Shoe Box Part I

A pile of pine boards from my treasured scrap pile. 

   It has been a while since I have tackled a  larger project.   Also it is once again getting close to that time of year where everyone who is a member of the wood workers club that I belong to makes a project of some sort to be auctioned off prior to Christmas.   As before, the proceeds from that auction are donated to local causes.   Each year I struggle with the idea of what can one make that hopefully one will at lease get someone to bid on it.    Most of the club members will build their projects out of oak, maple, or cherry.   While it is easy for me to fall into that competitive mode of trying to outperform my fellow wood working buddies with a project that will generate a lot of ooohs and ahhhs.   I first looked inside my empty billfold and then glanced at my wood scrap pile - saying to myself   "Is there anything I can make from any of this stuff laying around?".

These are some of the boards after they have been trimmed and
planed down to 3/4 of an inch

Gluing up boards to make a panel. 

   I just happen to have a quite a few pine boards left over from an evergreen tree that my dad-in-law had milled into boards several years back.  If I had to guess I would say that over the past 20 some years I have moved these boards from here to there and re-stacked them in various out-of-the-way corners.   It's getting to be time to do something with them.      Pine is not the best wood to work with.   These boards are not anyway.   One of my boards was warped a little,  they all had so many knots - even some knots that have shrunk and fallen out leaving a little hole that one can peak through, and some of these boards had partial splits which I had to cut around or even glue back together.
    My goal for this past week was to take what ever pine rough boards I had on hand and make up some nice pine lumber.   Lumber that I could use in making an entryway shoe box.    I had made one for our entryway about 20 years ago and it still is holding together so I thought I would make one just like it for the auction that I mentioned earlier.   For this new one I may tweak it a little here and there, but like other projects in my past, there are no plans for this one other than running back to the one currently filled with my old (stinky) tennis shoes and taking a few measurements.

Hopefully with several of these panels
we will end up with a box 

  I thought about buying some new boards and save myself some time and effort, but I have to say that running these rough cut boards through the planer and gluing boards edge to edge is kind of my highlight.    I did make a trip to the local lumberyard thinking that it may be wise to use this old pine as campfire wood and buy some decent boards, but I was caught off guard when told what the price would be for those new boards.   Lumber prices have definitely gone up!    I just read an article on the soaring costs builders are running into when constructing a  new home.   It sounds like the fires out west and floods down south have created a demand for new lumber. 

Does it look like a box?

    So by the time of this writing I had managed to have all my old evergreen boards cut to size.   I did spend some time using up some of my sandpaper supply.    Sanded and then sanded some more.  (Have I ever told you about how I love to sand wood? Have I ever told you how much I love the wife's cat?  I'm sure you are getting the picture.)
    My goal for this coming week is to have this so called shoe box assembled by the time we go off daylight savings time next Sunday morning.    Assembled, but probably not finished.     And if that doesn't appear to be working out for me, then Saturday night you might find me bundled up in my winter coat - siting outside next to the fire pit.     (Have you ever notice the popping sound pine makes when it burns?)