Earlier in the year, I completed one of those My Virtual Mission challenges. The deal is you pick a challenge to do (each with varying trail lengths), and pay to sign up on the website. You track your progress via fitness app or manually, and along the way, you are sent virtual postcards and can see your progress on a map with street view. When you’re done, they send you a shiny medal. I fell in love with the medal for Mt. Fuji, and signed up. I wasn’t really sure how long 74 kms would take me considering I wasn’t walking much in the winter, but I managed to get it done within 21 days. Anyway, they released these medal holders (which were too spendy and sold out quickly anyway), so I decided to make my own.
I found plans online and we headed out to Home Depot for supplies. I spent about $200 on materials, including a router and bits which I’d always wanted to get anyway.
My friend reprinted the plans in CAD and we got them paper printed at mom’s. Then it was a matter of transferring the design to wood. I managed to get a scrap piece from HD to practice on first. SMRT. And awaaayyy we went!
We had to account for different routering depths in other to make room for the ribbon to be tucked inside. The little holes were for magnets to hold the lid in.
It turns out, freehand routering is hard, yo. We built a little guide that had to be reset after every cut, and it just took forever.
Also, I don’t have a tablesaw, so cutting a straight line with a router is not the best way to do this.
Much sanding needed to be done.
Which, of course, made the top uneven. But I managed to jam it in there without magnets. Which made a lot of that routering moot.
In the end, it turned out okay. Now that we’ve made one, it’ll make the next one easier.
