LaminIce

Icehouse Pieces of Wood Laminate

February 1998

Explanation

When I first started making wooden pieces, I decided that I would combine that project with one of my other desires. I wanted Icehouse pieces that had lines running from the base to the tip, so I could more accurately judge the attack line of a play.

Eventually, I came up with the idea you see above. By cutting the pieces from wood laminate, each piece has vertical lines running straight up through it. By cutting carefully, I got those lines to go straight through the tip of each piece, starting from the center of the piece's base.

I've seen things made out of multi-colored laminate wood, sometimes called "WonderWood", but I don't know where to get any. I had to make my own laminate, but that's not too difficult, just tedious.

Materials

I used 1/16 inch craft wood for most of it, though I needed to use a single sheet of 1/32 inch craft wood for the 2-pointers since they're supposed to be 25/32" wide at the base. You can see in the picture above that the center layer is thinner than the layers that surround it.

The Process

I alternated basswood and mahogany layers, gluing the layers together with wood glue, cutting the result in half, and gluing again. Due to the doubling action, this only took a few days. Once I had the blocks of laminate, I made pieces using the same sanding method I used to make my first Icehouse pieces.