A 2-hour heirloom
One of the good things about being a woodworker is that you can whip out great gifts with very little work. The trick is to pick the gifts–you want stuff that requires very few operations on the machines, but looks cool and either is very expensive or can’t be bought. This afternoon my neighbor gave me a great suggestion right up this alley.
Blocks!
That’s right, kids building blocks. How simple is this:
1) Glue up some 4/4 scrap so it’s two inches thick (gotta be smaller than mouth-sized)
2) Cut into blocks
3) Stack all the blocks together, clamp them so they don’t fly all over the place, and sand one face. Rotate and repeat six times.
4) Run each corner of each block over some 100 grit sandpaper (by hand) to get rid of the sharp corner
5) Put on a coat of shellac
6) Run each face over some 320 grit paper, lightly
7) Put on another coat of shellac
And done! You can use *pure* tung oil, walnut oil, mineral oil, or any other nontoxic natural finish instead, or just leave them unfinished. I whipped these suckers out while I was waiting for a glueup to dry–I did a lousy job of shellacking them, but baby won’t care, right?
Try making a set for your next baby shower. You’ll thank me for it.
(I made six blocks of maple, cut from a scrap from an 8/4 slab, and six blocks of walnut, from some 4/4 scraps face-glued)
(For those wondering, the maple buying trip yesterday was awesome. Let me know if you need a lumber hookup in the Seattle area.)
(You might want to subscribe or follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss new articles)
