Moon & Stars Hair Prongs

A Birthday gift was needed for one of our good friends so I came up with the idea of hair prongs as she had very long hair! Hair fork, prongs or pins - basically 'sticks', relatively simple to make and can be as decorative as you want them to be.

Wood - in this case its walnut (this was wood I'd found in the log pile that never made it to the wood burner!)

Decorative 'filler' - anything - wood, plastic, bone, coconut shell

Saw - bandsaw

Sanding - best tool was the Dremel with a rotary sanding bit. Emery cloth sanding tape was also very useful.

Belt sander - useful but not essential

Glue

In theory the hair pin/prong/fork is like using chop sticks in a single 'pin' or two or three to create something to push through hair - usually to secure it away from your face or in a decorative style.

So I designed a 2 pin prong with a circular decorative end.

Its approx 30mm wide and 200mm long and 10mm thick.

So the 'log burner wood that never made it to the log burner' - walnut, had a lovely straight grain. I cut this to 10mm strips and sanded down to to smooth enough to draw on. The design was pencilled straight onto this then was drilled and cut to create the basic form.

Out came one of my most used tools - the Dremel Rotary Tool with a sanding bit. This did most of the dog work to achieve a rounded form for each prong. I then finished it off using strips of emery cloth in different sanding grades. You need to rotate the piece to make sure you get an even shape up the prong shaft.

I had decided on a moon and stars style decorative disc but was unsure of what to use to give the right effect. I tried wood plain, wood burnt, wood dyed, coconut shell, leather and black acrylic. The moon/star shape was to be made out of bone to create a contrast.

Yes - deer antler would be great but accessing that is not easy - or cheap. A basic dog bone sold for about £1.00 and its already processed as to not be messy when cutting it. (I have tried bones from butchers - I can't recommend it!)

Cut the bone to give you a broad flattish piece. Now you can file this flat but a belt sander works really well.

WARNING - wear gloves - this machine will take all your skin off easily!

Once you have a flat surface that is big enough to cut your design out of you need to get the thickness down. Cut the excess off the back and then stick the flat side to a piece of wood to use as a handle. I used a hot glue gun but double sided tape would also work. This allows you to sand the opposite side down to a thin enough piece more safely.

Bone has a 'grain' but it is quite easy to work.

I decided the burnt wood was the best contrast with the bone set onto it.

I burnt the wood first, sanded down and burnt again and sanded again before cutting the disc. This created a harder smoother surface. These were glued into the prong head - standard pva is fine but epoxy glues work just as well.

The Moon and Star shape was drawn out and cut - including the moon 'craters'. Again the Dremel did most of the work to do the shaping. I polished them up with a dremel polishing disc/buffer as well. These were glued in with epoxy.

(Unfortunately some of these progress photos have been lost...!)

I finished it off with boiled linseed oil but a wood wax would also apply well.

This ended up a relatively quick project to complete - I was under a deadline!

The walnut is lovely to use and finishes well and I like the contrast of the bone decoration.

In conclusion I was pleased with how it developed and turned out and it gave me more practice in working with bone.

Our friend has kindly modelled them - so a big thanks to the photos she supplied.

Thanks for reading.