DIY Sports Medal Holder using the Scroll Saw

Have any sports fanatics in your house? I do. My husband is an ultra marathon runner and has probably close to thirty running medals. A few years ago I built him a simple medal holder to hang all of his medals on. Recently, my sister-in-law asked me to make one for her daughter’s basketball medals, so I figured I document the process for you!

Here’s all the info you need for how to make a Sports Medal Holder. Clearly, you can customize it to the sport and person, but this will give you an idea of the process.

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SUPPLIES:

Wooden board – I used scrap plywood.
Small pieces of MDF, use scraps if you have them
Design image
Spray Adhesive
Scroll Saw
Wood File
Drawer pulls with a large front piece
Paint
Super Glue
Edge Banding (completely optional!)
Polyurethane
Sawtooth Hangers

Design:

The first step in this project is to come up with your design. I knew I wanted to make the basketball theme very clear, and after thinking through a few options I chose to cut out a large basketball from wood and put that next to her name. I searched through google for a good clipart file with the look I was going for on that basketball and printed that. Next, I typed her name with a few fonts until I found one I liked and printed that as well.

Cutting:

Adhere the printed images to your MDF so you can cut them out without them moving around. Use a small amount of spray glue for this. It often peels back off the MDF just fine later on but sometimes you do have to sand off any paper pieces that stick.

Once you have your designs placed, sit down at your scroll saw and start cutting. I didn’t have the perfect blade for the small letters, but I did the best with what I had. (I need to try out some spiral blades I’m told. Have you tried them?)

Painting:

Next, file down any rough edges where your cuts may not have been perfect.

Then paint! Two things I learned in this process, spray paint is MUCH easier with these small letters. Take your time and do two thin coats. I brushed these on but in the future will spray. I think if I do more scroll saw projects I’ll be investing in many more spray paint colors.

Drilling:

Determine where you want your knobs placed. I decided to use six so I needed to stagger them leaving room for the medals to hang. Measure and mark with a pencil, then drill using a bit the size of your hardware screws. Drill the holes but don’t add the hardware just yet.

Gluing:

Now it’s time to place your pieces where you want them and begin gluing them down. I tried a couple types of glue and ultimately ended up using the Gorilla super glue. I added a generous amount to the back of each piece and held them for about 30 seconds. Other glues didn’t adhere fast enough for me but I suppose if you had more time and a way to clamp them down then something like wood glue could work.

Finishing:

Since I was using plywood, I opted to finish the edges with some edge banding that I had in my shop. This is not a necessary step but certainly goes a long way to make it look nicer.

Once you have all the pieces glued on, go ahead and do a light coat of polyurethane over the entire thing. Again, spray may work much easier than brushing it on, but I used what I had. Let that coat dry and finish it with one more coat.

Add your hardware and voila! A beautiful medal holder for the little athlete in your life!

I added some of my husband’s running medals to it just to make sure all worked well and to get some finished photos. Can’t wait to send this off to my niece!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, I love to hear from you!

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