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 Francis lost one of her top front teeth yesterday. She was eating a muffin as we walked up the sidewalk at Lily B. Elementary. Only seconds after talking about how she might lose her tooth at school, she stopped in her tracks and said, “It’s Gone!” We retraced her steps, but couldn’t find the tooth. My guess is that, like her very first lost tooth, this one is in her belly. I expected her to be a little upset, since she had been looking forward to the celebration that accompanies losing a tooth at school (including wearing a special necklace with the lost tooth inside). She just laughed about eating another tooth. We’re at that stage in life where all of our friends have been having babies. In the last couple of years, since I’ve gotten into woodturning, it has been a lot of fun to give baby rattles on these occasions. This is the second type of rattle that I’ve made. Step by step, here’s how you do it.
1. Cut two pieces of maple and one piece of walnut to identical size. I think these are about 2.75″ x 6″.
2. Using a forstner bit, drill a biggish hole all the way through the walnut at both ends. I used one of the maple pieces as a backstop for the drilling, because it helps me line up the pieces during gluing
3. Glue the drilled walnut to one piece of maple and fill the voids with some popcorn kernals
4. Glue the other piece of maple to cover the corn-filled holes, clamp and let dry overnight.
The picture above is what you end up with after step 4. Sorry I don’t have pictures of the first steps.
5. After mounting on the lathe and applying the roughing gouge, we have a cylinder.
6. I mark out the high and low points with pencil before cutting to shape with a bowl gouge. Two of those marks remain in the picture below.
7. First using a round-nosed scraper, and then 120, 220, and 400-grit sandpaper, I refined the shape of the rattle.
8. (unpictured) turn the piece off of the lathe. That means you remove material until there is just a tiny bit holding it on each side and then take the last bit from the drive side and catch it as it falls.
9. After sanding the evidence of mounting off of the ends, I put a few coats of mineral oil and beeswax on the rattle.
Francis liked to bake pupcakes.
George always ate frackers.
Sam requires a bottle of milt.
I smile when I hear him say it, and I find myself responding in kind: “Sam, we ran out of milt yesterday.” Francis and George don’t say pupcakes and frackers anymore. One more sign of my mortality. Damn the speech therapists, I don’t care if Sam says milt forever.
April 11, 2011 - 9:45 pm
Lola always liked to visit the aminals at the zoo. I miss that too! |
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by Matt
Steve and Amy Lou - matt, your rattles are absolutely incredible. Great work! Have you considered selling them?