Introduction: Simple Wooden Christmas Tree

About: I'm a woodworker/maker on YouTube

Modern Christmas trees are really popular and if you're a woodworker it's a great way of practicing your skills.

In this Instructable I use cheap pine from the scrap bin at my local big box store and turn it into a piece of modern art. Well, I think so anyway.

For this project you'll need some lengths of pine. I used 42mm x 19mm, and they were all 1.2m long. The dowel for the centre is 19mm thick.

Step 1: Cut the Branches to Length

My tree is 1.2 metres tall so I worked out how wide I wanted. I started at 600 millimetres and stopped at 100 millimetres, decreasing the length by 50 millimetres each time.

Make sure to mark each board as you go so you don't get confused. You'll need to cut pairs of boards to make an 'X'. I cut the boards using a mitre saw but you could just as easily cut them with a handsaw.

Step 2: Start Making Your 'X's

Find the centre of each board and mark it. Then drill a hole slightly bigger than 19mm. You don't want this to be too tight for a few reasons; the 'X's need to slide all the way down the dowel which might change slightly in diameter, and if you put this outside it will shrink and expand and might squeeze down on the timber.

To drill the holes I used a hole saw but in hindsight this was more work than it need to be. A cheap spade but would've been a lot better.

To keen the boards in an 'X' formation set them in place then drill a small hole through them. This will take a small pin nail. Use some CA (super) glue on one of the nails to keep it in place in the board. Before drilling the hole for the nail slide both pieces of timber onto the dowel. This will ensure they are perfectly lined up when you make the hole.

Step 3: The Base and the Shaft

I made the base out bits of scrap. Essentially you just want a big 'X' that sits firm on the ground. If you didn't want to go through this step you could just jam the dowel into the ground, or fill a bucket with dirt.

Now slide all the 'X's onto the shaft and mark where you want them. Once you're happy with the placement of the 'X's remove them and drill some 8mm holes for dowels. The 'X's will rest on these dowels so sanding the dowels will make them easily removable.

Step 4: Finish and Assemble

I stained the pine a darker colour and gave is a few coats of clear acrylic spray.

All that was left was to assemble it. Start with a dowel and slide on the biggest 'X'. Then it' s dowel, X, dowel, X, etc.

Don't forget to add lights!