Mystery Project - Some Progress to Report!

I showed you this Mystery Project the other day, and said I was looking forward to sharing my progress with you: 

The first stage of my project involved a little bit of woodwork with my MDF box and key hanger.

(My initial plan had been to make the box part, but when I was looking for materials I came across a ready-made box that would be an ideal starting point. As I don’t have a proper work bench or anything at the moment, ready-made did seem like the most sensible option.)

For the woodwork I needed some equipment, so I had also bought a hand saw for $5, and 2 little hinges for about $6.

Cup of tea is also essential equipment!

The name of the hinges made me chuckle :)

At home, I already had the pencil, screwdrivers, the retractable knife, and the little tape measure. These were all things that we had to buy early on for unpacking and putting furniture back together etc. (after discovering that my toolbox hadn’t made it to its new home :(  ) 

This project does not require a free-standing box with a lift-up lid, so the first thing I needed to do was remove this part. It was simply put together, just a couple of screws on each of the 2 hinges and the catch, and they were gone. (I will need to re-use the hinges later, along with the 2 that I bought.)

Rather than this single lift-up lid, I need 2 meet-in-the-middle doors (hence the requirement for 4 hinges in total), so the next thing I needed to do was cut the lid in half. I measured carefully - "measure twice, cut once!"

And used a good straight edge to draw my line to follow – the back of the saw (with the tooth guard on!!) makes a good straight edge.  

I like to use the knife to score the edge where I will start sawing, and along the line as well. This helps the saw to bite without slipping, and stops the top surface from fraying as I saw through it.

I braced the saw with my other hand when I actually scored the surface, but I couldn't take a photo like that! I also had the saw's tooth guard on, but then just as I was about to start sawing I realised that I hadn't taken the photos, so I quickly set up this picture. Don't copy this photo for best / safe practice!!

Then I put my new saw to work, carefully following my line. I'm not too bad at sawing a straight line, so now I have my 2 equal pieces, with nice neat edges, for my 2 doors :)

The key hanger is for a decorative piece – I just picked it because it was almost the same length as the long side of the box. To make it the right size and shape, I again measured and marked to cut it in half lengthways and trim off the excess at each end.

So now I have a box, 2 doors, and a decorative top piece.

Together they look like this:

Getting nearer to being recognisable!