Quickie

I've mentioned it before; sometimes one just needs to finish something quick and easy to get some momentum going in the shop.  This project hardly is fine furniture building, but it does yield an opportunity to practice some basic skills.

My wife has always had these clunky coat hangers that were probably in fashion 20 years ago.  They are made from scots pine (Pinus sylvestrus), and every once in a while the screw-in hook on this style comes out and needs to be glued back in.

I had one in my shop, thinking that it might be a nice exercise to do some kind of double sliding dovetail patch.

Needless to say, this hasn't ever gotten done because there always is something more important than that to spend a few hours fiddling with this patch.

Today I decided just to make a new one.  I am not talented with a bowsaw, so even with all the clean up involved there, this took about 30 minutes from marking out to applying finish.

The top one is the original, the bottom is my copy.

This is the perfect piece to do with a scrap piece of paulownia (Paulownia tomentosa).  It is so easy to saw this stuff.

I just traced the pattern from the original onto my roughstock, sawed it out with my bowsaw, and cleaned it up with some spokeshaves, rasps, and a little bit of 180 grit sandpaper.

I finished it with some leftover tung oil I had mixed up with turpentine on a previous project.

I know that you can buy these screw-in hangers from some woodworking supply places, and can recommend them for a quick and dirty project.

Time will tell if this wood holds up any better than the pine did.

I think my next hangers will be copies of these hangers I found in a Bavarian open air museum.  I think these would be a fantastic short exercise, too!

Bavarian farm hangers

I really like the bottom two.  Those are next.

Meanwhile, after I got this hanger made, I got to work on my proper project:

Getting back to work on an old project.

 More about this one next time!