I’m going to a baby shower (really, just a dinner) soon. I understand that surveys indicate most people prefer gift cards, and since this one is her second I thought that sounded like a good idea. But since I’ve got a laser, I can’t leave it at that. So I designed a little box to hold the gift card, personalized for the occasion (last name obfuscated).
Made from 1/8" Proofgrade maple plywood as well as Proofgrade maple veneer. The hardware consists of a 1/4" screw post (Chicago screw) from Tandy Leather, and four 1/8" neodymium magnets from my local hobby shop (also available from Amazon I’m sure).
The section that has the cutout is laminated to a piece of veneer on the back side, then the “congratulations” is engraved on another piece of veneer to provide the inside lining. The two layers of plywood plus the layer of veneer worked out perfectly to fit the 1/4" screw. The tiny magnets are superglued into engraved pockets to hold the top down until you slide it away. Don’t do what I did on my prototype, which was to fail to check the direction of the magnets so when I put it all together the four magnets repelled each other! For this one I glued two magnets in on one side, then attached another couple magnets to them and put an “x” on the backs to indicate glue side down.
What a great idea - it turned out really well! A great keepsake as well as gift card holder.
Construction question - is there any advantage to using 4 magnets rather than 2 magnets and 2 small pieces of metal for the magnest to grab on to? Just thinking ahead and trying to be frugal with my neodiddlyums. . …
Hmmmmm. No idea. But it was easier for me to come by the magnets than to find a tiny piece of steel to fit in that slot. I got the pack of 100 1/8" magnets for a reasonable amount and will probably never use them all. You can get a pack of 50 here, and it even comes with two drill bits, for $10.
I only tried two magnets, but they are so tiny I’m not sure one would have done it.
I forgot to mention the size of the plywood (revised above now)–it was 1/8". I guess it runs a little large (I think it’s really .130"). Regardless, the two pieces of plywood plus the veneer fit the screw perfectly. Maybe the screw ran small!
Edit: eeeek! Took another look at the screw package and they are 1/4", not 1/2"! I hope nobody ordered the 1/2" size in the meantime! Original post edited to correct this.
No, but that’s a good point. It’s just an Amazon card that you scrape the code off the back.
You can use a screw head for the piece of metal. This assumes you can find a short enough screw that isn’t brass. Also, it is my experience that magnets only held in with adhesive don’t get a lot of repeat use before they come unstuck. Not relevant for this application, just a FYI.
for both the top lid and cutout section, with the veneer on the back side?