So the girls are hosting a Mary Kay table at a vendor fair here in town, and they needed a "spin-wheel" for giving away all sorts of prizes and Bingo cards. So I thought I'd see what I could cook up.
To begin with, I chose a 5'x5' (60"x60") 1/2" piece of Russian Baltic birch I had lying around my garage. Gotta love working for a hardwood distribution center! Russian Baltic is a great 9-ply sheet-good to work with. All of the layers are glued together at 90 degree angles, and the resulting sheet is super sturdy without a ton of weight. The half inch thickness insured that I could make the spin-wheel solid and sturdy, but without having to have an army around to help move the thing.
The first step to build this thing was to get accurate measurements and cut them as straight as possible. Whenever you are building circular objects, you MUST measure correctly, or your wheel could be unbalanced (heavier on one side or the other), resulting in an unusable piece. No sense in that! The board I am using above is a straight lined 13/16" piece of Alder. Straight line lumber is an excellent improvised guard rail for working with over-size sheets such as this.
After measuring and cutting my lines to 2'x2' (24"x24"), I had a great quarter section for drawing out the wheel.
They make tools for accurately drawing circular templates, by a little ingenuity can go a long way if you know what you're doing! :) I drew my line a little shy (1/4") of the edges to allow for sanding and mis-cuts. Hey, no one's perfect.
Once the template was drawn, it was as easy as making the dive cut then following the outline.
Someone should tell this guy to get back to work! LOL
After I cut out the wheel, I sanded it with a random orbital using #80 grit paper. This would give me a smoother surface than just the raw wood, but still "open" (porous) enough to work on. I drilled a 1/4" hole dead center (very important!) to allow for the dowel that would act as the axle.
Once the wheel was cut, sanded, and drilled, I moved on to the next piece I had set aside for the base. I made sure is would be a square cut, so that I could rip both pieces at once, saving me time and keeping cuts as accurate as possible!
One issue with using Russian Baltic birch is the grain tends to chip. This can cause issues if you are needing very clean faces, but a simple solution for one-face projects is to simply keep all your cuts to one side, then box them in during assembly. Time for more sanding!
Unfortunately, the girls were in a hurry at this point, and I needed to get their wheel finished. This is the rough assembled piece before finishing it all out.
Another side view. The ply was 1/2" thick, so I added an additional 1/8" rip to the base to allow the wheel to spin freely. The perpendicular legs (pictured) were simple 1" thick rips that I carved out to fit notched into the base. Worked like a charm!
After all was said and done, it took a total of 2 1/2 hours to complete this wheel project. The girls decorated it up super Mary Kay style, and should be using it as I type!
Lots of fun, just need to make a million more and we'll be rich! Ha ha!
Thanks for reading guys. As always, leave me some feedback below, would love to hear from you.
Until next post,
Yours Truly,
Levi
No comments:
Post a Comment