Planchettes v2.0

 This is another post of a small batch of items that was made for sale at my store before it closed. I was hoping to create a line of planchettes that I could cut out completely on the laser cutter, and that would require less hand finishing than the solid wooden planchettes that I had previously made. Unfortunately, they still required more hand finishing than I had hoped, and I was unhappy with the quality of the final product. I only made one batch of them, and while they did sell, I considered this a failed product experiment.

 

 

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These were cut from multiple layers of 3mm plywood, instead of solid wood like my previous planchettes. The intention was to create stock design parts (uppers and lowers) that could be mixed and matched. Between sanding painting and gluing the layers together, there was no significant labor savings, and IMO the product was inferior to the solid wood planchettes or the solid wood with laser engraving planchettes.

Planchettes v1.6

I have made about five batches of planchettes since I first posted about them. This post is about batch #3, i.e. version 1.6. I'll try to keep it brief, because I just finished batch #4, i.e. version 2.0. 

Version 1.6 was just like version 1.5, except they had laser engravings on the top surface. It was a medium sized batch of about 17 units. All were made from hardwood, though some were made from planks that I planed down to thickness, and some were made from thin (1/8") stock I usually use in my laser. The laser stock ones were too thin to put a glass oculus into, so only the ones I planed got that. The woods used were red oak (laser stock), spalted buckeye, and hickory.  I didn't take many pictures of the production process, as most of it happened on the laser. Below are the planchettes hanging on a rack drying after being coated with either Danish oil or Tung oil finish. I can't remember which.

 I did learn a few things from this experimental batch.
First, although the laser stock wood will cut all the way through on the laser, it is really a little too thin to make a nice planchette, and definitely too thin to inset a glass oculus. The planed down boards on the other hand are a good thickness for drilling and insetting the glass, but even though they are technically under the maximum thickness for the laser, they are really too thick to cut through all the way by that method. In the future, I will likely just score the outer outline on the laser and do the rough cutting on the band saw and sand up to the line on the disk sander, like v1.0 and v1.5.

Second, due to possible alignment error when drilling out the center hole, I should mark the center of the hole with the laser by scoring a cross-hair, but NOT score the actual circle to be cut out. Any misalignment of the drill bit can cause the score line to be visible even after the hold is drilled.

Third, when using thin stock, orient the grain of the wood with the long axis of the planchette, or at a diagonal. Doing otherwise will create a weak point at the sides of the center hole, where the body is very narrow. 

Here they are again, waiting for the next coat of finish.

This batch with the laser engraving was very popular both on my Etsy store and in my brick and mortar shop. All of my offerings in my Etsy shop are sold out and I only have two left in the brick and mortar store. You can mostly make out all of the designs in the picture above, but I only took glamor shots of the ones that were going to be sold online. So, here they are-

This was a smallish batch that was finished fairly quickly. It only took a couple of days from start to finish. Its main purpose was to test the idea of cutting out planchettes on the laser, and for engraving the tops with designs.

Planchettes-A-Plenty

A few months back, I made two batches of wooden planchettes in an effort to use up some scrap wood. The first batch was only about four or five planchettes, with open holes. The second batch was maybe a dozen planchettes, about half of which got glass viewers inserted into the holes. Then I got kinda burnt out on making them, so I put the project aside and tried to sell the ones I had made, both in my Etsy store and in my shop.

Well, it took several months, but the Etsy store finally started gaining traction. I sold about ten or so planchettes through the Etsy store, and stock was starting to get pretty low, so I knew I would have to make another batch. Well... I think I may have over done it a bit.

This, my friends, is a stack of Ninety Four planchettes being rough cut from a variety of milled planks. Ninety - Four. And that is after I put one large sapele board back on the wood pile, and set aside two large planks from the stack I had milled for the project. I have no idea why I am making so many. It honestly didn't seem like it was going to be that many when I was picking out the wood for the project. I had to order more glass cabochons, and I still don't have enough. I'm going to have to order more still!

I think I may have to start thinking about making a line of ouija boards just to have any hopes of selling this many panchettes.

Planchettes v1.5

My planchette project started out as a quick weekend thing, and it turned into a three month long saga. This project took for freaking ever to wrap up, and I still have some more woods that I would like to make some out of, but I need to walk away.

So, while waiting for the black marbles, my 40mm glass cabochons arrived. I had saved about half of the second batch to experiment with insetting the glass cabs into the open hole.

This second style (I guess we could call it v1.5) has a slightly bigger hole that was set a little farther back on the body of the planchette. I used a 1-5/8" forstner bit to cut about half way through the wooden body (it was as close to 40mm as I could get without a metric forstner bit set), and then I used a 1-3/8" forstner bit to drill the rest of the way through. This gave me a small rim to rest the edge of the cabochon in. This ledge is visible in the pictures above, and this is the underside of the planchette.

 This batch I finished a little differently than the first two. These were finished with three coats of tung oil, and then followed up with a coat of paste wax.

 I attached the marble feet first, using E6000 glue and drilling recess holes, like before.

The flat side of the cabochon faces down, and from the top side, the domed side of the cabochon pokes up a little through the slightly smaller hole.The glass cab was glued in place from the underside. The glass cab has a nice magnifying effect for objects seen through it. I think it will work well for reading the letters of the spirit board through the hole. A small bead of E6000 was run around the lip of the hole, and the cab was dropped in.

 I didn't like the black marbles I waited so long to find, so I ended up using 10-12 mm marbles I found at Michael's.

 Here are the third batch, all finished. Many of these will be going in my Etst store, and some will be sold in my shop.

Cherry

Cherry

Mahogany

Mahogany

Elm

Mahogany

Mulberry

Elm

Mahogany

 I'd still like to make some planchettes out of hickory and walnut, but I have to set this aside for now. I'm planchetted out.