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Jon Slaton’s wooden tulips Pin on Pinterest
What do you do when the critters outside eat your flowers? If you ask Jon Slaton, he will tell you that the best thing to do is to make some wooden flowers and stick them in your pots. Jon, who lives in the Ozark mountains in Missouri, wrote to me after reading the story on the frame saws that my students had built. He wanted to share with me one of his brother’s (Deke Slaton) achievements — a great looking frame saw in the shape of two hands holding the saw blade in between (see pictures at the bottom of this entry).
Jon also mentioned his own wooden creations — wooden flowers that spring back and forth as the wind blows. He builds the flowers from scrap wood and connects their parts using notch joinery reinforced with adhesive. Jon uses spring stock that he cuts from a metal bending strip, such as the one that is wrapped around shipping crates and pallets, to allow the flower to swing. But you can also use the stainless steel springs that reinforce a car’s wiper blades. It is easy to remove and cut those springs to length. To connect the spring stock to the flower Jon makes a saw kerf with his frame saw in the wooden parts. If you decide to use the stainless steel wiper blade stock you can substitute the kerf with holes that you drill in the corresponding parts. See my exploded view drawing and Jon’s pictures bellow.
What a clever design and what a great project for all ages.
Wooden tulip exploded view
Wooden tulips, patterns
Wooden tulips, patterns
Wooden tulips, patterns
Wooden tulips, patterns
Wooden tulips, patterns
Wooden flowers
Windshield wiper blade’s stainless steel spring strip.
Deke Slaton frame saw
Deke Slaton frame saw detail
Deke Slaton frame saw detail
Deke Slaton frame saw, key detail
Check out “I Can Do That!” Episodes 1-6 at shopwoodworking.com for more easy projects that you can do at home!
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Yoav, thanks for this – I think it’s a perfect project to work on with the kids. One question: where is the stainless steel spring located on a wiper blade? It’s not clear from the picture of the description (at least to me)?
Many thanks,
Shawn