New Wooden Wallet

As of the last wooden wallet post, I was waiting for inspiration on how to hold the cards and cash at the same time. Last Fall, inspiration finally did come from the weirdest place: window hardware. I had been looking for some spring steel and I found what are called window controls. Window controls are springs that fit into the jamb of sash windows and keep the windows where you put them. The “controls” are simply a piece of spring steel in the shape of a flattened M with two screw holes in the middle of the M.

To make these spring steel window controls hold my cards in place, I simply cut off one end of the spring to make a single arch. This arch then goes on the inside of the wallet to press the cards against the side. The other half of the spring with the screw holes serves as the money clip. I rounded the edges around the screw holes and folded the end to get rid of the sharp edges.

Since the internal spring takes the place of one credit card and I needed a more wood to screw the money clip into, I built a slightly bigger version of my first wooden wallet using the same construction methods as the first one. The new wallet holds 6 credit cards and a wad of cash. Since the spring is less than the height of a credit card, I am also able to store a spare key for my truck next to the spring inside the wallet.

I’ve been using the wallet since October and am generally pleased with it. The wallet isn’t without it’s faults, the money clip is loose so it doesn’t grab the bills as firmly as it should. I need to use some bigger screws and possibly epoxy them in place. Also when you take out more than the top three cards the spring tends to fall out. Of course this allows me to store the spare key behind the spring, but it can get annoying. So I store my three most used cards at the top of the stack. I forgot when I was gluing the wallet together to attach the spring inside somehow…maybe next wallet.  that it is To remove the cards from the wallet, I’ve found that if I position them so that the raised printing is facing outside (not how the card is shown in the picture), I can grab the card with my fingernail.

Finally I’ve discovered that it is much more comfortable to put this wallet in a front pocket than a rear one!