Christmas in August?

I've been wanting to post about the gifts I made for Christmas, but I haven't gotten to it.  My other hobby of gardening and my full-time job got in the way (not to mention the demands associated with a family with 4 children and 2 dogs).  So without further ado here are the Christmas projects.   I decided to make each child a gift for Christmas.  I was literally working until late Christmas Eve (too many projects without full plans - I tend to modify the plans I do have, as well).

Dolphin Inlay Box

For my oldest daughter, the dolphin lover, I made a scroll-saw inlay box.  First off, I would like to give credit where credit is due.  Steve Good has a website, blog, and YouTube channel that I really enjoy because he has all sorts of free patterns.  Here is the link for the inlay box: http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/2008/06/scroll-saw-inlay-box.html  This link not only has the free plans but also a video step-by-step demo.  Good stuff.

My box has 3 distinct differences from Steve Good's demo:

1. First, I used maple and purple heart wood where he used walnut and maple.  There is an interesting and frustrating story that goes behind that (posted at the end for those who want to read it.  Bottom line -- DO NOT use www.wildwooddesigns.com).  I will give a shout-out to Randy Smith of Hill City Hardwoods (https://www.facebook.com/HillCityHardwoods http://www.HillCityHardwoods.com) who GAVE me -- a complete stranger -- a beautiful piece of 1" maple that I used to finish the box after my online debacle.  If you live in the Lynchburg, VA area, I highly recommend working with Randy for your hardwood needs.  He's a very down-to-earth woodworker and a fair-minded businessman.  Thanks Randy.
2. Second, I didn't like the dolphin design in his pattern (no offense, Steve.  I love your designs).  I found a dolphin coloring book page online, printed it out, traced the outline onto another piece of paper, and scanned it into the computer.  Then I re-sized it and made my own pattern.
3. Lastly, I added a purple heart ring to the box with the cutoff piece from the inlay.

Underside

I found that I'm not really good at staying exactly on the line as I cut and would have liked a little more sanding allowance in the wall thickness of the box. I found that the adhesive spray and packing tape technique is AWESOME!  I have since learned in a very recent project that masking tape under the pattern helps removal of the pattern after the cutout.  I trialed the angle of the blade for the inlay

with 1/4" plywood.  I got it close and moved to the hardwood.  It was close enough to sand flush after the glue-up. To finish the project, I used spray shellac.  I've become very fond of this product as it dries very quickly and gives the wood a very natural color.  I learned that working with purple heart is not easy.  It is very hard and it turns brown when sanded, but will regain it's purple color over time.  The shellac allows the oxidation to still happen.  Now after several months the purple heart is a beautiful rich purple and my oldest daughter keeps the box full of her "treasures".

Ballerina

My second oldest daughter loves dance and I finally decided to make a ballerina princess that dances when you squeeze the sticks (traditional toy).  I found a design that I modified to be a ballerina.  I can't seem to find the pattern I used (I think I used the original as the pattern, so I'm sorry I can't share).  You can maybe use the pictures to base it off of if you want to make one yourself.
It was pretty simple to make.  The body, arms and legs are all 1/4" Baltic birch plywood painted with acrylic and sprayed with a clear coat.  I'm not an artist and my painting skills are horrible, so the painting part of the project was very time consuming.  I found metal binder posts and nylon washers work quite nicely for the swivel pieces.
I used oak dowel for the structure of the rest of the toy.  I ran nylon cord through the cross-brace and tied it off, but I think I'm going to have to remove that and use screws.  I think it will still have enough movement to work.  A carved ballerina would have been even cooler, but time was running out and I didn't have a pattern to carve from and I don't really have the confidence as a carver to do it justice.  People are harder to draw and sculpt than animals and other objects, in my opinion.

Cork Pop-gun

My son found a cork pop-gun at his grandpa's house last summer that he thought was a lot of fun.  It was made by his great-grandfather.  It looked simple enough to build so I made one for him.  The finished product is demonstrated on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYbVLavLl50.
I used this website: http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/popgun/index.html for the mechanics of the tube and the cork.

 I free-handed the butt-stock from 3/4" cherry.  I turned the hand-grip on the lathe.  I probably should have figured how to put the groove in the wood for the PVC to set in before turning it because it wanted to roll.  I wanted it to be self loading so I attached twine from the end of the dowel to a screw eye that I screwed into the small end of the cork.  I bought the cork (size 7) from Lowe's.  After he used it a bit, and broke the cotton twine I changed to nylon line.  I also had to drill a hole through the cork and run the line through it because the screw eye didn't hold.  With the line in the cork I filled it in with glue so that it would still pop.  One of the keys to the pop-gun is the gasket.  I tried an inner tube, but it was too thin.  I had some dense foam rubber from some packaging lying around.  I sharpened the inside of a piece of PVC and cut out a perfectly sized gasket from this dense foam rubber (~3/8" thick) and screwed it to the center of the end of the dowel (the same screw is used for the string for the cork.
The dowel and the PVC were spray painted black (designed for plastics).  The wood was first wiped with boiled linseed oil (BLO) and then a few coats of Minwax Polyshade (oak).  This was a trial to try to get the cherry grain to "pop" with the BLO and maintain the lighter honey shade of the cherry before it darkens.  It came out nicely but I did have trouble keeping it from running.  It seems like a durable finish.  If I do another, I'll probably use several coats of BLO and maybe a clear shellac to allow the natural darkening of the cherry to enhance the look of the wood.  The napkin holder in my previous post has darkened up nicely, but the wood on this pop-gun is still the same honey-oak color it was when it was finished last October (yes, I actually finished one of the gifts before last minute.  Amazing!).

Unicorn Automaton

My youngest daughter just loves horses and unicorns.  Her favorite color is yellow.  I became fascinated with automata and wanted to make one.  One of my favorite YouTube channels (https://www.youtube.com/user/rlouma) showcases some very clever moving wooden toys.  One of these is a unicorn that appears to run when you turn the crank handle.  Although there are no plans included, he did provide pictures.

 I attempted several times to make plans, but ended up doing a lot of trial and error especially when connecting the control posts.  This is the project that nearly got abandoned Christmas Eve, but I pushed through and managed to have it sitting under the Christmas tree before the kids woke up to open presents.
I used a pine 2x6 for this project, since I planned to paint it from the start.  There is a bit of wood filler under the paint to hide the holes that were drilled in the wrong places while I tried to figure out how to make this thing actually work.
The paint is acrylic with a clear paint spray for durability.  The heart shape base was a last minute idea.  It works even if not as smooth as rlouma's.  You can see my daughter's unicorn move at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F3n6d6ld-8&list=UU8ZF1gGzrTMPPGpWkxANveg and rlouma's unicorn at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcH3nhik6mo&list=UU2s-rU4-ZAc2aroj4PXpL3A (careful, you might get hooked watching all his videos of his creative toys).  As you can see there are a few differences besides the color and the base.  I also changed the shape of the tail (might be part of my mechanical troubles), and the shape of the ears slightly.  It was a fun but frustrating project.

Clocks

Two of my sisters came to visit for Christmas, so Steve Good bailed me out with some great plans for small desk clocks that I was able to knock out in short order.

The wolf clock (http://www.stevedgood.com/miniwolfclock.pdf) is actually made from that yellow heart wood that came instead of the purple heart.  Isn't is pretty?
The penguin clock (http://www.stevedgood.com/animals.pdf) is cherry so it will darken over time.  Both clocks are finished with the clear spray shellac.

I made a butterfly clock (http://www.stevedgood.com/bflyexpose.pdf) for my wife from the rest of the maple that Randy Smith gave me (thanks again, Randy!), but it got broken before it got finished.  I have since glued it back together but it never got it's protective coat.  It's that dreaded sanding that got in the way. It was the one gift that didn't get finished before Christmas.  Nobody's perfect.

The Rest of the Story

Inlay box wood choice story -I decided to order wood as an add-on to an online order for small clocks (www.wildwooddesigns.com - won't use them again).  The website had the purple heart on sale at a lower price than the walnut I was going to use, so I ordered a 1/4" and 3/4" board of purple heart and a 1/4" piece of maple (yes the box was supposed to be opposite of the way it looks.  They charged me for "2-day mail" (their most inexpensive shipping option), but didn't even process the order for nearly a week.  I was not notified of any issues and nearly 2 weeks later when the wood showed up (getting very close to Christmas), instead of a piece of 3/4" of purple heart, there was a 3/4" piece of yellow heart (not the look I was going for).  Their customer service was extremely poor and unprofessional.  They claimed that I had ordered the yellow heart and were unwilling to put forth any effort to correct their error, but I persisted and they discovered that there was an error on the website where the same item number was listed for both the purple heart and the yellow heart.  They promised me that they would send the purple heart as a replacement but didn't promise me any priority shipping.  I had already decided not to do business with them again, but still wanted to get the project done.  Overnight, without contacting me about it, they discovered that there was no 3/4" purple heart in stock so they refunded the money and sent me an email to keep the yellow heart.  That didn't solve my problem.  I called the next day to complain and mention that if I had known they didn't have the purple heart I would have bought the walnut that I was originally going to buy and could I exchange it.  Well yes I could but I would have to pay shipping both ways.  I hung up the phone.  Don't buy from Wild Wood Designs or their affiliate, Cherry Tree Toys.  It's not worth the headache.  They are after your money not your business.  

So then I was left with very little time before Christmas and still didn't have the wood I wanted for the box.  I found a local hard wood seller.  He had a craigslist add, a facebook page and website.  His name is Randy Smith and his business is Hill City Hardwoods.  I called him to see if he had any small pieces of 1" maple.  He said he had some cutoffs from some of his projects that were in the burn pile and I was welcome to look.  I drove down to his home shop and he not only GAVE me the maple piece but insisted I walk out with several other small pieces of hard wood cut-offs that I'm sure I'll eventually use for small projects.  some of which I already have (like the clock previously mentioned).  He refused payment and just asked that I pass the word on to my woodworking friends that he has some nice kiln-dried wood for sale.  Here are links to his business: https://www.facebook.com/HillCityHardwoods and http://www.hillcityhardwoods.com/.  If you are local and like wood, check it out.  I have since bought some rough-cut maple and walnut from him with an upcoming project in mind.  If I had a bandsaw and a planer, I'd probably already be knee deep in that project.  Thanks Randy, for making lemonade out of my lemon experience buying wood online.