Month: January 2016

Grim pendants

New Item, Shop Stuff

As Valentines Day approaches, I see an incredible amount of gifts with this theme on social media, traditional media and shops slowly creeping into everyday life. I should probably follow this trend an make some wooden hearts to cash in on the “season of love”. However, for some reason (many people call me obstinate/difficult/hard-headed etc.), I do not follow the normal trends. For those of you who have barely recovered from the Christmas season with jolly red, white and green still fresh in your memory, just to be overwhelmed by new year’s celebratory items, then back to school onslaughts and not really feeling ready for another yearly event that is blown a bit out of proportion, I bring you these grim necklaces (available here):

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A grim necklace!

These necklaces are not exactly suited as Valentines day gifts (much more suited for Halloween – but I have other items in mind for then). The arms are made from Alder-wood and encased in metal manacles linked with an elegant chain. They are quite grim.

The evolution of this necklace.

I am not exactly sure what inspired me to make these necklaces but I originally tried to carve a hand and arm from a piece of maple. This did not work well and took a very long time to make. I decided that the scroll saw is the way to do it and made the first one using some birch plywood.

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First necklace made from plywood

This necklace was quite nice and I ran a small competition to give it away (the second competition from Induku – see the current competition here). There was a bit of intrest and I decided that I will make more.

I used a piece of alder wood and cut the outer image. I then split it in two and cut the details. This leaves me with several severed fingers and other bits. I then glue everything in place again.

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Split and fingers removed – grim in its own way

This is followed by sanding, painting and adding a coat of lacquer.

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All bits glued together again

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Sanded and ready to be painted

Currently I have two versions. The first is a hand grabbing at a chord necklace (available here) -note the hole through the hand is drilled before I split it into two pieces. The second is, of course, the manacled arms (available here).

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Single arm grasping at the chord necklace

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Manacled arm necklace

Since these are quite grim and fit with a darker image, I am planning to make more with an even more metal feel, by making the hand into the sign of the horns and can be used by rock/metal enthusiasts or people who need to ward of evil.

As with most of my scroll saw projects, I really enjoyed designing them and then seeing the final product very close to what I imagined. These are for sale now and I am planning a whole range of grim themed projects.

Robroy.

Warped clock.

DIY

The clock we bought from IKEA several years ago started to lose its face. This caused the hands to get stuck and we needed a new clock. I am currently busy making a wooden clock (including the mechanism), from plans that my wife bought me (click here for the most awesome wooden clock site anywhere), but I thought I will make something a bit less ambitious in the meantime. I thus designed and made this warped clock-face and added a normal quartz mechanism:

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Completed warped clock

The video below is a speed up version of the whole DIY process described below (high speed cutting start at 0.25):

I wanted to make something that is a bit unique and have recently seen several wooden objects with a “digital flaw” designed into the object. The process thus starts with the design and I drew a reasonably normal face and digitally warped it and printed the image.

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Selection of the wood – 4 mm and 6 mm Baltic Birch Plywood

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4 square pieces cut stacked and taped

Since the face is quite thin I decided to make several at once (the additional clocks can be bought here). I cut stack two 4 mm and two 6 mm pieces and tape it together (total thickness is thus 2 cm which is no problem). The time per cut is slightly slower but the overall time to make four clocks is much, much faster.

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Entry holes drilled

I use masking tape (painters tape) on the wood itself and use a glue stick to stick the pattern to the tape. I find that the masking tape is very easy to remove from the wood. It also reduce the amount of splintering (especially when crosscutting pine plywood). The stacks are also held in place with the masking tape. I cover the pattern with packing tape. Once this is set up I drill the entry holes.

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Cutting the inside first

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View from the back – I find that looking at the back the final image emerging is much clearer without the pattern interfering visually

At this stage I had all these pieces and got side tracked. I posted this on Facebook and asked people to guess what I am making. I promised a small prize and this was the beginning of the competitions that I now sometimes have (here is the current competition):

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Small pendant as prize!

I continued with the outside cuts. I did however need to re-wrap the stacked pieces together as the masking tape originally keeping the stacks together (on the outer edge) was cut away.

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Supporting tape all over the place

Once done I started to remove the template and tape. IMG_0088

Which led to four identical clock faces. As usual with all woodworking projects, a lot of sanding takes place. Each piece was sanded from 240 to 800 grit.   IMG_0090

I coated the faces with clear lacquer and the differences in color became quite apparent. Next, the fitting of the quartz mechanisms. I simply stuck them to the wood with some hot-glue and added the hands.

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Various natural colors

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Back of clock

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Side view of 6 mm clock showing the plywood layers

I am happy with how these clocks turned out. A few people had comments on what a shame it was that the wood warped in such an ugly fashion, which gave me a nice feeling of accomplishment 🙂

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Currently in our kitchen

One clock is now in our kitchen and the others I will sell (here). I will, in the future, probably design more digital error patterns and have several plans to make pixelated wooden items.

Robroy.

p.s. feel free to sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with new items and exciting competitions:

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Darth Vader book competition – Closed!

Competitions

I like to make books, I like Star Wars and I like to give away stuff. I thus combined all three these things and made a book with Darth Vader on the cover that I will give away and hopefully generate some advertisement for my shop on Etsy – Induku.

The 3 easy steps to enter and stand a chance to win this awesome of the one-of-a-kind, hand-made notebook are below this picture:

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Win this notebook!

There are 3 easy steps to enter:

  1. Like the Induku Facebook page (here).
  2. Share this post on Facebook by clicking here.
  3. Leave a comment on this blog with your answer by clicking here. The easy question is: What is the material I use in all of my projects?
    • Hint: you can see it in every item in my shop.
    • VERY IMPORTANT to leave a comment as this will allow me to enter your name into the draw.

 

Competition conditions:

  • By entering you agree to abide by these rules as well as the conditions below:
  • The competition will end on the 29th of February  2016 and the winner will be chosen on 1 March 2016.
  • Your answer will be displayed in the comment section of this post and only the first answer per contestant will be valid.
  • A random winner will be selected if more than one person have the correct answer.
  • A valid email address is required for you to be contacted (this will not be displayed or shared).

Good luck!

–  –  –

The story of this book (and more images):

This cover is one of the first things I cut with the scroll saw. For a long time I did not know what to do with this image until I decided to make books and wooden covers seemed to be an excellent idea. This cover was thus laying in my workshop for almost a year with several other items that I like but have very little use.

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darth vader open

For some reason I really enjoy binding books, especially using coptic stitching. My shop is thus slowly filling up with handmade books. Some of these I don’t want to sell (like the one in this competition) and I am therefore having this competition. I also need to generate some traffic to my online shop and this seemed a good way to do so (any shares on any social or other media would thus be very much appreciated).

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darth vader stich

I have loads of ideas of what to cut on the front cover. Most of these will be my own design or modifications of images that I like.The Darth Vader image in on this book is a bit of an exception since I was mostly testing my scroll saw at the time and wanted to cut an image rather than design one.

I will post some of my new projects on this site, including new books with some of my designs. I would, however, like to do more commission work and if anyone wants a custom, hand made, book or notebook do not hesitate to contact me with your idea.

Technical details:

Size of book 148 mm x 210 mm (5.8 x 8.3 inches) – A5 international paper dimensions.
14 signatures (140 pages)

The pages are bound with Coptic stitching displayed on the spine – this goes well with the general look of the covers.The stitching is done with bees-waxed embroidery floss. Coptic stitching allows the book to open completely and lay flat when writing/drawing/painting.

Robroy

p.s. feel free to sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with new items and exciting competitions:

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