My wife is one of the organizers of the event listed below and she just gave me the info about it.
I know the timing is real short, but if anyone wants to help that’d be great.
One of the things they’re looking for are pinewood car bodies for kits they plan to package.
Another would be pens, small boxes, or whatever else you make and would be interested in donating.

thanks,
Gary

Here’s the info:
Marion County’s Newest Farmers’ Market is planning an Event for October 24, 2009.

The Event is a fundraiser for Interfaith Emergency Services.

One component of the fundraising is called Kids Play for Charity. This component will feature carnival type games that were typical during the 1940s & 1950s. Local youth are creating the games with the help of adult volunteers.

Naturally, we need carnival type prizes to give away to the kids playing the games. Since this is a Farmers’ Market Event that encourages buying local, and raising up farmers and artisans, we are searching for prizes that are made in the USA. This has been a difficult task since most such small prizes come from China.

One of the adult volunteers has located wooden toy parts but the bodies for the toy cars and trains need to be cut from plywood. The idea is to give as prizes wooden car & train kits.

Need woodworkers to cut out the bodies for these kits.

Also, would welcome donations of carnival type prizes that have been made locally or from other areas of the USA.

We need 100 to 200 prizes.

This project, which is nearing completion, is a coffee table.
No big thing typically. A set of legs, a few rips on the table saw, a little glue,
some mortise and tenons and Bob’s your uncle.

Not quite this time. I didn’t want to make “another table.”

More than that, I wanted to build something where the timbers I wanted to use dictated the design.
Well, partially—there was a height constraint which needed to be filled: we require that the table be
of a height that we can comfortably rest our feet on it while watching movies or the game.

So, given I had a nice slab of Florida camphor about 5/4 thick with a natural edge and some slabs of
highly spalted quartersawn sycamore—these were growing white mold on ‘em—what could I produce?

The result is the table seen here:

The table is unfinished as it lacks a finish. Moreover, the base is complete to a point.
The shelf is joined to the legs with a stub mortise and tenon. Period. Glued M&T and nothing else.

As is, it’s stable but there’s no racking strength in this design and I’m trying to decide how I want to do
the aprons such that I eliminate the table base blowing out over time (through use) while minimizing the
apron’s impact on the visual clean lines of the table.

So, there’s the question: how would you make the apron?
My idea is to cut two aprons, one for each long side of the table, with an arched lower edge and an angled
dado on the inside of each apron for each of the table legs. The two dados in each apron would stabilize the legs and would, hopefully, be enough support to prevent racking.
And, of course, the ends of each apron would be cut at the same angle as the table top, which is opposing the angled splayed legs.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Gary

Here’s some photos of my process;
I only had enough time to do a two-ring knot, but it’s
all the same to make a four-ring knot accurately if you follow these steps.

This shows the miter sled, the length of contrasting wood for the slices, and the bloodwood blank I’m going to use.

I’ve already squared the blank so that all four sides are the same size.
I randomly pick a side and mark it 1.
Side 2 is 180-degrees to (or, opposite of) side 1.
Side 3 is one of the two remaining sides and side 4 is 180-degrees (opposite) side 3.

This photo shows I’ve marked the blank where the slices
will go and clamped a stop block in place along the fence.

Now, I clamp the blank tight to the fence and the stop block.

Here we’ve cut thru the blank. That’s NOT my hand in the photo—it’s part of the clamp.
My hands are safely distant from all spinning metal at all times while doing this.

After gluing in my slice (Goncalo alves and aluminum, in this case),
I place the blank back on the sled clamped tight to the fence and stop block again.
This time, side 2 is up and I’m going to cut thru the first slice that was glued in.

From here out, it’s just more of the same until I’m ready to cut the blank to length.
Since we’ve marked the blank 1, 2, 3, 4 and the stop block makes repeated positioning a no-brainer all we have
to do is follow the numbers and glue in the contrasting material for each cut in turn.
Then I switch to a cut off sled that’s 90-degrees to the blade and clamp the blank on the mark.

The zero-throat on the sled keeps everything in place and accurate.

Once the pieces are glued in and you’ve drilled thru the center of the blank,
it’s just a matter of turning it to the desired shape.
Here’s my upper barrel:

I hope y’all find this useful and make many beautiful pens. As I’ve learned from many here, share and enjoy.