Aww shucks, I just gave her the clock I made for her Christmas gift, Christmas 2016. Can I submit a phot of her Christmas present this year, next July when it’s finished?
This is the first year I did not make one single thing for gift. Have enjoyed my time off cleaning and playing in shop. Thinking about a show in the Spring.
This will have to do. The project I am making for my wife is not done. Hey maybe that can be the topic for next months contest. Call its gifts that did not get done in time for Christmas.
A while back an elementary school music teacher from Fayetteville, with a passion to teach her students music despite the lack of funding, reached out to the NCWW community to hopefully get a replacement B sound bar for the school xylophone. I am still not sure why but I responded that I could make one - how hard could it be? Simple to make a finished piece of wood, a little tougher to get it to produce an exact B note.
The keys I was trying to match are actually fiberglass made by the same folks that make Ludwig drums. I tried many different woods and even tried to reproduce a fiberglass one. Purpleheart was the closest match and I got it to produce an exact B note - but it just did not sound right
So I made another set of sound bars out of Padauk and the sound is so much richer. I think the children will like it
So this is my Christmas gift to a bunch of kids somewhere in Fayetteville
And I am still getting Thank You notes - that is the best form of payment
And this is my favorite.
I will be delivering the xylophone back to the school in the next week or so
Here are a couple Snowmen I made for my two daughters. They never know what they want for Christmas and there's no way for me to pick clothes or much of anything they'll like. I usually get them a couple smaller items then give them cash to use as they wish to treat themselves to clothes, shoes, etc of their choice. This year I decided to freak them out a bit and make them think I just made a cheesy snowman for them. The first one figured it out pretty quickly. The second is back in Asheville already so I'll be shipping a box of presents to her. She'll have to figure it out on her own! Enjoy!
Made this box for my daughter, learned a few things on the way. Bird's eye maple, tiger wood, poplar, walnut, 1/8 ply drawer bottoms, ebony. I "copied" from a picture of one done by Steve Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mS3lU5mdfQ. Had to estimate the size and angles. Boy I hate working with angles. I resawed some tigerwood to about 3/32 and veneered them to poplar for the sides. I then glued the sides to the legs. I did it this way so I could cross cut dados for "1/8" shelves for the drawers to ride on and provide kickers. Although I had cut test pieces to get the angles right, when I assembled with the top and bottom (top you see was added later) none of the joints closed up. As this would be an end grain glue up I was planning to drill holes through the joint and insert dowels to strengthen as they would be hidden. Any way, I just ended up with rub joint pieces on the inside corners. Unless you take out all the drawers you'd never know. I've learned not to tell the recipient of various flaws.:wsmile: The drawers (1'4") were made with a box joint jig. It was the first time using one and once set up was a real breeze. The tiger wood around the drawers - and on back- was added on later which covered up the dado's. Don't know why the angles worked here but not the sides. Any way, I should have done a better job looking at the grain as the diagonal grain on the tiger in front, especially the bottom piece which doesn't really show in the image make it appear that the drawers are all at an angle - don't know if my daughter saw it but my inspection control officer did! Finished with Water lox.
Thanks to Klingspor for the Birds eye, Tigerwood and ebony. - oh yea, bought about a one foot length of 1 1/4" square of ebony for about $25 in the turning stock area, as they said that's all they had. On a later trip saw some in the luthier's section, guess the pieces were about 3/4 x 5 x 48" for around $70.