Side project: helmet display

While I was finishing the cooler, for whatever reason I got a bug to put together a display stand for a couple of helmets I've got sitting around. They weren't out or anything, it was one of those ideas that wormed its way into my brain and wouldn't let go until I put some work into it.

Two very different helmets but they could both use a stand.

I have plenty of scrap around to put something together, but nothing wide enough for a base to balance a stand on. Thankfully, my first summer Friday was full of errands, and one of them put me close to a Menards where I could pick up a project plywood. After the errands but before I put the poly on the cooler, I could see if the stand I had in my head would work.

Whew that is not clean!

I cut a first square out of the plywood with the circular saw at a 45 degree angle, then traced that to cut a second square with straight edges to put the first one one. It's a pretty terrible cut job, to be honest, but they matched up okay and seemed like a solid base.

I traced the mallet head to get an appropriately-sized circle.

That's too tall for the football helmet but good for Kylo.

I cut a circle out of scrap with the jig saw, then glued that to a scrap 1x2 that got glued to the base. I screwed through the mitered plywood to give the base some stability, then glued the plywood pieces together. Very quickly, I had a stand.

Proof of concept, the bike helmet has been fine there all week.

It seems to be holding up okay, so next steps: repeat the build again, and figure out how to finish them. This is a lot of work for something that probably won't get much use, unless the boy wants to put either helmet in his room or I redo some shelves in our office. Even if that doesn't happen though, it was worth getting this idea out of my head and into the shop.