My mom and dad lived in their home where I was raised for about 60 years. Not long after my dad died, Central Texas experienced the big freeze of 2021. Many trees could not handle freezing temps for that long and died. Almost all of the Loquat trees that they had along the sides of the yard did not make it and had to be cut down. My wife asked if I could use any of the wood, but Loquats are pretty spindly and there are no long straight limbs to make boards from. However, I did set aside a large limb to dry and do “something” with.
After the wood dried, I decided to slice it into disks and make a tic-tac-toe game for each of the family members (young and old). I added a story about where the wood came from and put it, the game board, and some flat marbles into a muslin bag.
How I made them. I first made slices using my band-saw. Then to get them flat, I hot-glued them to a few boards to hold them in place, and ran them through my wide-belt sander to flatten and smooth one side. I then used a hand-held sander on the backs to reduce the saw marks left by the band-saw. I then routed the grooves with a v-bit on my router table and did a final sanding on all sides and the edges/bark. They were sealed with Watco Natural Danish Oil and dried.