Wooden Wallet

About a month ago Stuart over at ToolGuyd posted the Slim Timber Wood Wallet. Since the wallet sold for $45 and it looked like a simple thing to create, he wondered what the best way of making a DIY version would be. I thought about it for a while and decided to make a proof of concept for myself, not out of a single hunk of wood, but  three small pieces of Padauk sandwiched between two 1/8″ pieces of Baltic Birch Plywood. Since I thought the 3/4″ Slim Timber was a little thick for your back pocket, I designed my wallet to hold six credit cards. Using 1/8″ Baltic Birch plywood for the sides, that would make the entire wallet 1/2″ thick.

I won’t go into details of the build as the slideshow above pretty much tells the story of it’s construction. I’m impressed at how nicely my simple design turned out — I really like how the rounded edge of the plywood looks. Rather than looking like a raw plywood edge, it looks like I inlaid a band all the way around both sides of the wallet.

The wallet is as yet unfinished. I haven’t figured out how to hold the credit cards in the wallet so they don’t fall out. The Slim Timber uses a leather strap, but, I’m not fond of that idea. I’m thinking of using a piece of spring steel inside the wallet to hold the cards in place. I’m also envisioning some sort of magnetic money clip on the outside to hold bills, but I haven’t figured out how I want to do that yet. So the wallet is sitting on my desk until I get some more inspiration.