I had some scraps of various hardwoods, so what to do with it? Turn it into wall art! The round sculpture is 23 inches in diameter and consists of 57 individual wedges, each one about 8.5 to 10 inches long.

Supplies

Pieces of hardwood scraps, about 10" wide by 3/4" thick, by whatever you have

Wood glue

Table saw or miter saw

Band-clamp, clamps

Step 1: Preparing the Wedges

First I glued together several pieces of scrap 3/4” hardwood to make a few boards that were about 10 inches wide by 24 inches long. Glueing your scraps together like this makes it easier and safer to cut the wedges. I worked with any scraps that I found in my shop. Each board was cut into wedges with angles varying between five and seven degrees. The ‘average’ dimension of the wedges is shown in the drawing above. The following hardwoods were used: hard maple, wormy maple, birch, cherry, walnut, pecan, and hickory. This gives the final piece a nice range of color tones. I also had some wedges left over from my “Doorstop Instructable” which I used in this project.

Step 2: Sculpting the Wedges

To make the art sculpture visually more interesting I modified each wedge in one of the following ways: cut lengthwise or crosswise grooves, cut some zig-zag grooves, drilled various diameter holes and hole patterns, nibbled out sections along the edge, etc. Use your imagination if you plan to make your own sculpture. All the cuts were done on the table saw, band saw, or drill press. I even planted a little twig into one wedge, go look for it!

Step 3: Assemble and Glue the Sculpture

Before gluing the sculpture together I tried various layouts until I found a pleasing pattern. At this point I labeled each wedge with blue tape.

The gluing process took place in several stages. First I glued several (e.g. 3 to 6) wedges together, without using clamps. Don’t use too much glue, and clean the pieces before any glue squeeze-out dries. Be sure the wedge assembly lays flat. I made several of these multi-wedge sections. Next I screwed some stops to a large board to facilitate clamping together an almost-half circle. Take a look at the picture, and make a dry-run of the clamping procedure first. Arrange the multi-wedge sections, apply glue, and force one single wedge against the stop without glue to apply clamping pressure. In the picture above it is the light colored maple wedge at the bottom, the one without a blue tape label. Repeat the procedure to make the second almost-half circle. At this point you are about two to four wedges short of a full circle. The final gluing and clamping is done with a band-clamp, a parallel or F-style clamp, and some spacer blocks as needed. You may have to trim or shape the final wedges for a best fit. Be sure the sculpture stays flat when you glue and clamp. This last glueing/clamping is a little tricky, take your time!

Step 4: Finish

The last step is trimming the perimeter to shape the sculpture into a clean circle. Inevitably, some of the wedges will stick out a little, so trim them flush. I used a belt sander for the trimming. My sculpture was finished with wipe-on poly. Attach a hook or wire to the back and hang your sculpture on the wall. I like the negative space in the center, it draws your eye and appears to glow brighter than the surrounding wall. As my sculpture ended up with 57 individual wedges - not sixty - I decided to call it “Not a Clock”.