Paperclip Holder Project

My wife saw a plan for a paperclip holder in the March edition of “Wood” magazine and asked if I could make one for her desk at work.

“Really? A paperclip holder?” I thought.  Aren’t those just called “desk drawers” or “surplus coffee mugs” or “the little cardboard boxes that paperclips come in already”? Let’s see this plan here... 

Ahh... I see.  It’s magnetic. And absolutely gorgeous.  

Part of the project description reads “With a cleverly hidden and nearly invisible joint, friends and coworkers will wonder how you got the magnet in there.” Riiigghht... The author of the article clearly has no idea what my friends and coworkers are like.  Here’s how I picture part of that conversation going down:

Me: “Hey, friend or coworker, check this out!”
Them: “It’s beautiful.  What is it?”
Me: “It’s a paperclip holder.  Watch!” [sticks paperclips to the top of it] “Neat, huh? [winks] There’s a magnet in there.”
Them: “Sure.  But it just holds paperclips?”
Me: “Of course.  What else did you expect it to do?”
Them: “I don’t know... Something, I guess.  I mean, you have been working on this for sixteen months now.”
Me. “It was a labor of love... Aren’t you going to ask me how I got the magnet in there?”
Them: “No.”

Full sour-grapes disclosure, here: this thing is several light years out of my skill set even if I did have the $12,000 in tools this project seems to require... 

Well, time to improvise.  Usually when the wife asks if I can make something, I say “Why, yes! Yes I can!” This time I had to say “No... but I can make you something that does the job... would that be ok?”

She said yes and I got to work.  I took a piece of maybe-maple from my dwindling stock of salvaged 1940’s era tabletop and built a little offset pyramid with five ceramic magnets embedded in the top layer.  I was going to use my neodymiums but a) I am running short of those and b) the goal was to make a “desktop paperclip holder” not a “desktop hard drive eraser” or a “desktop pacemaker disrupter”.  

Four little wooden disks for feet, a diluted gel stain wash, and several coats of sealant later (old wood is enormously thirsty) and the project was done.   There it is there on the left.

Sure, it may not be as cool as my ongoing plasma rifle experiments (shhhhh... black helicopters... shhhh...) but it looks neat and gets the job done.  I hope she likes it.