Orient Hairpick

Medium(s): Paduak wood, 2 part polymer resin
Dimensions: 5 ½” (14cm) long x 1 3/8” (3.5cm) wide x .5cm thick
Rough Date: September 2008
Techniques: cutting with a jigsaw, sanding using a lathe, hand sanding
Process: I designed an initial pattern for the hair pick; cut it out with a jig saw; I mixed up a 2-part epoxy and filled in the areas left at the top of the pick; I let it dry over night; I sanded a large portion of the wood off (using a lathe) in order to shape the piece, form the points, and round the edges; I then hand sanded the piece until it was perfectly smooth; finally, I finished it using an oil finish followed by a liberal amount of lacquer finish
Comments: I have really long, thick hair, so in the summer ponytails don’t fully keep my hair pulled up. I decided to make hair picks in order to pull my hair back into a bun and keep it there (because hair picks look MUCH nicer than pencils or chopsticks, especially when the chopsticks are longer than my head and stick out to both sides). The rest of my family has long hair as well (well, my elder sister, younger sister, and mother do, at least; not my dad) and they began stealing my hair picks to use for themselves. As a result, I have made somewhere around 30 or 40 hair picks, which are now scattered between the house, my sister’s apartment, and my dorm. With this piece, I decided to try adding decoration and a design to the top of the pick, rather than just leaving it as a geometric shape. I then decided to fill in the gaps with an epoxy, in order to strengthen it. Soon, I will use food dye to actually color the epoxy in other picks I make, so they will look like stained glass.