18th Birthday Plaque

[Micktoon]

I have done another small wood project that might be of interest to some people. A friend asked could I make a wood plaque with £1 pound coins inlayed similar to one that had been given to his sister on her 21st birthday years ago, this sisters son was now eighteen years old and they wanted a similar plaque to give him as a momento.

I did not take any photos of the wood before I started but it was something that had been lying around for years and years, so looked old , dirty and stained....... like something for the fire really ! but once squared off , sanded up and the edges gone around with a router its looking nice , the wood is teak.



I had to by trail and error find a way of arranging the £1 coins to make the number 18, as it happened the best design for the size of wood ended up having 18 coins.



I only had one piece of good wood and it was only just big enough too so decided it would be best to drill out a template with the final spacing of the design, the ply template would then be stuck to the top of the plauqe and drilled through and will stop any wood tearing on the top surface of the plauqe.



This shot shows the rear of the template with double sided sticky tape on areas that the drilling will miss.



This shows the set up for drilling out the holes for the coins to sit in, I was lucky and the spade bit was just the right size for the coins to be a tight press fit.



All the holes drilled well and no rough edges because the top surface was in effect some of the way down the hole because of the sacrificial ply wood being on top.



I then sanded the wood and sprayed two coats of laquer , the type used for car body repairs, when this dried , it was again sanded with very fine 800 grit wet and dry paper making the surface smooth but only semi gloss. The plaque was now ready for the coins to be installed.



The coins were a really tight fit and would not push in by hand , I put a piece of wood dowel into chuck on the drill press and used the downward motion of the drill press without it rotating to press the coins home into the holes, just in case any ever came loose and fell out I also put a dab of hot melt glue into each hole.



This is the finished plaque before it had a coat of wax applied and buffed off to get a nice shine, the only thing I was not too happy with was the coins are slightly below the surface and would have looked better exactly flush as i had intended. This happened partly due to the face I did not have a spare bit of the wood to practice on and knew if the coins stuck proud it would not look good so I had to allow a slight bit extra depth in case the coins would not push right home in the hole. Overall it looked fine really. The wax did fill in the edge better than it looks in this photo before the wax.







I think it would turn out a bit better next time from what I have learnt doing this one and also I had to have it done by the next day so would have liked to have taken a little more time on it. One thing is for sure it was a lot nicer than the original one they had so they were delighted, they had a small brass plate engraved and stuck below the 18 with the persons name and date.
Cheers Mick.

[stevec]

Lovely job Mick!
It's too late now but you could have put some carboard circles into the holes before the coins.

I don't know why, but I can't get the thought of a thirsty 19 year old prying the coins out and heading off to the pub outa my head.

[krv3000]

well dun

[DaveH]

Mick,
You made it look very nice
Makes a very nice and unusual present, plus it is a handmade one off.

DaveH

[doubleboost]

Cracking job Mick
The corners of the wood are spot on
It would make a great engine base
John

[sasquatch]

Very nice Mick!!