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Description

Making and branding wooden woggles using woodburning tools and branding iron

Resources

Wooden blocks 30mm square
Drill with 22mm bit, or 22mm hole saw
Sandpaper
File
Grips
Pencil
Branding Iron
Wood burning tool
Danish oil

Instructions

1. You will need one 30mm square block per yp. We have a leader that was able to make these for us using his table saw. However you can buy them from Amazon and Ebay - they sell them as blank dice blocks. This will mean you can miss out the sanding stage later as they're generally finished already. We found with prototypes this to be the best size, bigger looked quite clunky.

2. The same leader drilled out the core for necker size. We found 22mm was best (we use all adult neckers). We wanted the yp to do this themselves, but the proximity of their hand holding the block to the drill and such a small margin of error it failed our RA. The leader has a pillar drill at home and a jig. You may be able to bring in a vice or some sort of clamp, but in this case we could not.

3. The yp used different grades of sandpaper to take the edges off all corners, and give a nice finish to the flat surfaces. The inside can be sanded off with a round file or rolled up sandpaper.

4. We used a branding iron with the scout logo on to brand them on one side. The yp did this themselves with help/supervision. You can use adjustable grips or similar to hold the woggle still and keep hands away. The stamp was slightly too big to go on square after sanding had happened, but we took the view that on an angle looked good and was better than a big woggle. You could also make the central hole smaller if you wear necker with a friendship knot and then with the brand on a 45° angle it would look the right way up when worn on one side! We used off cuts of wood to protect the tables from burns.

5. We then used a woodburning tool to decorate the back. Some leaders put their names, and the young people put initials so we could identify lost ones! We found it best to draw in pencil first and go over with the tool.

6. To finish we used Danish oil and left them to dry for a week. Applied using an old rag and young people given gloves to keep it off their skin.

The wooden blocks were home made but you can buy from Amazon.
The branding iron came via etsy from China, again Amazon also sell from the far east, just need to plan this activity in plenty of shopping time! Order from a UK company and the price doubles.
The woodburning tools - one came from middle ailse of Lidl and the other from amazon.

It wasn't a cheap activity, but the equipment can be and will be used again for various activities such as branding bird boxes to go in out local wood, planters we help make for village in bloom, coasters, etc.

We got through around 20 young people in just under an hour, using the following set up – one adult watching the sanding (then switching to oiling), one adult working 1:1 on the branding iron, two adults set up working 1:1 with the woodburning tool, and one adult overseeing the whole operation (directing people to a tool area when space was free/monitoring the queue for both). It worked well and we needed the extra adults to ensure it was safe.

The woggles could be made, and instead of heat to decorate, you could paint and varnish, but there's a chance that the paint may bleed, unless undercoated first.

I've not added badge links as it doesn't really fit to any of the current activity badges, but it was something fun to do that they'll remember and have enjoyed and not everything needs a badge. That said, we did take the view that we counted it as part of the Skills Challenge badge as it was a skill learnt and was a creative activity so was 'other agreed by leader'. We also did it as Leader chosen 'Personal Challenge'. So I've left it up to you as to how much you think it counts towards badgework, by not adding it!

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