Wood US idea

Make a mystical fortune telling box

Im getting off to a slow start this new year. The first weekend was a bust in the shop because it was so cold. I began this project the second weekend, but ran into problems that had to be worked out.

I spent a lot of time New Years Eve weekend watching the Twilight Zone marathon on T.V. which gave me the idea to make a fortune-telling box. You remember: the episode where William Shatner and his new bride get caught up feeding pennies into a fortune telling machine in a diner. Its answers to questions were accurate enough in Shatners mind to begin to run his life.

This started out at a simple idea: create a pressure plate and a couple rollers and cards would spit out. It turned out for more difficult. Thats not to say that the concept of this box is complicated. I suspect there are many of you who can devise a much better system, but in the end it actually works.

I like projects like this because they remind me that woodworking is a never-ending learning process. Come up with an idea and figure out how to pull it off. Along the way you will encounter problems, but if you just think them through, you will find solutions.