of screws (so to avoid rotation).

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I'm really pleased with how this project turned out. With a lot of projects, the actual building usually highlights issues not thought of during the design, and so adaptations have to be made, but in this case, the end result came out pretty much exactly as the initial design.

Working on this project also helped develop a new workflow - due to geographical and timing constraints, most of the design discussion was co-ordinated via WhatsApp. It was a case of being sent links and screenshots of ideas, sketching up a plan, photographing it and returning it etc. It was a surprisingly good system and something I'd definitely use again.

Desk Stationery Organiser with pin and chalk board sides

This project was a spur-of-the-moment "Pinterest request".

Without any prior planning, I was given a picture from Pinterest and asked "Can you make me something like this?"

The pin in question was this desk organiser:


I found some thin plywood offcuts that were roughly 2/3s to 3/4s of the length of a new pencil, so figured that was about the correct height.

The length of the offcuts was slightly longer - approx 9 1/2 inches. It seemed a bit too much to split into 2 4-and-something inch pots, so rather than cut it down and create waste, I'd make my desk organiser three pots of roughly 3 inches each.

For the width, I figured it would look best if the pots were square, so I found some other offcuts and cut them to 3 inches.

The end result is a three-pot desk organiser with pots of that are 3x3 inches by somewhere between 4 and 5 inches tall.

For the base, I cut a length of pallet wood and cut grooves along the position of each of the middle dividers, and in turn cut a short section of each divider, so that the dividers would sit in the grooves:


On one end I cut a finger groove, as sticky notes are a standard 3x3 inch square, so one of the pots could be used as a dispenser for them.

I took apart a 'corkboard' (which turned out to be a thin veneer of cork over cardboard, and glued this around one side and the back.
On the front (the sticky-note side) I took part of the cork veneer and glued it on - purely for aesthetic reasons.

On the other side I attached a thin, flat piece of hardboard coated in chalkboard paint (which according to the tin was supposed to also be magnetic, but in reality isn't.)

I re-purposed some of the old corkboards frame to create a neat border around it all, and it was done.

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Reclaimed Wood Pirate/Treasure Chest

The first step was to join the slats together to create the boards that will form the sides of the chest.

As I don't have access to a planer/jointer this was a case of hand planing boards where necessary and being selective which boards matched together best.

In the absence of enough clamps I screwed the boards to a piece of scrap wood to hold them in place whilst the glue dried.

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With the boards joined, I could get a better idea of how the panels would fit together.

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The panels were too big to cut on my small tabletop saw, so I opted for handcut box joints.

I measured them so that the would line up with each of the slats on the long sides of the chest.

Cutting the curved top required some maths to match up the number of slats that would form the lid with the angle that would need to be cut in each slat to form a proper semi-circle.

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Once these were cut I glued them and used a metal bar bent to a curve to temporarily screw them to as it was not possible to use a clamp.

The handles are simple bought. The hinges were standard trangular shaped hinges, but in order for them to work with the curve of the lid, I bent them to a curve by heating them with a heat-gun and a hammer.

Finding a suitable padlock was more difficult - sure, DIY stores sell padlocks, but I wanted something more old-fashioned looking to fit the "pirate chest" aesthetic. After quite a bit of searching I found this one at a car boot sale.

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For finishing, I used the heat gun to heat the wood to the point where it started to brown (almost like toast), without burning. I thought about going the burn-and-sand method, but at this point I had invested enough time in the project that I didn't want to risk it.

Finally, the chest was finished with a coat of oil to help highlight the grain

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