Scrap Wood Wall Art

Challenge yourself to use up leftover scrap wood to create one-of-a-kind diamond shaped and torched wall art pieces.

Directions

1. Cut your plywood into diamond shapes. You can free hand any diamond design. This project features 13" sides and was cut at 22 ½ degree angles.
2. Next, prep reclaimed pallets/scrap wood. Rip them into 1 ¼" strips and keep the excess ¾" cut offs for accents later.
3. Next, prep the diamonds for the designs. Start by marking the center of the boards and then use a straight edge to create a grid to lay out your pieces.
4. Once you are ready to design, choose the angle you’d like your pieces to be. For a piece that will fit together flawlessly, use 45 degree angles for all of your geometric cuts. Don’t worry too much here about making sure they fit perfectly, because you’ll be trimming the overhang later. 
   
5. Begin to paint, stain, and de-stress your pieces before assembling. This is done using three different techniques: painting pieces, staining pieces, and torching pieces using the Bernzomatic TS4000.
6. After letting the pieces dry, attach the first horizon of pieces using wood glue and brad nails. 
7. Next, fill in the remaining spots. To do this, use a pre-cut piece of wood and mark the overhang with a pencil (you can see this in action in the above video). Then use a miter saw to find the angle. The angle should be about 50-ish degrees or so, but will depend on your measurements. Make sure to double check this angle and do what works for your piece.
   
8. As I fit my pieces on these ends of the piece, I trimmed a few pieces on my miter saw to create some fun shapes. I made sure to use the same angles for all of my cuts to help the design flow and fit (make sure to check out my YouTube video to see this step in action).
9. Next, torch, paint, and stained these pieces until you are happy with the design. 
   
10. Next, glue and nail the pieces to the board.
    
11. Repeat all of these steps for a second piece if you have enough lumber.
12. Once art pieces are complete, flip them over and use a circular saw/track saw with a straight-edge guide to trim the art pieces along the edge of the plywood. 
13. Then use any old cutoffs (these are 2x4s) to create boarders for the art piece. Again, angles will differ but featured here are 36.6 and 57 degrees. Once cut, attach the borders to the pieces using brad nails and wood glue.
    
14. Last step is to attach picture hanging hooks and hang in your space.