Thread: Flag Holder

I made this flag holder about 8 years ago, pretty much from scratch. I felled a diseased oak tree in my back yard, and cut the trunk into two narrow slabs with a jury-rigged chainsaw mill. As best I can recall, the mill consisted of an angle iron, some spacers, and two C-clamps; some threaded rods might have also been involved. It was a temporary setup, the components have been re-distributed or reused, and I didn't take any pictures. I used a hand plane to true the slabs, by "blueprinting" against my router table. (Actually a red crayon IIRC.)

I shaped the profile with several different cutters on the router table. The end view shows a waste section to maintain alignment, which was cut off last. I made a cradle to support the molding on my drill press table, to drill holes for the flagstaffs, all of which are remarkably parallel. The finish is polyurethane varnish. BTW, the flag holder has now been relocated to my home "office."

The flags represent locations of engineering and construction projects during my professional career. Most of them are cloth desk flags, about 4" x 6", except that of the Chagos Archipelago; at the time I couldn't find a cloth flag so I printed a paper version from a "Flags of the World" website, or some such name. By quirks of geography, at any time at least one of these locations is in daylight, hence the slogan from the colonial era. The plastic letters came from a set of cafeteria/diner-type menu sets, also used in office building directories. I think the small Earth globe was originally part of a novelty pencil sharpener, from a garage sale of course.

Joe