Over on social media, a woodworker used Star Wars X-wing and TIE fighter starships to stabilize a large crack in a wood slab.
Large wood slabs and boards can be prone to stress-relieving cracks and separations that can worsen with time and varying environmental conditions.
Such cracks are typically stabilized with bowtie inlays.
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Basically, as I understand it, a wood bowtie or other stabilizer takes up some of the tension, and this helps prevent the crack from deepening or propagating.
Instagrammer @Mishar_Woodwork presumably used a CNC machine to cut inlays in their slab, and they also cut out the Star Wars starship shapes to the same thickness.
The blaster fire in contrasting colors made the idea pop even more.
The starships seem more for aesthetics than strength, but this probably isn’t a big deal since it looks like @Mishar also uses epoxy to fill and stabilize the cracks in their wood slab projects.
The maker showcased other crack-stabilizing designs, such as doves, a Batman batarang, and Tobey Maguire as Spiderman. In one project they also used a face from The Shining movie poster as a crack gap-filler.
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JR Ramos
Cute and clever…probably less functional but as you said, probably doesn’t matter. We had a fellow locally do something similar (without a CNC) using Gumby cutouts. Also cute, but it did retain some of the function with a dovetail wedge aspect. Star Wars was a huge influence on me as a little kid, so I like this…and the blaster fire is awesome!
Bonnie
I think it’s actually pretty decent strength wise. They’re quite deep bowties. The X-Wing is locking the “head” of the crack together to prevent propagation, and as long as the grain direction on the TIE is perpendicular to the slab it’ll have more than enough strength to keep the crack from widening.
I guess the real issue will be the longer cross-grain glue joints on the wings of the TIE fighter, but it should still be small enough not to cause too much stress.
Peter
That is cool.9
Nathan
Blaster fire should be colored i think. But neat idea
Munklepunk
So your saying it’s a bow tie fighter patch?
Stuart
Ha!