More Geocache Trinkets

I found my ninth Geocache this weekend. The weather was crisp and the hiking trail I was on was surprisingly abandoned. Only one other person - a lady bicyclist and her dog - passed by during my two hour outing. 

I have been dutifully documenting my cache swag trades (well, when there was stuff in there to trade, anyway) and so far I have given away five of the little wooden GPS units I made - only five more to go.  This weekend I built some yo-yos out of a spare dowel and a leftover board from the Pallet End Table project.   

The wood burning iron I used to etch the designs into the wooden GPS units was good enough to get me used to the process but the cord is very short, I only have one nib for it, and it didn't come with a stand.  Pretty limiting and really unsafe. 

Despite the best efforts of the useless Sears slob slouching against a cash register and testing the elastic limits of a shirt that was probably a 60% cotton, 40% food-grease-stain blend, I managed to locate and buy a new Weller wood burning kit.  Not top-of-the-line by any means but a significant upgrade from the "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" version I had been dealing with before, plus, at $18, the price was right. 

I cut the disks for the yo-yo halves using a two-inch hole saw chucked into my drill press. Maybe the aged wood was tougher than I thought or maybe the saw teeth are really dull but the cutting process took a long time.  Not only was the disk-making incredibly noisy (it sounded like I was sawing through a couple of fighting cats) I felt like I was within about half a degree from the wood's ignition temperature the whole time. This part of the project was unpleasant enough to where I decided to make only seven of these things instead of the ten I originally planned on. 

I hit the disks with the sander and glued in the dowels, leaving enough sticking out the end where I could chuck them back into the drill press to use it as a sort of "poor man's lathe".  I spun up the press and beveled the string groove a little and buffed out any remaining rough parts. 

After cutting the extra dowel length down with a coping saw I burned in some free-hand "artwork". Each one has "snowurchin" and a serial number on the front and a design on the back.  Each simple design is different. 

After a quick wash in diluted gel stain the yo-yos were spray sealed and a three-foot string was added. Done. Project time - about two hours from start to finish.  

"Do they 'yo'?" you ask.  

Yes, yes they do, but not very well. I mean, they come back and I even got one to "sleep" but you ain't gonna be winning any competitions with these things.  I guess the strongest claim I could make is that they are more functional than the wooden GPS units I made, but just barely. 

But as far as achieving the goal of being cheap, clearly homemade, interesting, and quick-and-satisfying-to-produce: mission accomplished. 

I like fabricating my own Geocache swag for trade and the boy is interested to see what trinkets I will emerge out of the woods with next (pic on left), so I think I will keep this up for a while. 

I have three ideas for the next series but I am not sure yet what I should do next. The first idea is a little wooden race car, the second is a leather and barnwood necklace, and the third is a series of little wooden three-page books (I have already written the story).   I think I like the car idea best, though.  

Meh... We will see.