Making it up as I go

[Stigmorgan]

So, my girlfriend's aunt died a while back and was cremated, her ashes are to be spread at the crematorium and my g/f has asked if I can make something as a temporary marker until the stone marker is done. I had an old 8foot length of fence post laying around and immediately decided to use that. In my haste I have made things harder for myself than they needed to be, I should have planed/ sanded the faces before cutting and meshing together, hindsight is great isn't it. I don't really have a plan for how this will look exactly when finished but I have just bought a router to round off the edges. Apart from the router the only other power tool i have is a cordless drill. I will post pics tomorrow as the ones i have now are too big to upload.

 

[Stigmorgan]

Here's the pics as promised. I'm kind of happy with it so far, suggestions and critique are welcomed.

 

[thetyreman]

why the holes on the corners?

 

[Stigmorgan]

why the holes on the corners?

I thought it looked boring once I had the two pieces together so wanted to make it a little fancy, I've searched Google images and done a few sketches and this stood out the most, I'm not going to cut the external corners but not sure I want to leave them square either, will see how it looks once I've run the router round the edges. Undecided about the 1/4 rings in the internal corners so will cut a few different sizes out and see how they look before deciding

 

[Woody2Shoes]

I think it looks great just as it is. I like the "Celtic" holes.

You could write her name with a hot nail - or a soldering iron if you have one - pyrography.

I'd cut a point at the bottom end to make it easier to "plant".

If you want it to last a little longer, maybe soak it in some more (clear) wood preservative.

Cheers, W2S

 

[Stigmorgan]

I have some oak that is about 600mm across and almost 300 thick so thinking of mounting it into one, this is only a temporary marker until the stone one is done, then the g/f cousin will keep the wooden cross at home. The family is Irish catholic so the design is kind of following what I've seen on Google image search for catholic cross. Got a bit more sanding done today, it's the screwfix live show this weekend here in Farnborough so gonna go down tomorrow and see if i can get some new toys and better sand paper.

 

[Chris152]

Isn't your design more like a celtic cross?

 

[Stigmorgan]

Isn't your design more like a celtic cross?

Kind of yes, here's the Google images search I'm using as inspiration

 

[Stigmorgan]

A little more progress.

 

[Stigmorgan]

The finished result, I decided against using the router on the edges and used a file and sand paper to round the edges slightly, gave a final few passes with sand paper up to about 200grit then a good soaking of teak oil. Overall I'm happy with it, sure there are plenty of things I would do differently if I started over but hindsight is always 20/20