The 15 lbs GIANT-PENCIL pencil-holder

So I have a new perspective. I am trying to make projects out of materials I already have; as opposed to what I typically do, which is needing the perfect predetermined material to continue/start. So this time around I wanted to make something for my sister-in-law. She is a teacher, so my thoughts were for something for her classroom. This is what I came up with.

I started with some old 4X4's that I had lying around, I cut (4) 16" pieces and glued and clamped them up.

Then I had to work some angles; this was harder than I perceived. First, pencils have 6 sides, not 8......who knew? You think that would make the cuts easy: 6 sides into 360 degrees, 60 degree cuts- although the math works, the application has a few more variables.

In order to get each side equal, the distance from the point of each angle needed to equal to one another, which was less than the width of the 4X4 glue up- to compensate for this differential I cut it as close as possible and then ran it through the jointer to get them closer to equal- the problem with doing this was that each swipe through the jointer made the diameter a little bit smaller.

Once I got it to an acceptable rough shape, I began rounding the eraser and cutting/shaping the point.

Now we get into the fun part- drilling the holes and then paint. I purchased some inexpensive Ryobi fostner bits, that worked wonderfully. Then I took a regular sized pencil to the Depot and asked them to match the yellow body color and the eraser color- I had them mix me sample size portions- so for $8 I was able to get exact matches. After 2 coats of paint, 2 coats of poly and then a coat of wax, the project was done and she loved it.