Bookends

I saw a picture of a handmade rustic bookend with clavos and it gave me an idea to create western style bookends. The possibilities are endless!

We have a lot of scrap ash wood in our shop, so I decided to make the bookends from those scraps. I had a set of small scroll shelf brackets and thought it would be an easy bookend. I cut out the scallop design on the scroll saw.

All the bookends in this project are approximately 6.5" wide x 7.5" tall x 3" deep. The wood is 7/8" thick. The Boot and Horse cutouts are approximately 7/8" thick.

I painted the wood dark brown acrylic, let dry, then antique white, let dry and sanded some of the white off. I screwed on the bracket, which held the bookend together.

I traced the horseshoe onto wood and cut it out on the scroll saw and screwed the horseshoe to it. I spray painted it black.

I found a few pieces of teak, glued and screwed them together and added 2 coats of polyurethane. I glued and screwed the wood part of the horseshoe to the base and upright teak pieces.

This photo shows how the base is glued and clamped to the upright. Use a framing square or a block of wood that is cut 90 degrees to make sure the bookend is square.

I drew and cut out this boot on the scroll saw. A router was used on the ends of the base and upright.

With a scruffy fan brush, I lightly brushed antique white and tan acrylic onto the wood, let dry, then painted a water base English oak stain and wiped off the excess. After drying and sanding, I added 2 coats of water base Polycrylic. I used our 1/2" Hammered Clavos and a spur rowel concho on the boot.

I drew and cutout a horse head on the scroll saw.

The hardest part for me was trying to decide what finish to put on the Horse Bookends. I stained this one and thought it really brought out the design of the grain in the wood.

I decided to paint it black, turquoise and red acrylic.

I hope this will give you some ideas on how to create your own bookends. Have fun!