Walnut Growth Chart With Brass Inlays

My partner asked me to build a growth chart to track the kids' heights. I went overboard.

Materials

1. 1" thick walnut - 7" x 84" - $85ish
2. I didn't have the tools or time to process the rough lumber into something usable, so I had the lumber store do it for me. This was a huge time saver and for $25, I couldn't say no.
3. 3/16" brass square bar ~96" - $55ish
4. from the metal store, this will come kind of greasy. Give it a wash and a scrub with some barkeerper's friend. It'll shine right up and lose the oily feeling
5. 2 part epoxy
6. You'll need a mixing cup as well as a stirrer/applicator. I used a wooden coffee stir stick
7. Wipe on Poly (satin) - $35ish (but I used very little, so this will last me many more projects)
8. Between coats, I hit it with some steel wool, and then wiped it down with tack cloth the get rid of any dust
9. Velcro Command Strips
10. I used these to adhere it to the wall. The heavy duty ones hold 20lbs which is more than enough.

Tools

1. Safety Glasses + dust mask
2. Safety first!!
3. Router + bit
4. I used a 1/8" endmill. A friend of mine built me a jig to make the routering very simple and quick, but the same can be achieved with some straight edges and stop blocks.
5. Palm sander
6. Hacksaw
7. File
8. Dremel + v-groove + bullnose bit
9. carbon paper
10. Laser level for hanging

If you're planning to gift something homemade for Christmas, don't start gathering your materials on December 15th. My wood wasn't ready for pickup until December 22, and the brass didn't arrive until December 29 soooooooo...... this turned into a New Year's gift. Whoooops!

Thankfully I had the Jig in the photo. It made this process very smooth! (no pics of this process as I forgot)

1. Apply tape to the entire face of the board, plus the edge. This will help to prevent any tear-out
2. Clamp the board and jig to a solid worksurface
3. Let the router do its thing
4. Remove the tape
5. sand lightly

I made an error on this step when I made this. After the routering was complete, I sanded everything. I rounded off the edge where the brass protrudes out. If I was to do this again, I would keep that edge flat. This would have made the fitting of the brass much easier, and then I'd run it through the table saw to nip the brass off.

As the router isn't able to create a square slot, and the brass has a square end, you'll need to do some fiddling to make them work. The simple solution I came up with was to take a piece of the brass bar and gently tap it into the slot. This forced the brass into the radiused corners of the slot, making them square.

Be gentle here though. I did accidentally blow out some wood while doing this. A minor blemish, but could have been avoided with a little more care and attention

before I cut anything, I hit the bass bar with my random orbit sander. It gave a neat finish. not brushed but not raw. I liked it.

1. Slide brass into slot
2. Mark with pencil
3. Secure brass in the vise
4. Cut with hacksaw, being sure to leave a little extra
5. Repeat a billion times

This was a tedious process. I got a bit smarter about it after a few feet. I started out shaping each piece after I cut it. Remember in the previous step where I rounded the edge.. well I was rounding each piece individually to fit. After a while, i decided to cut them all first, then shape them after.

As mentioned above, I refined my process as I went along. I used JB Weld 2 part epoxy to secure the brass bar in place. They all sat a little proud of the wood.

When working with the quick setting epoxy, it's important to only mix a little bit at a time. my first batch was rather large and I wound up tossing much of it because it set up in the cup before I could get it into the slots.

Get your file, and get to work. I already had the wood edge radiused, so filing to match that was relatively smooth, but time consuming.

By this point, you've got all the brass inlayed. Grab the random orbit sander and go through a few grits. I went 150, 220, 320.

This step is optional, but I chose to engrave the birth lengths of the kids. I did this with a dremel with engraving cone base plus a v- groove bit. I'd recommend practicing somewhere first.

Using carbon paper, I transferred the script names to the board, then engraved.

I did the same process for the 1-6 foot marks, but used a bullnose bit instead of the v-groove.

Hit everything with the sander at 320 again to clean up anything that the engraving process kicked up.

I used Minwax Satin wipe on poly and loved how it worked - both from an application standpoint and a finish standpoint.

grab a lintless rag/old shirt/ blue shop towel, get some poly on it, and wipe it onto the wood in a thin coat. When dry, hit the entire thing with some steel wool. Use a tack cloth to remove all the dust and apply another thin coat. Allow ample time between coats for best results.

Velcro command strips were adhered to the back. I marked the wall at 5' from the floor and used a laser to line that mark up with the 5' mark on the board. Peel the command strip backing off and press firmly into the wall for a few minutes.

Thanks for Reading and I hope you make one! There's a vide of some of the process here if you're interested!