The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Teens build blacksmith box for benefit
Woodworking, blacksmithing involved
Two young craftsmen joined forces to assemble a box that could become someone’s new, rustic treasure chest this week.
American Made 4-H Club members Elliott Lamb, 16, of Sullivan, and Zane Dvorak, 15, of Nova, took a team approach in creating a project to take to the 2018 Lorain County Fair, Aug. 20-26, in Wellington.
Elliott used his woodworking skills to build the box and Zane fabricated the black metal brackets, hinges, handles and latch on it.
“We were both planning on doing a self-determined project so we could do something that fits our skills and stuff,” Zane said. “And our club is going to donate something to the dairy auction. And so, we were both sort of thinking, we could do that.”
“We should make a box together,” Elliott said.
Elliott and Zane earned an A outstanding grade on the project, which will go to market this week.
The box, with some other items donated from American Made 4-H Club, will go up for sale at the Junior Fair Dairy Auction scheduled at noon, Aug. 24, at Show Barn 4.
Potential buyers will bid on it and proceeds from the sale will benefit the junior
fair dairy members, the 4-Hers said.
The youths are both home-schooled and are longtime friends.
The project started as a seed that grew into an ash tree in the yard of Elliott’s grandmother.
The tree became a victim of the emerald ash borer insect, he said.
“A while ago, my grandma’s ash tree was dying so we had to cut it down,” Elliott said.
The family hoped to salvage the lumber, so they had boards cut out of the usable wood, he said.
Elliott estimated he put 10 hours into the woodwork and up to five hours making the woodburning etched into the top.
The box is about one foot tall and 20 inches by 30 inches in size.
The boards were not large enough to fashion the lid or sides, so Elliott used biscuit joints and glue to hold the wood pieces together.
The corners are fastened with drilled pocket holes and screws.
Elliott sanded down the boards and used teak oil to finish the wood.
For decoration, the lid shows a landscape with a driveway leading to a barn with a post fence and a tree.
There are decorative branches drawn outside the oval frame of the scene.
The project is not a woodworking debut for Elliott, who has built a tack box and a chair for previous 4-H projects.
Last year, Zane built his blacksmithing shop at his family’s farm as a self-directed 4-H project.
“It came out just like a bar of metal, and all of this came out of that,” he said. “I split them and then used a tool to bend them around.
“I’ll have a fire, put it in the fire and heat it up and then do all that.”
The hardware took about 20 hours to fabricate in the forge, Zane said.
The mild steel started as a rectangular bar. The hinges, known as English hinges, do not look like bars, but have decorative curl shapes that rest on the lid.
To make them, Zane cut slits in the bar and used a coal fire to heat the metal up to 3,000 degrees so he could bend it to the shape he wanted.
The hinges have a hammered metal texture to add to the antique effect.
“It’s soft like clay when it’s hot,” Zane said. “It’s really easy to work with.”
He used measurements to guide the size of the hinges, but not a pattern.
The finished hinges look similar, but are custommade, not identical.
“That’s the hard part, trying to get them to look the same,” Zane said.