Ryan McFarland's blog

Crate just crate

zieak ♦ April 4, 2005 ♦ 3 Comments

Way back about a year ago once upon a time there i was minding my own business getting pallets to build a fence when all of a sudden i came upon this nice piece of signage. Did you ever notice that you can put “age” on the ends of words and it suddenly has the exact same meaning yet feels superior? Windage. Yardage. Floorage and roofage. Stowage. Blockage. Seepage and Leakage. Coinage. There are some words that have that suffix that don’t have the same meaning without it. Hostage. Average. Cabbage and Cottage. Garbage. Massage and Message. Rummage. Cleavage. Marriage. Anyway… the sign.

Obviously, Amy and i were shopping for free pallets at Petersburg Motors. This sign was there with their pile of wooden garbage. They said that it was at least 20 years old and had been found behind the shop when they were looking for a scrap piece of plywood for something. They seemed happy to have it out of their hands. It sat outside my house for quite a long time. It needed a bit of clean-up at first because it was growing pretty green with moss. But as you can see this side of the sign (probably the side leaning against the building) actually has some bright color to it still. As a journeyman packrat/artist/craftsman extrordinairre it only took me about a year to decide on a use for it and put myself into action. I decided to make a crate out of it. I wanted to retain as much of the original sign as possible and i wanted to make a box that could be used like an end table. I got bold and cut the sign in half (top to bottom) and lopped off the “cars trucks vans” and phone number portion. These were to be two of the sides of the crate. Below is a picture of one of the two other side pieces. I used red cedar planks that Cena had in her carport and connected them with yellow cedar strips that i found kicking around too. I used screws used for metal roofing that i have a gallon bucket full of to attach them.

I used some cedar strips to provide corners to attach the sides together. You can see in the photo below that the sign was painted on both sides.

I attached the sign side to a cedar side.

And then repeated the process for the other two sides and then brought the two parts together.

Here is the other side of the box…

It was about here that i left the project for a while. Days. Days and days. And unfortunately i had some shrinkage. The cedar boards i used for the sides had 1/8 inch gaps between them when i went to finish this up. Dang. I backed screws out and reattached the planks. I hope it does not shrink much more. I screwed pieces of cedar around the opening at the top to attach the top pieces to.

And i attached the top pieces giving me a decent looking pseudo-crate. Not a single screw or nailhead is visible from the outside though. That usually is not a concern in crateage.

I spent perhaps 4 or 5 hours working on this project. Every bit of it was salvaged or from hardware or pieces kicking around so the project didn’t cost anything. If you want to include the price of a few packets of sandpaper for my random orbit sander that’s fair. They were probaby $.50 per sheet and i used three – only one of them will probably end up in the trash though. I did buy the clamps pictured too – but i have needed them for so many projects that it wouldn’t be fair to add their cost to this little endeavor. Here it is one last time. All dressed up with nowhere to go.

While writing this up i did think of one final touch to do to this piece. It will wait a while though. Maybe even a year. I have many other projects lined up and waiting for their turn.