Blocks of wood are not very effective at holding yarn so we need to carve these a bit. 1st I make a template out of some card stock (6-pack carton) and mark all four sides that need to be carved.

Here you can see the pattern. Note the upward sweep at the ends. This should keep the yarn from falling off the ends (I hope).

Since this surface is curved my flat disc sander will not work. Since I don’t feel like using my whittling knife (not that I own one) I attack this hunk of wood with a new toy. A drum sander that fits into my drill press.

Here’s a video of the process
After the initial shaping I see a slight design flaw. Only a small portion of the top needs to be flat to hold the washer when this thing is screwed into the handle. That means I can have more curved area to hold more yarn.

So it’s back to the drawing board to modify the template. And remark the arms.

Here you can see the arm towards the top with more material removed. Much better!

A cool side effect of gluing two boards together is the pattern the grains make. In the veneering world this effect is call book matching.

Before I forget I drill a small pilot hole in the center. This will be drilled out after finishing to hold the dowel and screw.

Next I get to try out my other new toy I’ve been working on for the past week. My new router table! While it’s not complete yet with all it’s guides and fences its ready to go for some round-over action.

On a router table the bit protrudes from the bottom. This gives the full surface of the table to rest your work piece on. What I’m about to do would be VERY hard to accomplish with a hand router. Installed is a half inch round over bit. This will give the arms some nice shape for the yarn to wrap around (I hope again).

Here’s a video of my router table being used for the 1st time.
After hitting all the edges with the round over bit and some initial rough sanding here’s where we are at.

I’m not sure why but I think of a duck when I look at this thing. Maybe I have a future making decoys!