Wooden Page Holder

Christmas gift idea for a person who likes to read. Quick and easy to make.

What you need:

- Piece of wood (At least 10x3x2cm)

- Drill

- Saw of some kind (I used motorized miter saw)

- Grinder of some kind

- Sandpaper (400-ish for the finishing touch)

- Lacquer or some other method for finishing & protection

Step 1: The Blueprint

All you need is a piece of wood that is at least 10x3cm square. Thickness of the wood is up to you, I've made some that are only 1cm thick but the optimal would be around 1,5 to 2 cm thick. You may want to use a board and draw several of these patterns on it before drilling and sawing if you want to start a mass production. It is a lot easier to drill the holes before sawing believe me.

The drawing that I quickly made afterwards shows the basic shape of the piece before grinding. You can use the drill to shape the piece further before cutting it out of the wood as seen in the second picture. The diameter of the hole should be measured from the recipient. For a man's thumb it would be around 20mm as seen in the picture and for a woman it should be a lot smaller. You want to be holding this with the tip of your thumb

Step 2: Shaping

I basically used the grinder to shape the pieces after sawing them out of the original board. Those are the 2 shapes that I was the most satisfied with. I ended up making the ones which have smooth curve on other side purely because they are faster to manufacture.

Step 3: Advanced and Finishing Touch

To make ones that look a bit better I made a glued sandwich board of 2 different wood panels I found in our trash bin. After the pieces got their rough shape I used sandpaper to smoothen the edges and dipped the pieces in lacquer. I added several layers of lacquer to make them shine a bit more and of course used sandpaper before each dip.

Happy making!