Tiny Wooden USB Drive

I have been wanting to make a wooden USB drive ever since seeing this great Instructable on it. Recently the plastic housing on one of my USB drives got bent, rendering it hard to use. So I tore it apart and got to work. The thing that appealed to me about this one was that the critical component didn't have the metal sleeve around it so it started out super tiny. I could have made this even smaller than it is, but kept some length for a keyring hole.

You don't need many tools to do this, so have fun!

EDIT: And there's now another wooden USB drive Instructable out there so check that one out too!

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Step 1: What You Need

You don't need much! You'll need a USB drive, obviously; for this Instructable you can see the size of the drive I'm using, sans metal housing. But the steps will be the same no matter how big or small the drive component itself.

You'll also need:

a saw (the smaller and finer, the better)
a chisel (if it's not sharp, check out my Instructable on sharpening!)
sandpaper
drill (optional) - for the keyring hole

Umm...I think that's it! Let's get started.

gomibakou says: Jul 31, 2011. 2:09 PM

Really nice, although I'd add some cover for the connector to avoid problems in the pads.

offseid (author) says: Jul 31, 2011. 5:34 PM

Thank you, yes that's the main critique I expected to hear (especially because this USB drive has no metal sleeve), and a good one. I do hope to make a cap in exactly the same way as I did for this Instructable, with a slightly snug fit. I'm not sure that will stay on well enough, though. I'll update this Instructable if I'm able to pull if off.

gomibakou says: Aug 1, 2011. 5:23 AM

if you can place some kind of thin hard rubber inside in one of the sides it should be enough to stay the cap in place. I think some straps of bike tires could work.

I think a cap is important because your device isn't protected against dust, rust, electrostatic discharge (i lost one due to one of these even with the metallic shield).

Anyway you gave me some idea to do with a partially broken pendrive i have :)

offseid (author) says: Aug 1, 2011. 10:54 PM

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that! Yeah and since the other side from the "business end" is wood, that should make decent contact/friction with the rubber.

Let me know if you do it yourself, and post a pic (or Instructable) if you do!