Make a Wooden Crown from a Log

I've had a few small cedar logs in the shop for a couple of years, but could not decide what to do with them.  When Dominic Bender announced his Challenge Tree event, I took this opportunity to transform a cedar log into a Wooden Crown!  Check out my video of this project.

Freshly cut cedar makes the shop smell great!  I'm not a fan of the powdery dust though.  Wearing a mask or respirator is a must when working with cedar.  Also, cedar is very delicate and thin pieces crack very easily under pressure.  Glue and sawdust makes for easy repairs.

The trickiest part of this project was making all of the top pieces of the crown fit together.  I used a template to cut 60 degree angles at the top of each piece.  My cuts were not perfect, but they were good enough to glue it together and cover with a wooden disc for stability.

Cedar looks very dull when it's unfinished.  My favorite thing about working with cedar is the moment when I apply the finish.  I sprayed the crown with MinWax Lacquer and the colors in the wood just exploded and the project came to life!

This was a really fun project to make and I loved being creative with adding the diamonds and finial.  Please comment and let me know what you think.  If you would like to make one of these yourself, click here to download my FREE template!  Send me a picture of your crown - I would love to see it!