'Rustic' American flag project

[steelo]

I'll post updates as I make progress, if anyone is interested in following the steps...As of right now, this will become the Betsy Ross version of the American flag.

 

Last night, I used a propane torch to lightly char the planks to bring out the wood grain. I still need to find wood stain (crimson red and navy blue) for the stripes and union. I think I'm going to leave the white stripes as is...probably put a light natural stain on it. My wife is going to make the stencil for the stars with her cricut machine but we haven't found a free .svg yet...

 

[Rybo]

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.  I will follow this project with alacrity.  

 

Also: What you got against white washing for the white stripes?  That seems tailor made for this!

[steelo]

5 minutes ago, Rybo said:

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.  I will follow this project with alacrity.  

 

Also: What you got against white washing for the white stripes?  That seems tailor made for this!

I may see what it looks like with natural grain. I've seen videos where they've kept the white stripes a natural wood color while making the other stripes a darker, more 'burnt' red. They seem to complement each other very well...

[steelo]

Started the staining, will probably need 2 coats of the crimson red. I do notice that the burnt wood doesn't seem to absorb the stain as well.

[steelo]

 

1st coat of red stain.

[steelo]

Red and blue finished with 2 coats of stain.

 

[steelo]

You may be able to see in the picture above how the edges of the union are bare and semi-visible...that would have driven me insane, so I went ahead and remedied that. While waiting for the stain to dry, I glued together and clamped the bottom portion of the flag. Once the stain for the edges of the top half is dry, I'll glue together the remaining sections of the flag. A note for anybody who uses wood glue for projects - A little goes a LONG ways! I put just a dab too much and spent about 20 minutes wiping it off of where it oozed through the planks.

 

Tomorrow I'll work on painting the union section. My wife was able to download a stencil to use for the stars.

[steelo]

[steelo]

[Jayraven]

20 minutes ago, steelo said:

Wow! That looks amazing. 

[Letgomyleghoe]

damn dude, looks sicks as fuck, nice job!

[atxcyclist]

That is a really cool project, what species of wood did you use?

[steelo]

1 hour ago, atxcyclist said:

That is a really cool project, what species of wood did you use?

Thanks! It is non treated pine.

[steelo]

1 hour ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

damn dude, looks sicks as fuck, nice job!

Thank you! It's not perfect but I'm working with limited space and tools. Overall, it wasn't a 'difficult' project if you take your time.

 

If I were to do it again, I would use a separate piece of wood to create the union section. It would have looked a lot cleaner. Getting the transition between the red and blue perfect seemed almost impossible because of paint bleed. Tomorrow I may try to straighten it out a bit.

[steelo]

1 hour ago, Jayraven said:

Wow! That looks amazing. 

Thank you!

[steelo]

Painted the outside edges to look a bit cleaner. I still have to mount backing braces, but it's late and I don't want to wake my wife up making a racket!

[Rybo]

Me rn:

 

[steelo]

[steelo]

Braces mounted, along with the hanging wire.

 

One of the planks is a tad bit warped, so I tried to straighten it out with the extra screw in the brace. 

[steelo]

 

And that's a wrap! 

 

I used this handy flag calculator for the dimensions:

 

https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/flag