Today I finally got to a project that I had been ignoring for too long, a gas box for the House. You see up here we tend to keep a jerry can or eight kicking around for the snowmobiles and ATV's, with sufficient jerry cans that if we do want to go for a trip out on the land they are there. I've probably bought twenty-five jerry cans since I've been up here. They have a habit of being borrowed and never returning. Locking them up won't prevent that from happening, but it is a good idea anyway. It is safer, discourages theft, and although it isn't a big problem up here solvent abuse does occur and this just makes it a little harder.
Considerations were that it would have to be lockable, able to hold at least six jerry cans, solid, weatherproof, and fit in with the house. Oh, and cheap. Thinking ahead, I kept one of the crates that held construction materials for this very purpose.
But apparently I didn't think
too far ahead. One thing I learned very early on in my construction instruction was that square, straight, plumb and true are good things. This crate is none of the above. Starting the project I quickly found that the bottom of the crate is a full inch wider than the top, and this crate is only about a metre tall. I sat there an pondered how I was going to fix this dreadful unsquaredness and eventually I came to the conclusion "
this is a box for holding jerry cans for crumbs sakes, live with it!" Living with it meant that making things like doors would be a little more difficult, but nothing was impossible.
Living with my construction sensei's dictum "Always
think plan ahead" the first thing I did was add extra 2X4's in the corners to have something to nail the siding to at the end of the project. Yes, siding. Remember it must look like it belongs with the house, besides I've got a good pile of siding left over. Hmm, another discovery, none of the four corners are the same height. Not major differences, but my god what did they thing they were making... a crate? Oh, yeah.
At this point I began making the doors from a scrap piece of 1/2" plywood and some scrap 2X4's. Because of the odd shape of the crate I took one piece of plywood, cut it to the height I wanted, put it in place, scribed the sides direct from the crate and then cut it in half. Leaving me with something like this....
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