Timber Frame Tools

The other night, the cat was watching something intently that was just outside the pool cage.  When we took a look, there was a corn snake laying on the rocks outside the pool cage.  He had just started shedding his skin.  We watched him wiggle out of the thing 1/4″ at a time.   It was pretty cool.

My Mother-in-Law is terrified of snakes so I suggested we mail the snake skin to her.  That idea was shot down.   Then I thought, wouldn’t it be neat to mail her a ring made from the snake skin … that idea was shot down too.    However, I couldn’t let it go.  I had to try to make a snakeskin ring, even if I couldn’t send it to my mother-in-law.  I decided to try making one for my son.

To measure his ring size, I wrapped a piece of blue painters tape around his finger with the sticky side facing out. Then I started wrapping painters tape around a AA cell until it matched the his ring size.  I then put a piece of clear packing tape over that, to keep the ring from sticking to it.  I cut a strip of black paper to act as a core. Then I cut a section of the diamond pattern from the snake skin to form strips roughly the same width as the paper strip for the core.

As I wound it around 1/4 turn at a time, I applied more super glue.  When the core had a couple of windings, I switched to the snake skin.  Apply glue underneath, wind 1/4 turn, repeat.  I kept this up until I had couple of windings of the snake skin in place.  The snake skin was looking pretty pale and bland, so I asked my son if he wanted to put on a little color.  He said he wanted green diagonal stripes.  So I dabbed on a bit of green model paint/nail polish.  In hindsight I should have done this just underneath the last layer of snakeskin as it would have made the color more striking within the diamond pattern of the skin.

I continued by wiping on a few coats of super glue.  I switched to my Son’s mini lathe to spin on a few more coats of CA glue.  Because the snake skin had texture, I had to wipe on a lot more coats of CA glue before getting it built up enough to sand smooth.

Once it was fully coated I pulled it off of the lathe and sanded the edges of the ring on a flat table until I had the width I wanted.  Then I put it back on the lathe for more sanding, and then working my way up through 2500 grit.

I sanded the inside of the ring by hand, with some sandpaper on my finger.  Then I put it back on the lathe for applying some Johnson’s paste wax.  This made it gleam and sparkle.

I was very happy with the appearance, it was cooler than I had anticipated.