How to make a wooden pendant. What can be done from wood with your own hands? Pendant made of polymer clay

Have in stock a good choice jewelry so that you can really choose them according to your mood and any wardrobe is the dream of any girl and woman. You can make one unique option with your own hands - for yourself or as a gift.

To you will be required:
- 2 wooden boards (10x10 cm, 0.32 cm thick; birch and hazel are used here);
- outlines of small images that you want to cut out in medallions;
- glue for wood;
- drill and thin drill;
- vice;
- mechanical or conventional jigsaw;
- wax coating for wood;
- sandpaper;
- round rasp;
- pointed pliers;
- strong wire - silver or any other;
- a non-standard chain, for example, made up of metal balls (such a simple, but at the same time unusual and elegant medallion will look bad on an ordinary, even wide, chain) - can be replaced, for example, with a leather cord.

1. Design an image or search online. Reduce on the computer and print the image design for the pendant. Cut it out and stick the paper on one of the two wooden planks. You can dilute the glue with a little water - it will be easier to remove the paper from the pendant later. Let the glue dry.

3. Prepare a mechanical or conventional jigsaw. Insert the blade into the drilled hole and cut out the outline of the design. Take your time and work carefully: a neat image is the key to this design.

4. Remove the entire paper with the image from the tree. With a rasp, process the edges of the sawn contours from the inside so that they become smoother.

5. Paint the second - still untouched - plank in dark color or miss it. Let the coating dry.

6. Take wood glue and glue the sawn board together with the dark one. Use a vise to squeeze the boards together. Lay a dense material like felt, felt or baize (a baize in several layers) between the vise and planks at the top and bottom so that the metal does not leave marks on the tree. Let the glue dry.

7. Saw out the outer contours of the pendant from the glued planks. Circle, rectangle, heart, star, etc. It is convenient to use a school ruler to outline a circle.

8. Drill a hole in the top of the pendant for the connecting ring.

9. Sand the outer borders and the surface of the pendant until completely smooth. For rectangles, it is better to first round the corners with a medium-grained sandpaper.

10. Cover the pendant wax composition. Let the compound dry.

11. With thin-nose pliers, make a ring of suitable size from the selected wire. Or take it ready. Insert the ring into the top hole of the pendant, hook onto the chain, close the ring. Ready!

This project only requires three tools - a hacksaw, drill, and pliers.

Materials: , adhesive tape, sandpaper, colored pencils, epoxy resin, pencil eraser, to process our jewelry you will need tung oil, mineral oil or beeswax. Cord or chain for hanging, ring.

Pick up a drill to approximately fit the diameter of the pencil.

Drill holes in the bar, where you drill holes depends only on your imagination.

Using a hacksaw, cut the pencils into pieces.

Turn the block over and cover with duct tape.

Flip it back, prepare the epoxy and pour it into the drilled holes.

Hold the block tight so that the epoxy doesn't seep back in, insert the pencils into the holes, arrange the colors of your choice. If the pencils are stuck, tap gently with a hammer. When finished, let the product dry (I left it overnight).

Cut off protruding pencils.

Peel off the adhesive tape from the bar, make sure the resin is dry before proceeding. It's time to saw our block into thin strips for making jewelry. Draw a line with a pencil, and carefully cut the sheet following that line.

Process the product sandpaper, until it becomes smooth, the stylus will be smeared with sandpaper, it can be easily removed with an eraser.

Determine the location of your future product, mark and saw off.

Use sandpaper to round off the edges so that the product takes on more rounded shapes.

Drill a hole

apply a protective coating

or earrings.

Translation: Anastasia Dolzhnikova

Wood is a natural and easy-to-work material, so it is often used by craftsmen in their crafts. For pendants made of wood, they try to choose unusual species with a beautiful pattern of annual rings and structure. Walnut and boxwood, mahogany and cherry are in demand, although a lot of work is also done from oak. Better choose for DIY solid wood so that when wearing the pendant, you do not accidentally beat off a piece.

In the article, we will consider how you can make a wooden pendant yourself at home. You will learn what tools the craftsmen use, how to clean the surface so that the pendant is smooth and shiny, what varnish is recommended for coating so that the jewelry remains beautiful for a long time.

You will also learn how to make a pendant out of wood and epoxy resin. These are crafts of incredible beauty that can be complemented natural material or add figurines from polymer clay. Such a resin is very toxic, so be sure to wear a protective mask and ventilate the room well before working with such material. It is advisable to do the pouring into the mold not in the room, but on the balcony or in the garage.

heart

The easiest way is to cut a certain figure out of beautiful wood, in our sample it is a small heart. The necessary shape is cut out of a thin plank with a jigsaw along the drawn contours. Then the edges are rounded off with an emery stone. Further, the wooden pendant is processed manually with sandpaper. First take No. 100, and then grind No. 80.

A hole with a diameter of 2 or 3 mm is drilled from above with a drill for threading the lace. Can be coated acrylic varnish. If he raises the pile, then go over the surface with fine sandpaper again. It remains to finally open with varnish and after drying can be worn around the neck. Some craftsmen do not use varnish, but simply rub the wooden pendant with wax.

Stacked pendant

The decoration assembled from several types of wood with a bright contrasting combination of colors looks beautiful. Small pieces of wood are glued together with D-3 carpentry glue and the workpiece is clamped in a clamp. After a while, they take it out and cut out any shape.

Further, the craft is processed in exactly the same way as in the first described version. In the photo above, the master went the simpler way and made a pendant from three identical bars of different lengths and colors. If you do not have the remains of different woods, then you can paint one in different colors using stains.

Pendant "Tree of life"

To carve a pattern on wood, sharp chisels, both simple and triangular, are required. The "Tree of Life" is considered an ancient Slavic amulet, a symbol of wisdom and immortality, which is why in our time many people wear such jewelry, although they do not put any sacred meaning into it.

Any person can cut the contours of the trunk and branched crown. The craft made on the saw cut of a large branch looks beautiful. Leave the bark in place, it gives the pendant a natural naturalness and a finished look. You can process the notches with a small cutter using a hand drill.

Combination of wood and epoxy resin

In order to create a unique wood and epoxy pendant, you will need a plexiglass container, a piece of wood with bark, or a broken lamella that has sharp edges. The more natural the shape looks, the better the pendant will look in ready-made.

In a separate container, mix the epoxy with the dye to get a rich blue tint. Then everything is poured into a mold with a wooden piece and left to harden. It remains to grind the workpiece well and give it the necessary configuration, removing all unnecessary. You can make a hole for a chain or lace with a drill. You can finally sand the craft with a piece of felt.

If you want to complement the decoration with a Christmas tree, a snowman or a flower, then buy polymer clay of the desired color and mold the figure with your hands. Put the small craft in the oven for 15 minutes. Then lay it on a piece of wood and fill it all together with epoxy.

As you can see, it is not difficult to make a pendant manually from wood, it is enough to have necessary tools and a small piece of wood with a beautiful structure. The rest is a matter of technique! It is advisable to grind the craft well so that the surface is smooth and does not scratch the body of the girl to whom the gift is intended.

WOOD JEWELERY

Wood is a very decorative and respected ornamental material. It is known, for example, how furniture and products made of natural wood are now valued. Tom is more pleasant crafts made by hand. The women's jewelry offered here for making is available to any beginner, even women or high school students can make them. And the quality issues of products will be decided mainly by the nature of the wood itself, as well as the patience and accuracy of the manufacturer. Crafts, the manufacturing technology of which is described below, are elegant and original, and their implementation will not require a lot of working time or special tools.

Shown in fig. 10, a pendant(or a combination of such pendants in a pendant) is easy to make from an oblique saw cut of some types of wood. It is only necessary to choose a suitable drawing blank. A knot of cherry, bird cherry or juniper is best suited for this purpose. Among the thickets of bird cherry, branches are often broken, bent, and sometimes even rooted in the ground. It is in such branches that changes are often found: the texture of wood, the color and pattern of its sound part. If the cherry has a beautiful pattern of an oblique cut of the branch, it forms stripes various colors, then bird cherry has a dark core on a light background of sapwood.

Rice. 6. Fish and octopus

Fig 7. Prefabricated frame of carved details sculptural composition

Very beautiful can be a plate saw cut burl of any tree or pine whorl. Of course, we are talking about harvesting branches of bird cherry, cherry or apple trees, not specifically for pendants, but as a result of sanitary cleaning caused by tree damage, cutting down wild game, shading trees, etc. As for juniper or pine, you can only use dead wood to the forest .

Rice. 8. Carved table from a whole cut of a tree trunk

Here are some tips for making a pendant. In places of thickening, build-up, knot, fork, the branch is made oblique, at an angle of 45 °, cut. The resulting cut must be leveled with a sharp knife and smeared with sunflower oil or nitro-lacquer. Then the texture of the wood will clearly come to light, and if the cut pattern satisfies the author of the upcoming craft, you can get to work. It is better to saw off several records at once in order to choose the most spectacular ones. If the pattern on the plate turned out to be shifted to the side, try changing the direction of the cut. They cut off the plates with a fine-toothed saw, clamped in a vice or strengthened in some other way on a workbench.

Rice. 9. Carved stand for a table from a whole saw cut of a pine trunk (monkeys and a stand are separate parts)

The bark should not be removed either from the workpiece or from the sawn plate, especially when it comes to raw wood. The ring of bark on the cut plate will be, firstly, a dark decorative frame, only it needs to be trimmed to remove irregularities. Secondly, and this is the main thing, when damp wood is dried without bark, it will crack and the work will be spoiled. Sawn off plates should immediately be leveled with a knife. This is done in a standing position, the record is placed vertically on edge on a table or workbench. A layer of wood is cut from the middle to the bottom edge of the plate so that the surface is slightly convex. The blade of the knife goes down with some forward movement.

If the processing of the surface of the record seems difficult and dangerous, you can level the records after they have dried with the help of files. In this case, grinding will be longer, but safer.

Dry the plates outdoors, but always in a dark place, as various stains can form on the wood under the influence of the sun. So that the plates do not crack during drying, after a day they must be wiped on both sides with sunflower oil. Of course, not all wood needs to be lubricated with oil during drying, but cherry and bird cherry (and we make the pendant out of them) are very prone to cracking during drying, so it is better to use oil here.

Rice. 10. Pendants and pendants made of saw cuts of a knot of decorative wood in a natural frame of bark ( A); construction of an oval in the proportion of the golden section ( b); the sequence of construction is indicated in the drawing by numbers

After 7-10 days of drying, the plates must be cycled on both sides with a new shaving blade to refresh the tone, remove dirt and top layers of oil, and also remove the thickening along the edges with a knife and sandpaper, since as a result of the shrinkage of the wood, the edge of the bark began to protrude above the plate . In this case, the edges of the pendant should be slightly rolled up so that its surface becomes convex.

Having leveled the surfaces of the pendant as smoothly as possible, you can proceed to their coating with nitro-lacquer. It is necessary to apply varnish in 8-10 layers and it is better to do this with your finger (for this craft). Grabbing a drop of varnish with your finger, they begin to rub it over the surface with quick circular movements. It is necessary to evenly distribute the varnish on the plane in 10-12 movements, since the varnish thickens quickly.

First, with a break of 10–15 minutes, 3 layers of varnish are applied, after which the varnish is allowed to dry for 1–2 hours. Then, irregularities and streaks are removed with a razor blade. It may turn out that after the first scraping in some places there will be depressions, pits, which is more often on the loose core of the craft or due to the twisting of the knot. In such a place, a small drop of thickened varnish should be applied with the tip of a match, for which the varnish (3-4 drops) must first be left to dry for several hours. The applied drop should be left to dry until the next day. Then it will be possible to even out (remove) the tubercle of the varnish and continue further building up the varnish layer, as described.

The last layer of varnish dries for about a day, after which its surface is cycled (preferably with a new razor blade), polished woolen cloth first with pressure, then with light and quick movements. If stripes still remain on the surface, you need to repeat the sanding and polishing. Sometimes, as a result of polishing, the lacquer layer is rubbed off and matte spots appear on the surface. In this case, you will have to apply 2-3 layers of varnish again on the entire surface and repeat the finish. We also note that it is impossible to cover the pendant plates by dipping into varnish, since in this case, during drying, streaks and swelling of the varnish cannot be avoided.

The edges of the pendant, bordered by bark, are smoothed with sandpaper and smeared with varnish. You can remove the bark, give the pendant a strictly elliptical shape (or oval) and glue the edges for contrast with a strip of “golden” foil or paper. Or you can make an oblique bevel along an elliptical contour even before varnishing the pendant. But then it is better to give the craft a shape that has the proportions of the golden section (Fig. 10, b). To frame the pendant, sometimes a substrate is used, cut along the contour of the pendant from brass foil. Along the contour of such a substrate, corners are cut out, which, when the substrate is attached to the pendant, are bent, spinning to the edges of the craft. Before mounting, the substrate must be polished and varnished. By the way, it is easy to make an eyelet or two holes in the substrate through which a chain is passed for hanging the pendant.

How to deal with the pendant pendant in other cases? If the pendant has only one side polished, it is convenient to do it in the upper part reverse side plates, an arcuate recess (groove) for the ends of the chain, and then fix the entire back side together with the veneer laid in the groove with the chain, for example, from Karelian birch. Moreover, if the veneer is decorative enough, the reverse side will also become the “second” front side pendant. Other materials (leather, velvet, etc.) can also be used to glue the back side.

If the thickness of the pendant allows, then a small hole is drilled in its end (in the upper part), where either a wire eyelet or a cut-off pin with a glass or plastic head is glued. A pin or eyelet, before being strengthened in a pendant, must be threaded into a chain link.

When the plate is thin, it is more convenient to drill a hole in the pendant and insert a polished bronze ring into it. As a drill, you can use an ordinary sewing needle, sharpening its sharp end in the form of a trihedron with a diamond needle file or an emery bar. For convenience, it is better to hold the needle with pliers when drilling.

Pendants are assembled from several pendants, of course, selected according to the size and texture of the material. From smaller plates with an original pattern, beautiful earrings will come out.

Bracelet. It is not always possible to find such wood, the pattern of which is suitable for breast decoration. When such plates are connected into an ensemble, for example, in a bracelet (Fig. 11), they look more interesting. Making plates for a bracelet is similar to making a pendant. True, when choosing a blank, you will have to take into account the size of the bracelet and the number of links in it (usually 7-8 links). Connect the links of the bracelet with two thin rubber cords, such as aircraft model rubber, which are threaded through the holes made in the links. Of course, if the thickness of the links allows, then such holes in the plates can be drilled. However, more often they act differently: they cut grooves in the links of the bracelet (on the reverse side of the plates), and then turn them into holes by gluing a piece of veneer or other material onto the link surface.

Rice. eleven. Bracelet made of slanted sliced ​​cherry knots. Cord grooves on the back of the bracelet (before lining)

Before sawing the grooves, the links of the bracelet are selected according to the pattern, their sides are trimmed so that the links fit snugly together, and the links must be numbered. How to arrange the plates, the master himself must decide. So, you can orient the plates in one direction. In this case, the identity of the shape of the color of the links is comprehended. If the adjacent links are oriented in different directions, then when looking at the bracelet, it will seem that some plates are lighter, while others are darker. The cut lines are drawn along the ruler along the entire row of fitted plates at once. Of course, it's good if you can cut the grooves with a fine-toothed hacksaw, which does not tear the wood and the width of its teeth set just fits the groove for the rubber cord. It is worse if you first have to make a cut using, for example, a hacksaw blade for metal, and then expand it with a knife or needle files. Therefore, it makes sense on the edge of any home saw on a section 5-6 cm long, cut yourself with a trihedral needle file a row of cloves for cutting grooves.

Before gluing the veneer overlays, you must not forget to number them, so that later you can confuse the fitted parts of the bracelet. It is better to use walnut or beech veneers - they are soft, fit snugly to the surface, and are easily cut with scissors. But you should not specifically bother yourself with the search for such a veneer, in last resort veneer taken from ordinary plywood is also suitable. Just need to scrape off the old glue. The veneer smeared with wood glue should be immediately moistened from the opposite side (outer) so that it does not warp, and pressed in some way to the plate. Of course, it is better not to apply glue to the place where the cord will pass.

When the glue dries, all that remains is to touch up and clean the edges, as well as varnish the bottom of the veneer. In order to hide the knots of the rubber cord that tightens the bracelet, the openings at the entrance are widened in one of the plates. You can expand the grooves in the middle of one of the plates and, having assembled the bracelet, place the knot there, and then stick the veneer.

Concluding the topic of making crafts from sections, we note that the pattern of wood on such sections often resembles some kind of plot: the sea with the horizon, only a boat is missing for a complete impression; the boat on the waves, but I would like to shade the outline of the boat in more than one place, etc. Such touch-ups can be done either with a colored pencil or oil paint, which is rubbed into the cut with a pointed stick. Correction should be done on a surface that has been finally prepared and slightly rubbed with vegetable oil, without leaving the tone and character of the wood texture.

You can also touch up on the applied varnish. For example, if the "summer" needs to make eyes in the form of two small dots, then in these places punctures are made with the tip of the needle and either ink or any paint of the desired color is smeared there. Excess paint is removed: with a cloth, it leaves the varnish easily.

Chains. Chain of round rings good both as a feminine adornment and as a decorative detail of the interior (Fig. 12). Making them is not difficult, although it requires patience and time. Rings are easiest to grind on a lathe. And for those who do not have the opportunity to use such a machine, we advise you to make or purchase a simple device with which you can turn a drill into a small kind of lathe. Its structure is well understood from Fig. 13.

Let us first explain how the chain is assembled. First of all, wooden rings are made for her. Then half of the rings are broken in half (it is broken, and not cut or sawn), after which each broken ring is glued together, connecting the bottoms of the other rings with it. The wood in the fault is glued together with carpentry glue, which is most suitable for this purpose: when joining dark-colored wood, the glued seam is not visible at all, and on light wood such a trace is noticeable, but it is perceived as a natural layer and does not interfere with the general appearance of the chain (therefore, it is necessary to break the ring , not cut).

When gluing, the halves of the ring can be pulled together with a thread or simply held a little with your fingers first and released, leaving the three connected rings alone. It is even better to use clothespins for pressing if the ring enters the mouth or tail of the clothespin (Fig. 14, a). Then the triples are glued into seven rings or immediately into a chain. It is convenient to make the device shown in fig. 14b.

Rings cut from raw wood must first be dried, otherwise they will deform both when splitting and when pulled together with a thread.

Rice. 12. Decorative chains: a - from a whole bar of wood; b - typesetting of turned rings; in - from twisted links; g - from curly links

Rice. 13. Attachment to an electric drill for turning rings. The positions of the support bar when boring a hole in the ring and when machining the end surface

When arranging the chain, the rings should be connected in a certain sequence, for example, in order of increasing size or alternating dark with light, large with small.

Rice. 14. Methods for clamping a glued ring when assembling a chain: a - in the throat of a clothespin; b - in the tail part of the clothespin; c - between 3-4 cloves in a special machine

Before you start turning rings, you need to choose a suitable blank - a round stick or a knot of wood of any length, and it is better to pick up raw blanks. We list the most suitable wood species for turning, starting with the best: black walnut, beech, black plum, red alder, chestnut, birch, maple, ash. Aspen, linden and poplar sharpen poorly. Working with different breeds trees, the author was convinced that lemon wood is perfectly processed, and a fresh apple tree is also well sharpened. Dry wood of an apple tree is often loose, with cracks, it sharpens worse than raw wood, the cutter leaves a torn mark on it (to get a clean surface, it is better to moisten the wood when turning). Very beautiful rings are obtained from the apple tree. The turn is also good in this sense, especially if it is possible to make rings from dark sapwood (the core of the turn is light and loose). Such rings turn out to be dark brown, sometimes yellowish-red spots and stains. Surprisingly beautiful in color, dark, with stains, as if from a stone, rings are obtained from the core of a rowan tree. But this wood is very capricious in turning. In its raw form, it is so soft and flexible that the turned ring is wrinkled, torn. You can only work with well-dried blanks, and be careful. But it sharpens and polishes very well.

The lilac is perfectly sharpened, even dry. It is very hard, when turning and polishing does not give any flaws, and its color is interesting - deep dark ocher.

Well, beech is one of the best for turning wood. From beech, as you know, they make round sticks (for cribs and playpens)? excellent blanks for rings.

When the blanks are selected, you can start making rings. First of all, we will make a mandrel (clip), which is attached to the drill and in which the rings will be processed. For the mandrel, a wooden cylinder with a diameter of 35 mm and a length of about 45 mm is suitable. The mandrel should be fixed on the conical shank of the drill spindle, for which a through hole of such a diameter is drilled in it so that the mandrel can be tightly fitted onto the spindle (the hole can be bored into a cone with a knife and a round file). Now you need to grind the mandrel, but for this you will first have to make a stop stand for the cutting tool.

In height, the stop post together with the bar (see Fig. 13) is adjusted so that the grinding tool resting on them is at the level of the spindle axis.

Using a small round cutter with a diameter of about 6 mm, we make a hole in the mandrel according to the diameter of flat blank circles for rings with a depth of about 16 mm. In this case, the cutter must be fed a little so that the mandrel does not slip on the spindle. With the tip of the knife, holding it in a horizontal plane, we clean the walls of the hole formed into a cone, but so that the taper is very small. Insert a blank (by 1-2 mm) into this conical hole with a little effort and cut off a circle about 5 mm thick from it. Having prepared the necessary pure circles, we proceed to their further processing.

Having strengthened the circle in the mandrel, and it is held in it due to the taper of the hole, we trim it along the plane of the end of the mandrel, lightly hitting the circle with a hammer. If the diameter of the hole in the mandrel larger diameter mug, wrap the last piece of paper lining in one or two layers. We drill a hole in the circle with a small cutter and bore it to the size of the hole in the ring of the future chain, and then we remove the inner chamfer with a small knife.

Don't get frustrated if something doesn't work right away. Experience comes with time, and very soon you will figure out how best to hold the tool while turning the workpiece, with what force to press it against the support, etc. It is better to turn on the drill with short pulses with your left hand only for the period of turning.

We clean the ring with sandpaper and, turning it over in the mandrel, process the other side of the ring. And so we grind the whole set of rings.

To round the outer side of the ring, you will have to make another mandrel - a round stick, on which the resulting rings are mounted. In turn, the mandrel is mounted in the drill chuck. The blank for the mandrel must be taken with a margin of thickness and turned to the desired diameter already fixed in the chuck, then there will be no beating of the part on the mandrel. Dimensions of the blank for the mandrel: length - 50 mm, diameter - about 18 mm. Of course, a mandrel of this diameter will not fit into a drill chuck. Therefore, the end of the mandrel will have to be planed to the desired diameter, hammered into a fully open chuck, and then tightened with cams.

Rice. 15. Treatment of the outer surface of the ring using a mandrel and a locking cap

Since it is difficult to get chain rings with exactly the same holes, the mandrel will have to be made with a small cone. And in order to prevent the rings from turning or even jumping off the mandrel during processing, they are usually held on the mandrel with a wooden cap. Such a cap is fixed on the mandrel with a screw, which passes through the bottom of the cap and is screwed into the end of the mandrel (Fig. 15). In order not to split the mandrel when screwing a screw into it, a through hole with a diameter of 2 mm is drilled along its central axis. It is convenient to use the same hole to screw a screw into it from the back of the mandrel, that is, through a hole in the bottom of the cartridge. In some designs of an electric drill, there is such a hole, it is designed to connect the chuck screw to the tapered shank of the spindle. If there is no such hole, then it is easy to drill it. This will give greater reliability of fixing the mandrel in the chuck.

The fixing cap is first rough cut by hand (including the recess in it).

Then it is fastened “back to front” with a screw to the mandrel and finally turned on our “lathe”.

Now it remains only to strengthen the ring on the mandrel with the help of a cap and process with a small knife and a file, first one side of the ring (far from the cap), and then, turning the ring over, and the other.

Given the significant number of rings that will have to be processed (at least 60 rings are desirable in one chain), it is convenient to strengthen the screw in the cap more firmly so that, when clamping or removing the ring, do not rotate the screw with a screwdriver, but the cap itself. As you understand, the dimensions of the mandrel and cap depend on the size of the rings and are adjusted to fit.

To assemble the chain, half of its rings will have to be split, hammering a conical mandrel on a support with a hole into them with light hammer blows. The ring usually breaks in one place, and in the case of springy wood, as a rule, two whole links of the chain can be threaded into this break. To glue the ring, the gap is smeared with hot glue, hold for 1–2 minutes so that the glue is absorbed, and the ring is pulled together with a thread or a clothespin. After 1–2 hours, the fastening can be removed and the seam cleaned. Fresh glue should be used, as it is more transparent, which makes the seam less noticeable, and the glue is stronger.

It is better to varnish the rings before gluing, since it is difficult to process rings connected in a chain. The varnish is applied in two stages: first on the outer side of the ring, then from the side of the hole. For the first operation, it is necessary to plan a stick with a conical tip, on which a ring should be put on and varnished with a soft brush. Then the ring is removed from the stick and hung on a long nail to dry. After the first operation, the brush is immediately wiped with a cloth and washed several times in sunflower oil.

When applying oil from the side of the hole (second operation), the ring is clamped in a clothespin, and then left to dry in this form. This time, the brush after washing in oil should be washed with soap and water.

The assembled chain after cleaning the glued places, of course, will have to be varnished.

Spectacular flat ring chains decorated with carvings. In this case, you do not need to process the rings on a conical mandrel with a cap, but you will have to apply a pattern to them with a small knife, a triangular needle file, and an awl.

At the first stage, a flat ring is cut out of a circle and machined in the same way as the round ring already described. Only it is better to make the socket in the mandrel not conical, but cylindrical and provide a side (ledge) in the mandrel, where the ring inserted into the mandrel rests (the depth of the nest to the side should be equal to half the thickness of the ring).

Of course, with this form of nest, all blanks should have the same, standard diameter, but if there is a side, they fit into the nest tightly and without distortion. Ready-made chiseled sticks, for example, from a crib or playpen, are best suited as blanks. Possible deviations in the dimensions of the workpieces in the smaller direction are easily eliminated with the help of paper spacers.

Having bored a hole in the mug, that is, having received a ring, we do not further round off either the inner or outer surface of the ring, but only remove small chamfers from the ribs and process the rings with fine sandpaper.

Now it remains, armed with a trihedral needle file, an awl, a tassels (it’s better not to use a small knife - it’s less productive for them), to finish the rings, for example, make parallel risks on the outer cylindrical surface of the ring with the edge of the file, and cut out crosses or notches on the end sides. By the way, when turning rings on the end sides or on the outer cylindrical surface, decorative grooves can be applied with the tip of a knife.

Tsarazik is convenient for making round holes (recesses).

As a result of such processing, interesting and funny rings are obtained, and the smaller and more intricate the thread, the more variety in the thread of the rings, the more original they look (Fig. 16).

Figure 16. Flat carved rings in a chain

We add that the decoration of the rings can also be done in color. To do this, cover the ring with varnish., And then apply additional risks and pins on it, and then smear paint into them (excess paint can be easily removed from the varnish). Then the ring is varnished again, preferably by dipping.

As a material for carved rings, we advise you to take light wood, the relief of the carving looks more distinct on it. Convenient for this is the raw wood of knots of apple, cherry, bird cherry (raw wood is processed more easily, the finished ring dries out in one or two days, and decreases in size by 1–2 mm, which increases the expressiveness of the chain).

We also note that working with such rings will be a good and pleasant school for a novice carver both in terms of mastering tools and wood, and in terms of gaining experience in drawing up a picture and ornament.

To use carved rings as earrings, you need to make a small hole in them and put hooks from inexpensive purchased earrings into them. By the way, it’s not bad to think over this option at the same time: buy earrings for which the made rings will be an original frame. Of course, this is a matter of initiative and invention of the master (Fig. 17).

Original decorative chains are also made by hand, without using rings to make electric drill or lathe. Moreover, manually it is possible to cut already assembled chains, that is, chains whose links are connected during their manufacture (see Fig. 12, a). Of course, it is better to make large links for such chains, so that it is more convenient to work with them. As you can see from the figure, you first have to prepare a blank with a cruciform section for the chain. Quarters in such a workpiece are selected either with a special planer (zenzubel, foldedgebel), or manually using a semicircular and straight chisel.

Then, chain links are drawn on the workpiece, which are subsequently drilled along the inner contour with a drill and finally finished with a knife. Note that the link is separated from the workpiece only when the rest of the link has already been processed. This is understandable, since while the link is connected to the workpiece, it is more convenient to sharpen and grind it.

Rice. 17. Earrings made of wood by hand, as well as with turning on the attachment to the drill

For such chains with large links, wood with a clear texture, such as larches, pines, spruces, cherries, is most suitable.

Looks unusual chain of twisted links similar in shape to a propeller. When assembled, the chain looks flat. Each link is machined at the end of a round stick blank and cut off from the blank only when it is, if possible, completely machined and polished (see Fig. 12, c).

A chain of twisted links is mounted in the same way as a chain of round links, that is, by breaking one of the links. Of course, if the chain is made of damp, springy wood, it is better to limit the link to a split in only one place, since it is very difficult to pull the two halves of a twisted link together when gluing and usually you have to press them together with your hands.

As a material for such a chain, you can take a beech stick or a curvilinear knot of juniper. It is good to work with a twisted chain during outdoor recreation, since everything can be done with knives and sandpaper.

Curly links(see Fig. 12, d) are usually cut with a jigsaw from flat blanks: planks, slats, plywood. In addition to connecting the chain with a break, large links can also be sawn, and for plywood the latter method is mandatory. It is not necessary in all cases to cut the connecting links into two parts. You can, for example, cut a piece on one side of the link for the passage of other links, and then glue it. Thin cuts with a jigsaw will not create noticeable interference when tightening the ring with an elastic band or cord.

Star-shaped hedgehog crystal and star-shaped ball. Shown in fig. 18, and the polyhedron is a small stellated dodecahedron. The unusually beautiful symmetrical shape of the polyhedron makes it unique decorative ornament. The originality of the polyhedron-crystal lies in the fact that its five-pointed stars have common ends with the same neighboring stars. That is, looking at the end of the star, we can mentally associate it with one or the second star, and so evenly over the entire surface of the crystal.

Figure 18. A star-shaped crystal (dodecahedron) and a star-shaped ball, made from blanks of the same size. Star crystal - women's jewelry

Rice. 19. Construction of the vertices of the stellated dodecahedron on the surface of the ball

At first, the complexity of manufacturing such a polyhedron frightens, or rather, the complexity of the upcoming marking of the vertices and faces of five-pointed stars. However, the markup is not so difficult if the correct ball is used as the initial workpiece when making a crystal in a tree. Then the breakdown of 12 vertices of five-pointed stars can be represented as follows (Fig. 19): 2 pole vertices on opposite sides of the ball and 5 vertices on two belts - parallels of the ball It is the level of these two belts, and hence their diameter, that determine the success of the business: if divide each parallel into 5 parts in order to obtain the position of 5 vertices of the stars, then the distances between them should be the same as the distances of each of them to the first vertex of the star located at the pole. Note that the tops of the stars on the parallel in the lower part of the ball should not be located on the same meridians with the tops of the stars on the upper belt, but strictly between them.

First, we measure the length of the equator on a ball blank, rounding it with a strip of paper. If we divide the resulting length by a factor of 5.86, then we get the desired distance between the tops of the stars on the ball. Now, taking this distance with a compass, we draw a circle anywhere on its surface, which will be the first belt - a parallel, and with the same size of the compass we divide the resulting circle into 5 parts (the center of the circle will become the “north pole”).

Having determined the tops of the stars in the "northern hemisphere", you can find the position of the tops in the "southern hemisphere" in the same way. However, we do not know the location of the south pole. Of course, it can also be built, but it is easier to make the same compass size in the direction of the second belt from each division point on the first belt, that is, to obtain thereby the position of the tops of the stars on the second belt. And putting aside all the same distances from the obtained points, you can find the other pole of the ball. Probably, due to the inaccuracy of the coefficient and the spherical surface itself, in this case we will get not one, but several points, in the center of which the desired pole will be. Now, building in the opposite direction, it is easy to correct the errors.

Further execution of the star-shaped crystal will be simple: you need to cut triangular recesses between each three adjacent vertices. These depressions form the voluminous ends of the five-pointed stars.

But there can be two technical solutions. One of them is to make the walls of the triangular recess flat and the edges straight. So, following this solution, it is better to first make flat slices of the ball between the tops of the stars. Straight lines will lie in these planes - the upper edges of the ends of the stars. Thus, we turn the ball into a polyhedron.

When making triangular recesses, we will focus on the fact that the top of each such recess (pyramid) is located in the middle between the tops of the stars, that is, all faces are the same. And the depth of the notch is made such that after all five notches are made, a common single plane should form around the top of the star, on which the star lies.

You can also save the shower of each end of the star as an arc lying on the surface of the ball. For this, the walls of the recesses will have to be made not flat, but convex. Such a craft can rather be called a star-shaped ball (see Figure 18) than a crystal. The star ball looks more compact, holds general form and more suitable as component part compositions for such products as a pendant to a chandelier, the lower part of a lamp stand, etc. Curly balls with stars can also be used to decorate the tops of the side columns of the entrance arch, for example, in a pioneer camp.

It is easier for a beginner carver to handle a star ball than a crystal; straight lines and planes in a crystal require more precision. The general course of work on the manufacture of a star-shaped ball will be as follows. First, a cylindrical billet is cut off, equal in height to its diameter. Plane the workpiece, giving it the shape of a ball. Then they measure (with a compass, caliper) the diameter of the resulting ball at the narrowest point in order to cut out a template to check the correct shape of the ball of this diameter. According to the template, they correct the shape of the ball with a knife and mark 12 tops of stars on its surface. The vertex points are pierced with an awl in order to “lose” them. The places where the crests of the rays of the stars will pass are processed with a file and lines of crests are applied with a pencil. Having determined the centers of the formed triangles, a round cutter (chisel) in the center of the triangles makes preliminary recesses on required depth(by eye) and cut out the corresponding recesses with convex edges.

In the manufacture of a star-shaped crystal, of course, it is necessary to first convert the ball into a polyhedron.

The appearance of any product is determined not only by its shape, but also by the surface finish. In this case, it consists in grinding and polishing the surface of the entire craft with the help of skins, and in the corners - with the edge of a trihedral needle file, the tip of a small knife (as a cycle) and varnishing the product. A preliminary first coating with varnish will reveal irregularities on the crystal that were not visible on its matte surface. Using a needle file and a knife, they must be eliminated by cleaning along with varnish. Now you can use a soft brush to apply 2-3 layers of varnish, observing intervals of 10-15 minutes between them for drying. Drying of the last layer lasts several hours, after which it is necessary to once again treat the surface with a shaving blade or the tip of a sharp knife. Considering great work, invested in the craft, and our desire to make it as good as possible, it will be reasonable to correct not only the unevenness of the varnish, but the entire surface of the crystal. cycle varnished surface it is necessary until the gloss of the varnish disappears, but so as not to scrape to the wood. The tip of a knife will help in the ribs and corners. Immediately after stripping, wipe the cycled areas with a woolen cloth - a pleasant matte sheen will appear. The craft processed in this way does not seem to be varnished, it seems that the wood itself is so polished. You can polish with a cloth after grinding to the desired degree of gloss.

The work on scraping the varnish surface should not be postponed until later, since the dried and hardened varnish will be more difficult to clean.

As a material for making small crafts, it is better to take solid monotonous wood: birch, beech, hornbeam, ash; maple, juniper, seasoned aspen, eucalyptus, walnut, rosewood. for crafts large sizes striped wood of pine, larch, spruce, cherry is more suitable.

A small craft made of beautiful wood will be very good as a breast decoration. In this case, it is advisable to insert the broken ends of pins with glass heads into the tops of the five-pointed stars (see Figure 18).

Rice. 20. Pendant "Cube" made of polished wood with bronze embossed overlays (enlarged). Examples of ornament on the faces of a cube made of chiseled bronze carnations (grape brush with leaves, initials, etc.)

An easy-to-make chest piece? ordinary wooden cube with flat chamfers removed on its ribs at the corners. It is best to take rosewood for this purpose, especially from such a part of the wood where there is a transition from dark red tones to completely black. But a whorl of pine, juniper is also suitable. Dense rosewood wood is very well polished, and the end plane is processed no worse than other planes. The main difficulty in working with rosewood is that it must be cut with a hacksaw for metal or any other fine-toothed saw along all six faces, since rosewood does not split along the fibers. You have to work with rosewood, like with metal. But appearance crafts are very elegant.

The tops of the rosewood cube can be decorated with glass hairpin or pin heads. It is also interesting to place small embossed brass foil overlays on its polished edges (Fig. 20). It is not difficult to make them with the help of a chasing (a nail with a rounded end or other device) at the end of a wooden block, and then cut out the figure with scissors. The difficulty lies in pouring in the fastening of brass plates on the faces of the cube. It is possible, for example, when cutting out a figurine, to leave sharp tips along the edges, which, having bent, are sunk into the wood. You can solder a piece of wire on the back side and strengthen it in the wood. But such a detail as the moon next to an owl, which creates a whole landscape with mood, and not just a bird on a branch, is better to carve from a piece of bronze - it requires a strict form. Give it volume so that it glows by reflecting light. Then it can be carefully inserted into the socket on the cube and put on Moment-1 glue or fixed with a soldered wire. You can find another method of fastening, for example, using epoxy, but for this you will first have to level the back side of the chased overlay with the same epoxy or oil putty. Here it is important to be able to carefully smear the surface of the cube, without going beyond the contours of the lining, otherwise you will get a noticeable mark.

In extreme cases, it will be necessary to replace the overlaid ornament made of chased foil with some other one, using, for example, shortened shoe studs, the caps of which must be turned and polished in an electric drill chuck or made in the form of stars. Then fastening the studs in drilled holes won't be difficult.

The eyelet for connecting to the chain is easy to make as in the picture, or pick up a ready-made one.