We've been making stars again...

Last year we made some wooden stars with led lights in them, and as we try to make some kind of decoration for Christmas we decided to make some more stars using the same method.

Here are the ones we made last year -

They survived the loft I'm pleased to report.

Here's a link to the blog post I wrote about those - Wooden star decorations. (opens in new window)

We used the same method to make this years star decorations, only this time we've made a load of smaller stars so that we could make some garland type decorations, and my daughter also wanted to make a star to hang in her room, so a lot of the pictures in this post are of my daughter making her star, she made a few to decorate in different ways.

This really is a simple make, and even with out power tools it's really easy to do, my daughter is quite young and apart from me cutting the parts out with my bandsaw all of the other work was done by her, at least on the larger stars anyway, I made the fourteen smaller stars for the garlands.

So using a template we made last year she marked out the five parts of the star - 

Templates make life easier.

All the stars we made are made from pallet wood, so basically these were free to make.

I cut out the segments roughly with my bandsaw, and my daughter then sanded each segment to the lines she'd made.

Sanding using a bench sander - 

Handy things to have.

I made sure she wore a dust mask whilst sanding the stars, I also wore one and she also wore a set of goggles to stop dust going in her eyes.

Almost done, nearly ready to glue it all together - 

Good fit on each segment.

Sanding off the feathering - 

Nearly ready for some glue.

Time to glue it all together - 

I highly recommend gorilla wood glue.

Left alone for the glue to dry - 

Looks good.

Once the glue was dry it was on to sanding the stars off so they could be decorated.

She used the smallest sander I have, the larger ones are bit heavy she said, and quite noisy, but this little one works well.

Sanding - 

Ready for some decoration.

She decided that she'd stain one of the stars with a purple wood stain, this one now hangs above her bed, and the other ones will be decorated in something festive (probably involving glitter....shudders) the wood stain is water based and was mixed especially for the star and for another Christmas decoration project.

Applying the stain - 

It looks black, but it really is purple honest.

Stain drying, it did dry a lot lighter than in the picture - 

Phone camera didn't really do the colour justice.

And here are the other three large stars we made, ready for something glittery (shudders) -

Nice wood considering it used to be a pallet.

We (mainly me for this one) made a load of smaller stars to hang from the ceiling, they were made in the same way, just on a smaller scale and to hang them we drilled a small hole through one of the points and then threaded a bit of natural string through, this allows the stars to hang from another long length of string which we pinned to the ceiling.

Like so - 

Easy peasy.

We made two garlands, each with seven stars, and in total each garland is about nine feet long, that allows for a gap of about a foot between each star with about a foot extra each end.

Here's one hanging from the ceiling - 

It was difficult to get a good angle, but you get the idea.

And that was it, not much too it, yes it was a little repetitive cutting out each star segment and then sanding and gluing, but it's worth it in the end as they look good, well we like them, and like the larger stars these were also made from pallet wood so cheap as chips.

My wife has also made garlands before and this year she's put a simple how to on her blog on how to make some excellent pine cone garlands, you can read her how to here - Pine cone garland. (opens in new window)

Thanks for reading.

Kids stocking fillers part 2 - Skittles.

I figured I'd better get this post done before the start of allotment season, so on to the second thing I made for the kids Christmas stockings (yes I know it's a bit late)

The finished article (again I made two of them) - 

All done.

I made the skittle sets in much the same way as the noughts and crosses boards, I used squared paper to work out where everything was going to go.

Marking out complete - 

I tried a few layouts before this one.

As with the noughts and crosses boards I laid the paper over the wood and marked the points with a scribe, once that was done it was onto cutting and drilling out holes, I used a forstner bit just slightly bigger than the dowel I planned to use for pins.

Holes drilled - 

Spot the mistake.

I ended up having to make another board because I drilled the holes too deep, so deep in fact that I couldn't knock the pins over with the ball, so remember not to drill the holes too deep if you make one, although it does add an extra level of difficulty to the game.

You can use any layout you like, and you can also add more pins or use less pins, I wasn't going for a traditional layout, just one that worked.

I had to add an extra piece of wood for the post the ball swings from, it didn't sit well in the hole I drilled, with the extra bit of wood it was more stable.

Extra support for the post - 

I used wood glue to fix it down.

The post that the ball swings on it just a piece of dowel, again you could use any size you see fit, I then drilled a hole through the dowel and fixed a thinner bit into the hole.

Posts done - 

Simple enough.

I used dowel for the pins as well, I just cut them with a 45 degree angle at the top, I had thought about turning a load of pins, but didn't really have the time, and besides this way is easier and doesn't require a lathe, I used a stencil to mark the numbers and then burned them into the wood so they don't rub off.

Pins - 

Obviously I made nine for each board.

I used a small eye screwed into the smaller piece of dowel for the string and ball to swing from, these can be bought for about 50 pence a pack, they're normally used with curtain wire, but they do well for things like this.

Eye eye - 

It works well.

For the balls I roughly turned a bit of scrap wood into sort of a ball shape, but you could just drill a hole through a bit of dowel, or use a bit of clay on some string.

Wrecking balls ? -

You could also use a drill press to make some balls.

And that's about it, I gave everything a good sand and then a generous coating of Danish oil, but you could just as easily paint them in what ever colours you like, I made the two sets from scrap wood I had laying about, but you should be able to buy everything to make at least two sets for under £5.

These like the noughts and crosses are an easy make, easy enough for kids to do as a project, and they are cheap as well as fun to play with, I do have plans to make a giant set for the kids to use in the garden in summer.

Skittles again - 

Fun for kids and adults.

Thanks for reading.

Stick Christmas tree ...

This isn't a new idea, I've seen a few different takes on Christmas trees made from sticks, but as it's so easy to do and it's also very cheap I thought I'd get in on the act, well why not ?

Here's my effort -

I'm thinking rustic.

As the title says, it's basically a Christmas tree made of sticks, in this case Buddleja, I've used eleven pieces in all, I usually keep any sticks I prune to make things out of, like frames and other things.

To make this one I used an off cut from my wood turning exploits, a piece of 6mm dowel (left over from another project) a bit of hot glue, and a small piece of copper wire and I made a star for it from some pewter sheet we got from freecycle ages ago, so the cost to make this is about 50 pence, that's taking into consideration the dowel and a couple of blobs of hot glue, everything else was free.


The base - 

It was a bit bigger than  I wanted, so I cut some off.

Next I drilled a hole into the centre, this is to hold the dowel, which I secured with a bit of hot glue.


The base with dowel fixed -

I used a 7mm drill bit for the hole.

The next step is to cut the lengths of stick that will make up the body of the tree, and this is as simple as it sounds, as I had a rough idea of what I wanted the tree to look like, I cut the stick out in pairs of equal length so that I could form the cross shapes, I started at 6 inches and decreased the length by 1 inch at a time.

Stick cut and the centres of each bit marked out for drilling -

It sort of looks like a Christmas tree already.

Next I drilled out a 7mm hole in the middle of each stick so that I could slide them onto the dowel, with the last bit of stick I only drilled into it half way, this is because it acts like a cap to stop the other bits being pulled off the tree, it also gave me some where to fix the star.

Sticks arranged on the dowel - 

Sort of tree like.

Once I had the sticks arranged in the right order I then marked the dowel so that I could cut of what I didn't need, I found it easier to do this way as I wasn't quite sure how tall it was going to end up.

Dowel marked ready for cutting - 

I marked it just above the last bit of stick.

And here it is with the last bit of stick in place - 

Now all it needs is a star.

I was going to leave it bare, but decided a small star for the top was needed, if I had left it bare the kids would have told me it was wrong and needed a star.

The star is just 2 bits of pewter sheet stuck onto a small bit of copper wire, the pewter we got from freecycle ages ago, and copper wire can be found in most electrical items, we get a lot of ours from dead electrical stuff, especially from transformers, which most things have, radios, pc power supplies etc.

Because the pewter is quite thin I was able to use one of those paper stamps, the ones that cut shapes out of paper to cut out the star, and then I just used a little glue to hold the two star shapes together with the wire in between them, to fix the star to the tree I just drilled a small hole in the top of the tree and pushed the wire into it.

The star - 

It does make the tree look better.

Not everyone will have a bit of pewter sheet lying about, so cardboard painted silver would be just as good, or a small bit of wood cut into a star shape, you could even use an old tin can to cut out the star shape, if I'm honest I didn't want to mess about with paints and such like, so I just went for the pewter as I knew it would be quicker, which is a bit lazy I know.

And here's the finished tree with it's new family - 

The newest member of my wife's tree collection.

I did fix each section of the tree into place with a bit of hot glue, but my wife said it might have been better to leave them, that way the kids could move it about and mess about organising the sticks into different patterns and such like, you could even make a game of it, it's actually a good and easy project for kids to try themselves, so why not have a go ?

Thanks for reading.

Kinetic ghosts ... ...

Another Halloween themed toy, this one however incorporates a bit of physics, it's basically a Halloween take on the old woodpecker toy, the one that slides down a pole when you move it.


Here's a picture of the ones I made -

Look familiar ?

These toys have been around for many years, and more traditionally they were wood peckers, but seeing as it's coming up to Halloween I thought I'd see if ghosts would work seeing as the principle is the same.

All you need to make these are some bits of wood and a spring, one from a pen would do, but you can buy packs of springs from hardware and diy shops, and it's always handy to have a variety of springs lying about.

Ingredients - 

Few bits of wood and a spring.

Basically you need a piece of wood for the base, a small piece of wood for the ghost, or you could make some other shape (a pac man shape for example) a piece of thin dowel for the pole (I use 6mm dowel) and another piece of dowel to make the collar (I used 15mm dowel)
Dowel in a variety of lengths can be picked up for around 99p for a short length from most diy shops, and lastly a spring, like the ones you get in pens, but again springs can be bought in packs.

Okay, in the piece of wood you use as a base you want to find the centre, if you have a square / rectangle piece of wood draw lines from each corner diagonally and this will give you the centre of the wood, then measure up from this point about 2 or 3cm and drill a hole just big enough for the dowel, so if you use 6mm dowel use a 6mm drill bit, you may need to sand the end of the dowel a little to get it in the hole, and use a spot of wood glue (pva) to make sure it doesn't come out.

Finding the centre -

Ignore the other marks, it was scrap bit of wood.

You can just make out where I made the mark for the dowel, just above the centre mark.

Hole drilled and wood sanded to get rid of the pencil marks - 

Next the dowel and a drop of glue.

Okay so once you've drilled the hole go ahead and stick the dowel into it, the length of the dowel can be what ever you want, I made mine 22cm in length, this allows for the bit that is stuck into the base.

So you should have something that looks like this - 

That was easy, what's next ?

Now the next part is making the collar, this will be the part that the spring attaches to, I used a bit of dowel and I drilled a small hole in the side first for the spring to fit in, then I drilled a 6mm hole in it for where it will sit on the pole.

It's best to use something to hold the wood still while drilling, and if you can get hold of one use a post drill, or a vice of some sort to hold the wood while you drill it, one it's safer and two your holes will be more accurate.

Holes drilled, one at a right angle to the other - 

Reading for fine tuning.

Before you glue the spring into the hole you made for it you'll want to check to see how the collar fits on the upright piece of dowel, I used a 6mm drill bit which meant I had to sand the inside of the collar a little to get it onto the dowel, stop sanding once the collar will go onto the dowel easily and will slide all the way down if you let it go, if it's too loose it will just fall straight down when you try to use it with the spring and ghost attached, if it's too tight it won't move at all.

This is the collar, you can see where the holes need to go - 

Bit blurry but you get the idea.

Next the ghost, this was the easiest part, I took a roughly cut small block of wood and using a couple of triangular needle files I made grooves in one end of it.

Like so - 

Needles files are cheap and handy for wood working.

Then the next thing to do is drill a hole in one side of the ghost shape, again use the same sized drill bit as you used for the hole in the collar where the spring will go, I used a 5mm drill bit as my spring was roughly 5mm.

Ghost finished, just needs a paint job - 

Kind of pac-man esque.

You can see the hole where the spring will go, the next step is to fix the spring to the collar and the ghost shape, I'd recommend a glue gun, or some kind of quick drying glue, and when you do glue it make sure to keep everything as in line as possible.

Assembly complete - 

Ready for some decoration.

As I'm going for a Halloween theme I painted them white, and gave one googly eyes, and the other I just coloured in with a black marker pen, I've used the same water based white enamel paint on these as I used on the jumping jacks.

All done, I could have painted the base and pole, but decided not to - 

Very spooky, well maybe not.

I've included a short video of them in action at the end of this post, but first a little bit on how these work, see it's all to do with friction and gravity and the momentum of the spring.

The spring and the weight (in this case a ghost) cause the collar to sit at an angle on the pole, this causes friction and stops it from falling, which is why you don't want to make the hole in the collar too big, if you did it would just drop, due to very low friction.

So how does it move down the pole ? well when you set it off, by making the ghost go up and down on the spring this causes the collar to move as well, and there's a point where the collar is in line with the pole, then gravity makes it fall a short way. 

So the collar rocks back and fourth in such a way that it will align with the pole and gravity makes it fall, the weight (ghost) causes the spring to rock one way and then the other, and in turn this causes the collar to rock one way and then the other and the inertia of the weight (ghost) keeps the spring moving.

In theory if you could some how keep the pole on a loop this would run forever once you started it off, it's because it has a base that it stops, if you made the pole say 100 metres high this would in theory run until it hit the bottom.

Here's a very rough gif animation of what's going on - 

The red stars show where friction occurs.

You can see in the animation where the collar lines up with the pole, and gravity then makes it fall a short way, you can always search online for 'Kinetic woodpecker toy' which will yield much better descriptions of how this works than mine.

And if you feel like making something similar to this (it works on the same principles) then have a look here - Oscillating Woodpecker (opens in new window)

And here's the video of these working -

 

Thanks for reading.

Box project ... ...

When ever I do anything wood work related our kids are always quite eager to lend a hand, doesn't matter what it is they like to help, as was the case with our recent foray into siege engine building.

So I decided to get the kids to make a box, and instead of them helping me I helped them, although I did kind of set the size of the box and methods used to build it, but this was mainly down to what wood I had available at the time, and because I wanted to show them a variety of techniques.


Here are the finished boxes -

Simply made, and functional.

Both boxes are made in the same way, but the kids decided they wanted slightly different colours, they are both made from lengths of tile batten fixed together with screws and wooden dowels, with a plywood base.

Admittedly I did make the grooves for the base myself with a router, but apart from that they did everything else, with a bit of help from dad, they even got to use my post drill and the sanding attachment for my lathe, which seemed to please them no end.

On to how we made the boxes, the first thing was to cut out two rectangle bits of plywood to make the bases (I used 5mm ply) if you decide to have a go at this then the sizes are up to you, but the kids boxes are roughly 6 inches (15 cm) by 7 inches (18 cm) to make the sides and the lid of the boxes I used tile batten.

To make the grooves that the base slides into I used a router with a bit the same size as the plywood (so 5mm in this case) this gives the base a nice tight fit, and with a bit of glue it makes it quit sturdy.

Making the grooves - 

Four grooves for the ends of each box (two each)

Close up - 

Groovy.

You can see that I haven't gone all the way to the lines I've marked, if I had you would be able to see the grooves on the outside of the box, and we don't want that.

Now onto the sides of the box - 

Straight (ish)

Because these parts make up the sides of each box you don't have to worry about them being seen as the end parts will cover the grooves when it's put together.

Here's how it fits together - 

The ends cover the grooves in each side.

Not a bad fit - 

Just needs screwing and gluing.

Onto the fixing, we used screws and glue on the first section of the box, and using the post drill the kids drilled the holes and counter sinks so that we could cover them with wooden pegs.

Fixing the sides together - 

Clamps would have made things easier.

Once all the screws were in we then filled the holes with wooden pegs to hide where the screws are, as the next picture shows we just glued a bit of dowel in each hole, we weren't to careful when we cut the dowel because the whole thing was going to be sanded anyway, and any bits that weren't flush are easily sanded to smooth them off.

Yep, clamps are definitely better.

Once that was done we had something that looked like a box, all be it a very shallow one, so to increase the depth we used dowel joints to add more lengths of wood to each side, we could have just glued the wood together, but adding a few dowels adds strength, and it teaches the kids how to join two bits of wood together, or at least one of a few ways in which you can join wood, I actually used this method to make our fire surround, which I made from floor boards and a couple of bits of 3x2 timber.

Making dowel joints is easy, it's just a case of making matching holes in the bits of wood you want to join, then using pegs to hold it together.

You can buy kits in most diy type shops that help with this, they come in various sizes, and they cost around £5, I have several in different sizes, and I've used them to make fire surrounds, gates and to join wood together to make sheets for various building projects.

Here's one of my dowel jointing kits - 

Simple to use and works.

The kits consists of a drill bit, a drill stop (the bit on the drill) and collars, these help to get the holes in the right place, the drill stop allows you set the depth you drill to, if you have a post drill you can set the depth on the drill itself, a post drill also comes in handy for keeping everything level and straight, but you can do it by hand, there are numerous systems that are easy to use as well, a quick search for dowel jointing will yield lots of possibilities, but to be honest I prefer doing things this way, sometimes the simplest way is the best.

Okay so next we set about joining bits of wood together with dowels, this is just a case of drilling two holes in each piece of wood (for longer lengths use more holes) I used an 8mm drill bit, and 8mm dowel for the pegs.

First lot of holes drilled - 

A few bits of dowel already prepared.

Next we use the collars, these go in each hole you drill - 

The points mark where you need to drill in the other bit of wood.

Once the collars are in the holes you just need to line up the other piece of wood and push down on it, so that the collar points mark the wood, then you can go ahead and drill the next lot of holes.

And as long as you're careful everything should line up - 

Looks about right to me.

To fix it together spread some glue along the wood and in the holes the dowels go into and tap it together with a mallet, you can then add some clamps to make sure it stays together until the glue dries.

It's best to use a wooden mallet, if you don't have one then use a scrap bit of wood, place the scrap piece on the wood and then tap it with a hammer, this way you won't damage the wood, just the scrap bit.

Fixing the sides together, couple of good taps with a mallet should do it - 

I know the shed is a mess.

After we'd added the sides we then fixed them at each end with screws like we did with the first section of the box, and again we used dowels to fill the screw holes.

To make the lid we measured and cut enough lengths of wood to cover the box, as it turns out this meant each lid needed four lengths of wood, we fixed these together by cutting another two bits of wood and laying them over the four strips and again we fixed them all down with screws and glue, the cross pieces also serves as a way of keeping the lid on the box.

The lid - 

Can't get much easier.

Box and lid done, just needs sanding and painting - 

Bit rough round the edges, sanding will take care of that though.

All sanded, ready for staining or painting - 

One rustic looking box.

After much deliberation the kids decided to use the vinegar and steel wool wood stain we made for staining the bathroom furniture I made recently, it's easy and safe for kids to use, best do the staining away from any other wood as it will stain that as well.

 Just apply the stain with a brush - 

A spot of staining on a sunny day.

You can also paint the boxes, or just leave them plain, although a coat of wax might be an idea to protect the wood.

Here's what the boxes looked like with one stained and one plain - 

They look good either way.

My daughter decided to stain hers and then use a clear wax on it, so hers is a little lighter than my sons, he decided to use some of my restoration wax on his box, the wax has given it an old look, and because we didn't go too mad with sanding both boxes actually look old, like they've been around a bit.

Applying some wax, again best to cover any surfaces - 

Don't worry the wax is safe for kids to use, gloves might be an idea though.

And there you have it, two hand made wooden storage boxes, the kids are very pleased with them, all in all I think they enjoyed making something for themselves, they are eager to make other things, which is good I was hoping they would enjoy the whole experience, and if nothing else it's a good way to build practical skills, which I still think are important, even in today's technology driven world.

The boxes again - 

Antiques of the future ? well maybe not.

Thanks for reading.