The Christmas Wishlist

So with that in mind I had an idea to have something kids could write their Christmas lists on and have it be one of those things that kids look forward to getting out each Christmas to scribble on, so it had to be reusable.

Immediately I knew it had to be a scroll, so I went on the hunt at Vector Art 3D, to find one, I found this one here. It was exactly what I had in mind, so I spoke to Beki about sourcing it for me, only to be told that it comes as part of the FREE Clip Art in VCarve & Aspire, excellent.

Next was finding something Christmassy I could put with it, so again utilizing Vector Art 3D, I ran a search on a load of different terms relating to Christmas and tried to envisage something going with the scroll. I came across this Santas Head and knew this was it. Armed with the pieces of Clip Art, I overlapped him into the scroll and hey presto, the wish list was born.

Then it was what to do with the scroll to enable kids or anyone for that matter to write on it over and over again. I still get nostalgic at Christmas and turn into a big kid, so even I wanted to write my list on it.

So I had ideas for whiteboard material, chalkboard material, a clip to hold a notepad onto it or a place for sticky notes. The one I really liked the idea of the most though was being able to write in chalk what I would like, then being able to rub it off and start over, just like the good old days of primary school when chalkboards were all that was used.

Now was the challenge of implementing this, do I inlay chalkboard material? So after a quick “google” I found you could purchase chalkboard paint/spray, after discussing this with James, he sourced me some Chalkboard paint which states only requires one coat and no primer. Easy win if you ask me.

So with it all in mind, I now had to decide how I wanted to machine this. First instinct was to just cut it out on the same block as it is just the quickest method, but then you have to think about everything else that you would like it to do and also finishing it afterwards too. The first thing that stopped me cutting this out together as one object, was that I wanted a nice finish between the scroll and Santa's head. My painting skills leave something to be desired, so cutting them out separately would help me create a nice edge finish between each part.

Sold on the idea of cutting them separately, I went to work on how I would hold them in place together once finished, a dovetail? a pocket? a pocket with mortise and tenon? or pocket and glue?

I had seen Beki do something similar for her Lion Head Door Knocker at the 2015 Vectric User Group, using an inlay with a location point. So I decided I would pocket out the overlapping side of Santa's face out of the scroll and leave behind a small square and then double side machine Santa's head creating the slot for this to lock into. I also created a small fluting toolpath into the Scroll where you could slot your chalk whilst not in use.

I had selected the only piece of wood i had available that would suit my needs and headed to the place they call, The Vectric Labs.....

The piece of wood I had was around 0.8 of an inch thick and was not only thinner in the center but also bowed. So I had to do some planing of the wood to try and create a piece that was consistent throughout. That accomplished, it was onto machining, as it always pays to do I had one last look through the toolpath's in the software. It was while doing this that I realized my locating shape was likely to cut through to the front of Santa's head. As a last minute decision I decided without spending more time assessing and changing my design and toolpaths to drop the location point and and just glue it inside the pocket and rely on the shape of the inlay to get it into the right position.
In the end everything worked out, I saved a little time machining,setting up and changing over tools etc and Santa and the Scroll slotted together in a nice tight fit, so glue wasn't really necessary, though I would advise gluing if using for children.

So the last thing to do was to finish the end product. I painted the scroll in the 'One Coat' chalkboard paint, which turned out really well and Santa had a a few layers of Shellac, as painting is not my strong point. I know some of you could actually give Santa a nice warm glow to his cheeks.

If you like the look of it you've got a whole year now to make one yourself, just head over to www.vectorart3d.com to pick up the models and get ready for Christmas of the future, "your kids are gonna love it."