Thanks for all the kind words. Sorry I didn’t take photos during the build, I was just winging it. I have no excuses since I’m a retired professional photographer.
I started by rough cutting a piece of walnut slightly over sized. I then decided what size I wanted the shaft, about 3/4” square, so that determined the size of the hole. I used the bandsaw to slice the walnut into 3 pieces, with the middle piece being 3/4” thick. These 3 pieces would eventually be glued back together once the middle piece had been cut in half and 3/8” cut off both pieces to make the 3/4” wide hole. The narrow kerf of the bandsaw made for nearly invisible joints. Before the pieces were glued, I drilled a hole through the center of top piece just large enough to allow clearance for the thumbscrew. I then drilled a slightly larger hole partially through from the top to install a brass insert to hold the thumbscrew. Finally, I drilled a hole from the underside of the top piece to house the plastic bumper.
Hope that makes sense. Here’s a sketch that my cat did. Sorry it’s a bit rough, he had been hitting the catnip.
