Previously, I showed how I design horn books around a project, and how you can too. In this post, I will show you how we cut out the horn book we designed without having any fancy woodworking equipment.
If you know a woodworker, the easiest method is to bake a batch of cookies and do a little bartering. My woodworker works for cookies, anyway. But if you don’t know a woodworker or would just prefer to keep your cookies for yourself, here’s how my husband (self professed as NOT a woodworker) cut one for me.
Watch the Video Tutorial:
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Choosing the Board:
First, choose your board. If you are going to paint the board, it doesn’t really matter what species of wood you use. If you are going to stain or just varnish the board, you probably want to take that into consideration.
I have had good luck going to a local cabinet shop and picking through their scraps. They have so many scraps and are happy to see them being used. If you don’t have something like that available, you can buy boards at a lumber yard.
You can choose whatever thickness you want for your horn book. I like to use thinner boards for smaller projects and thicker boards for larger projects.
Cutting the Horn Book:
Use some carbon paper to trace the horn book pattern onto your board.
Use a wood blade on a jig saw to cut out the horn book. We set up some saw horses with a piece of plywood on the top and clamped the wood board to the plywood to hold it still while sawing.
After cutting, the edges will be rough. You can use a wood rasp to smooth out the edges and round the corners a little bit.
Next, use a coarse sandpaper, such as a 60 grit to smooth the edges even more. Finally, use a fine grit sandpaper (180 grit) to finish the wooden horn book.
The next step will be to paint and age the horn book before mounting the finished punch needle project.
Be sure to pin this Tutorial:
