American Flag Manufacturing

Hack & Hew, the local ax throwing venue, donates their used target lumber our class. We use woodworking machines to fabricate and manufacture American Flags out of the scrap wood. The finished flags are hung at Hack & Hew, and sales of the flags fund the purchase of shop materials. Below are before and after photos. 

Hack and Hew Official Website

Flag Manufacturing Grading Rubric 

Prepping Lumber 

1. The first thing to do is to inspect the wood for screws and nails. Do not use any lumber that has screws left in it!

2. Set the planer to 1.5 inches and plane the target-painted side. 
3. Plane many boards at a time. The photo shows about 20 boards being fed into the planer. Then turn the adjustment wheel one turn clockwise (1/16") and repeat the process. 

Cutting Lumber to Length, Width & Thickness

4. For the nicer pieces of lumber, you will use these to cut wider boards for the star portion of the flags. You may be able to get 5" x 7" boards out of some of the reclaimed lumber without having to glue the star panels together. 

The nicer, blemish free lumber should be used for the star section. Show is a piece large enough for a 5" x 7" piece that can be used for a small sign without having to glue pieces together.

The blade height should barely be above the wood you are cutting and the splitter should be installed when cutting reclaimed lumber

Cut the thickness of the boards to 7/8" first. After you glue the sections together, you will run those thru the planer to get it down to 3/4" thick.

ALWAYS have the flat edge against the fence. If the piece does not have a flat edge, it needs to be cut on the bandsaw and used as fire wood.

7/8" thickness cut

Take the 7/8" strip and turn it on its side. The medium size flag requires 1 1/32" strips.

Cutting a 1 -1/32" strip for a MEDIUM Flag

LABEL the ends of the wood SML, MED, or LRG for corresponding flag sizes.

Stripe Staining 

Stain all 7 of the strips for each flag at the same time. 

Stripe Burning

Use the Bernzomatic to torch the "light" colored strips. Do this outside or right next to the open garage door. Do not have any paint or flammable materials near your strips! 

Star Stenciling 

Panel Gluing 

Panel Planing

Flag Assembly

Flag Frame and Hanging Wire

Make sure the flag and the braces are both 3/4" thick, so when you glue and nail gun it on with 1" nails, the nails won't go all the way through the facing. 

Pre-drill the braces before installing the eye hooks. 

Hang them on the wall to test them when done!

Quality Control/Touch-up 

Make sure to use masking tape if any paint touch-ups need to be made. Hang the flag on the way to make sure it hangs evenly.

Blue Line Badge Cutting 

You may create a Blue-line badge flag. Just notify me BEFORE you cut out the final shape.