Wooden Saw Present

I made this for my father, for his birthday this year, as a gift from my son, who helped me build this along the way. it was a really fun project. there were a few thing that i have never tried before. so it was a great learning experience. it was also extremely fun, i cant wait to get back into the garage and build something else.

i decided to buy a decent piece of wood for this project. i decided on some poplar. once you have your wood, its time to gather your materials. the tools you need are a jigsaw, sand paper 50grit through 220grit. also a pencil, which i used to draw the design on to the piece of wood. i didn't use a template to trace the design, i suggest you do, so things come out straight. i had this design in my head of the shape of the saw, so i just drew it out and made corrections as i went.

So lets get started. Grab your jigsaw and start cutting your design out like you would with a pair of scissors. Cut as close to your lines as possible. You could probably get better results using a better saw like a band or scroll saw, to get a more intricate cut.

Keep following your design until you have your shape. at this point you have a rough looking piece of wood with sort of a shape that you are looking for. What i have done to make it look more like a saw was to start to shape it. i did this with sand paper, starting with 50 grit i was able to get out a lot of the rough spots and was able to make it look more like a saw handle and blade.

This step was fun, and easy. Draw design, burn with wood burning iron. I have not had the pleasure of burning wood with an iron before, if you have not tried it what a relaxing, southing experience. I loved every moment of it, and it wasn't rocket science, just trace design.

For the handle i decided to do a dark stain and chose a dark cherry stain. i paint it on waited for it to dry, and sanded with 220 grit sand paper and then re applied stain.

I then sealed the wood with a high gloss polyurethane. I painted on a coat, waited for it to dry and sanded it down with 220 grit sand paper to get rid of any of the air bubbles.

After sanding, I added the final coat of high gloss poly and let dry. i added two eye hooks so my father could hang it.