We recently received our new Amateur Radio plates, so we had two old license plates in the shop. I was thinking of hanging them on the wall, but I wanted to do something more creative with them.

Their size (6″ x 12″) is a pretty good one for boxes. At first I was going to make a little toolbox for myself, but figured it would be too small for my purposes. But — a-ha! — it would be a perfect toy toolbox for a young nephew!

Glenn loves his Matchbox cars, and I thought–perfect! I would make a little toolbox-like unit, using the license plates as sides. Here is the end result:

It is made out of 1×2 pine (the red pieces), some 1×12 pine (the blue ends), a piece of 5mm panel (for the bottom), and the two old license plates. (Yep, those are from our car.)

When I was originally sketching it out, I had the 1×2 pine butting against the end pieces. After looking at it, I determined that putting screws into the endgrain wouldn’t be good (not strong enough). So, I took some time with the jigsaw and made cutouts for the four red cross pieces. This technique worked out well, because I was going to use a hole and a dowel for the handle, but used the same cutout technique for the handle instead.

Here’s a photo of the frame, so you can get a better idea of how it is made. Pretty simple design. I just made sure that the frame was bigger than the plate (to “hide” any possible sharp edges). I also put some rubber feet on the bottom, which (might) help prevent scratching of Tiff’s floor.

After all the pieces were cut, I spray painted them in bright colors (red and blue) — which happen to match the Texas plate really well.  The assembled unit it 6″ wide, 6″ tall (to top of plate), and 13.5″ long. The handle part goes about another 6″ or so above the plate, giving it a total height of about 12 inches.

Here I am, putting the plates on the side (the last step):

So now Glenn has a little “car box” for carrying all of his matchbox cars. I hope that he enjoys it, reading off the numbers, looking at the cowboy on the license plate, and so on.