Make a Christmas Star

Use the elastic properties of thin wood strips to build this six pointed Christmas star, or 3D cross

You'll need six strips of wood and a few hand tools or a whittling knife

You can see me build mine in the video

There is no limit to the size, but you'll have to juggle wood species, length, width, and thickness of the strips to get them to bend the right amount - the sizes I give should work in common timbers

Please vote for my instructable, if you like it, in the Hand Tools Only contest

Rip six, 3mm (shy 1/8") thick, strips of wood from the edge(s) of 25mm (1") thick piece(s), 350mm (14") long

You can use a single board, but I used three different species (pine, walnut, and light red meranti) which gave a nice contrast

Gang all the pieces up and plane the edges to get equal widths

The vertical pair should remain at 350mm, but the other two are reduced to approximately 250mm (10") to make the horizontal arms

Plane the faces smooth, while reducing the thickness until each strip can easily be bent to give a deflection in it's length equal to it's width (approximately 25mm / 1")

Mark a point and a hole at one end, and a tail at the other

The hole will need to be large enough the easily accept the tail, inserted at a shallow angle

Cut out the points and tails, and drill the holes

I used a fret saw and hand drill, but a decent knife could alternatively be used

Ease all the edges, especially the tail, with a file or sandpaper

Once you have your six pieces, you can assemble the star

For each pair, match a pointed end with a tail. Insert the tail into the hole, and carefully bend the other two ends towards each other, inserting the other tail in to the other end

Make the two arms first, then insert one through the other

Now comes the tricky bit. Assemble the vertical pair through the crossed arms

You're done! Hang it up with a piece of black cotton or thin fishing line and have a great Christmas (or alternative celebration ;-) )

Please vote for my instructable, if you like it, in the Hand Tools Only contest

Thanks for reading my instructable /Mitch