Wooden Star Pendant

Hey guys, today I will show you how to make a beautiful star shaped pendant out of wood.

I will explain a basic and a more advanced version.

For the initial carving of the star you will need:

• a piece of your choice of wood (for beginners I recommend a soft wood like bass wood, since there will be a lot of cutting against the grain and harder woods tends to splinter more easily)
• a sharp carving knife (I used a chip carving knife since the blade is super thin and tall, which is good for cutting through wood in a push-motion)
• a leather strop to keep a sharp edge (keeping the edge very sharp is important for all carving but on this one it is essential, since this is the only way to make smooth cuts against or vertical to the grain)
• (optional: a bigger knife for the initial roughing)

For transforming the Star into a pendant you will need:

• a piece of wire (around 10cm will be plenty)
• a piece of cord (here you can use whatever type you like, I used 60cm of a 1mm waxed black cotton cord)
• some superglue
• a small nail or metal rod
• a pair of pliers
• a wirecutter
• a Dremel or a small drill

Start by making a square template out of paper to save some time with measuring the edges of the cube.

Mark the square on the endgrain of the piece of wood. Split the rough shape of the square pillar, then carve it to as close to a perfect square as possible. Being precise here will make for the nicest finished star.

Mark The remaining four edges of the cube and separare the cube from the rest of the wood. I used a knife but you could also use a very fine wood saw.

(Recommended but not necessary: Flatten all Sides on some fine grit sandpaper, I used P400.)

From this point on it can be helpful to wear latex gloves to keep the wood as clean looking as possible.

First mark a centered cross on each side of the cube with the lines running parallel to the cubes edges.

When done marking, cut vertically into the edges. Then cut along the edge towards the previous vertical cut. Do this from both sides, removing chip by chip until the centers of two adjacent faces are connected by one straight line. Leave some extra wood on the triangular face and around the points since you have to apply a fair amount of pressure to some cuts and if the points are too sharp too soon you run the risk of breaking them. In case you break a point don't worry, you can just reattack it with some super glue.

Once the whole star has been roughly shaped you can start shaving off the extra wood from the triangular faces and perfecting the points.

This step is optional but makes your star look even cooler.

First make marks a quarter to a third of the length of a groove away from the center cross, depending on how long you want the new spikes to be.

Now make cuts into the center cross following the angle of the two triangular faces running parallel to the blade as shown in the pictures. Then from the stars points cut towards the bottoms of these cuts, removing chips and creating new spikes in the centers of the faces of the original cubes.

In this step a custom hanging loop for is created to turn the star into a star pendant.

First wrap a piece of wire twice around a small nail.

Then cut off access wire and twist the two ends together by holding them with pliers and twisting the nail.

Finally remove the nail from the loop and cut the access twisted wire. Where you make the cut depends on the size of your cube and how deep you intend to droll the anchor hole.

To anchor the custom hanger into the star, first cut off one of the points.

Now use the Dremel or a small drill to create a hole almost as deep as the hangers shaft is long.

Finally cover the hangers shaft in super glue, insert it into the hole and rotate it until the hanging hole lines up as shown in the last picture.

First tie the two ends of the cord together as shown in the picture. This makes a loop that is adjustable to every possible head size.

Cut the access cord.

Finally push the loop through the hanger creating two loops, one big and one small, on either side of the hanger. Feed the bigger loop through the smaller one and pull it tight.

Congratulations!!! You have now finished the star pendant and can gift it to someone special or wear it yourself.

If anything is unclear feel free to ask me in the comments :)