By request of the wife, I spent some time on Saturday, while I was still recovering a bit from the illness, and finished up a project for my son’s school art class. We had promised to create and deliver a number of basic chipboard easels, so that the teacher didn’t need to continue using cardboard each time. The materials had been sitting around for a week or two waiting on a bit of motivation and some nice weather to get finished, so I managed to knock those out pretty quickly.
With the scrap material, my wife asked for a pencil art box, to store her growing collection of colored pencils, markers and other art supplies. With the chipboard and some leftover plywood, I managed to craft together a decent draft version, which would have been a good final product, if not for the cheap materials. It was my first time attempting to create a rabbet, to slot the chip board into, and after a bit of trial and error, managed to succeed pretty well. The lid even fit in very nicely, and held shut without much effort. Unfortunately, the cheap plywood splintered and chipped when I attempted to route over the edges to get a nice curve, and honestly it just wasn’t a high enough grade to bother staining or finishing. Plus, my wife informed me that I had failed to create enough slots in the box, so it didn’t really meet her needs.
The good part is that it was a solid learning experience, and gives me the confident to try again with more expensive solid woods. Not sure what material I will try to use, but something better than plywood or pine is probably in order for a long lasting artistic box.
