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.
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.
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.
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!
Pre-drill the braces before installing the eye hooks.
Hang them on the wall to test them when done!
Quality Control/Touch-up
Blue Line Badge Cutting
You may create a Blue-line badge flag. Just notify me BEFORE you cut out the final shape.