I'm back, with a little project and a postscript

The last 18 months haven't been totally devoid of projects, but we have been away quite a lot and ......well, fellow bloggers will know that from time to time you just need to take a break.

A while ago I fitted some beech worktops for my elder daughter (http://itsastockitem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/throw-it-away.html)
and, of course, kept the offcuts. With the birthday of grandchild number 3 coming up, I thought she might like a version of the well-known remove-a-block game:

particularly if it came in a customised box.

So the blocks were cut and sanded, and the box emerged from some bits of plywood that were lying around in the workshop, with the grooves for the lid cut by passes over the table saw.

I used the pantograph I made a few years ago from Matthias Wandel's plans (http://woodgears.ca/pantograph/index.html) to carve Lizie's name in the lid and the job was done.  A little heavy to post, so she may only get a card on her actual 4th birthday, with the present arriving when we visit a little later.

And a postscript for a little task which took a while to work out, but is quick to describe: we are recycling a child's cot around the family, and discovered that one of the swing catches which allow one side to rise and fall had been broken.  The makers told us that they no longer had stock of this ABS plastic piece, so I set to making one, using a piece cut from an ice-cream box lid with a couple of pieces of machined wood attached (araldite, with a reinforcing screw for the stressed part), together with a thin metal stopper which (not having much metal in stock) I cut from the casing of an old aluminium door handle. Both items were spray-painted - you'll be able to tell that the homemade one is on the left.

And it works.