I designed and built a "thingy" to display decorative hockey pucks

Frank Pellow

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Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
Last Thursday afternoon, when I was taking my soon to be 8 grandson Ethan to his swimming lesson, he said “In 9 days it is my birthday, I wonder if someone is making something for me”. Both Ethan and his sister Isla really value home-made gifts and it is some time since I have made anything for him. I said that it was unlikely that I would be making him a gift this time and he was noticeably disappointed. So, although saying nothing more, I started racking my brain to think of something appropriate. Then, when reading him a bedtime story, I noticed a pile of souvenir pucks piled on his headboard. I “borrowed” one of them without Ethan noticing and started thinking about some sort of thing that I could build to display several pucks. After a number of false starts, it occurred to me that I have a large Forstner bit with the same diameter as a puck and so I could make indents to hold the pucks in some appropriate wood. In my scraps bins, I found some great ¼ sawn oak shorts. I drilled a test hole and attached a puck using Velcro tape.

Puck Display 02 -Testing an indent -small.JPG Puck Display 03 -Velcro in hole and on back up puck -small.JPG

In order to form a panel which is to stand upright and hold several pucks, I milled some boards to 18 millimetre thickness then glued them together utilizing a few dowels:

Puck Display 04 -Boards for upright portion joined with glue and dowels -small.JPG

After running the assembled panel through my planer to 15 millimetre thickness, I cut it to its (almost) final size, then drilled the puck-holding indents to a depth of 11 millimetres on my drill press:

Puck Display 05 -Indents bing drilled -small.JPG

Indents to insert Velcro tape were chiseled into the bottom of the drilled puck-holding indents:

Puck Display 07 -Chiselling indents for Velcro tape in the bottom of the indents -small.JPG

I milled another piece of oak to 25 millimetre thickness then cut a groove along its length to hold the upright portion of the display:

Puck Display 08 -Cutting a dado in the base portion -small.JPG

The base section is actually heavier than the upright section. Three screws from underneath hold it in position. Four puck holding holes were drilled in the base, giving the entire unit the capacity of 15 pucks. The unit was finished with three coats of Minwax wipe-on poly.

I snuck over to Ethan’s bedroom while he was at school today and made sure that all the pucks would fit. Here is a photo:

Puck Display 10 -Finished -small.JPG

So, in three days time, Ethan will be getting a birthday gift that someone made for him. Actually, I know of two homemade gifts he will be getting because Margaret is currently knitting up a storm on another gift for Ethan.
 
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Thanks Don and you are certainly right about grandchildren -they keep me on the hop.

He already has more pucks, so Ethan will have to be selective -or he will have to make something himnself to hold the others.
 
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