Working wood

Gruff Goats

My wife teaches Kindergarten and asked me to make some wooden billy goats to go with the story they are working with: "The Three Billy Goats Gruff".

These were to be simple silhouettes, nothing fancy, so it was very surprising how much fun they were to make. As you will see, I thought they were pretty fun to play with too.

First, I copied the design onto the stock. I oriented the design to allow the grain to run with the long, thin parts to give them as much strength as possible.


Then it was just a matter of cutting the shape out with the coping saw:


All cuts made - reassembled for fun, and to show how I chose to use relief cuts etc.:


The goat freed from the wood:


The brothers three:


Posing a la "The Bremen Town Musicians":


More fun:



There was some kind of magic in this little project. Its hard to explain, but I loved it!