Just finished up a custom order, my largest folding star to date! it opens up to 3’ wide, and has eye screws staggered on it so it can be used to hang ornaments! IUt was a fun challenge, and proof that my formula sheet works! I should be able to make a folding star any size!
Digging through some old pictures, found this- a spice rack I made (with a fair amount of help from my dad) for a now-ex girlfriend, back in about 2004. there are hooks underneath for the hanging and drying of herbs, and the doors have shelves on the inside, as well as the main shelf attached to the back. the shelves are even adjustable to accommodate bottles of varying heights.
This is Vera. She is my very favorite trebuchet. She stands about 5 feet tall, 3 feet wide, and can hurl a marshmallow about 70 yards.
Sara was my first catapult, and she introduced me to a whole new world. I’ll always be grateful for that! Vera, however, is all mine. I designed her from the ground up, researching various designs online, and using mostly scrap I had laying around. I used a simple gate latch for her trigger, and short lengths of pipe for the axles for both the main pivot and the counterweight basket. The trough at the bottom can pivot to fine-tune the aim, but so far that hasn’t had a noticable effect on her accuracy. Like most of the things I make, she’s a work in progress. I just did a little bit of facing work on her basket to make her look a more period and to reinforce the corners. I’d like to put some wooden wheels on, as I’ve read that could add about 30% to her throwing range. Maybe later I’ll find a good dark stain that will make all her parts look a bit more uniform and help her last longer. Like Sara, Vera also has a home at the renfest, teaching kids about medieval science and plaguing nearby shops and performers with soft, sugary hail.
Next, I think I need a balista, and maybe a battering ram.
This is Sara. Sara is my Roman Onager style torsion powered catapult. She’s about 5 feet long, 2 1/2 feet wide, has a 5 foot throwing arm and can hurl a marshmallow about 30 yards.
Sara was originally a yard sale find, a high school science project that no longer had a purpose in her old home. She came to me indirectly, needing some love and attention. While technically functional, I was able to make some improvements on the winching ratchet gear and the firing trigger, and gave her a new life working with me at the renfaire shooting marshmallows at kids. She loved it, and they loved her.
Sadly, Sara’s original body had some structural defects, and ultimately wasn’t up to the stress of 3 shows a day on the weekends. So I rebuilt her. I salvaged most of the metal parts, but used all new wood and redesigned her to be a bit tougher and a bit more historically accurate. (not 100%, of course… just more so than she was) And now she’s a true performer once again, teaching kids about physics and medieval warfare, and just how downright cool it is to use science to pelt unsuspecting passers-by with jet-puffed confection!
You never forget your first seige engine. Though I’ve since built Vera the Trebuchet, I always make time for Sara.
Submitted for comparison: OMG/LOL word towers. one of pine in Arial font, the other of poplar in Bookman Old Style. The serifs more than double the time it takes to make one of these, but the finished product is much better for it. The poplar also has a much more interesting wood grain, which comes out better with the clear coat finish.
…and pixie dust!
By way of comparison with my previous post, a more advanced word tower with a better font. (also, a nod to Peter Pan)
Sometimes it isn’t enough to be a cool idea, sometimes there needs to be a function to a piece of art. This was an attempt at a functional word tower, the “clean” and “dirty” are upside down to each other, so you could use this to show if dishes in the dishwasher were ready to be run, or put away, for example. Haven’t gotten a whole lot of interest in it yet, but it was still a cool idea. Might add magnets to the base so it could be stuck to an appliance, or maybe build in a hook so it can be hung. Thoughts? drop some ideas in my suggestion box!
My first few word towers were gifts to my family, this one was for my Mom and Stepdad. While I can stretch the lettering to match any size word with any number of letters, I think it looks best when the two sides are even, so the “&” sign ends up getting a lot of use in my work.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve taken a cool idea (the folding 5-pointed star) and expanded it into a whole line of items in my Etsy store. Each type of star has it’s own special symbolism, and I really enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to make the templates for them mathematically. I stopped at 9 beacuse you can achieve a 10 pointed star by combining two 5-pointers, a 12 by combining two 6 pointers, (and so on and so on and scooby doobie doo) I might eventually try to work out the math for an 11 and 13 pointed star, but I think the demand for those would be pretty slim.
