Wooden Elephant From Scrap Wood

If you've been woodworking, you are no stranger to having tons of wood scraps.

The best way to use those scraps is to glue them up and create something new.

Here, I created a wooden elephant figurine that could be used as a key hanger, jewelry stand, or a cute gift for your loved ones!

Materials

• wood
• I used walnut, ash, padauk, and ebony
• any wood with good color contrasts would do
• wood glue
• wood finish
• Clear lacquer spray, shellac, or your preferred wood finish

Tools

• Band saw
• Dremel or spindle sander
• Clamps

Other

• Safety glasses
• Mask

Cut the scraps to roughly the same size using a hand saw, band saw, or miter saw. Their thickness can vary.

Make sure both sides of the scrap wood are flat, using a hand plane, belt sander, or jointer. Though wood glue would fill in the uneven areas, those imperfections might show up in your final product.

Decide how you want to orient your wood pieces, then lay them out on a surface you wouldn't mind getting glue on.

Apply a layer of wood glue on one side of each piece.

Clamp together tightly and let cure overnight.

Sketch a guide for how you would want your elephant to look from the top and side. Alternatively, you can scale the guide attached here and print them out.

Glue the guide on two sides of the wood with Elmer's glue or anything you have.

Follow the outline of the guide, cutting out the side profile then moving on to the top profile.

Be careful of the areas with sharp angles or turns - you can approach them with two cuts rather than one.

Use a Dremel or spindle sander to sand off any saw marks from the band saw and to fix the shape of the elephant. Be careful around the nose and tail since they can break off easily.

Apply several layers of wood finish onto the sanded elephant. I used clear shellac spray, but you can also use lacquer spray, polyurethane, Danish oil, or any other wood finish.

You can use the wooden elephant to hold keys, or simply to brighten up your day or that of a loved one.

I also made a wooden box with a foam insert for the little elephant.