When you’ve made things for everyone you know and are still eager to do more…
Our kitten loves to climb everything. We have 11’ ceilings so I thought a cat tower would be great. So I’m making one. I made a scale mode prototype of the entire tower with inscape and GF to get the dimensions correct then make templates to cut out the wooden levels from that.
Each level has an engraved leather cat cartoon. I used the GF to cut the leather, make the nail holes and engrave the cartoon. I also cut the foam that is under the leather with GF.
The levels will be attached to a 10’8" bamboo pole using walnut wedge pins. Photos coming when I figure out how to add photos to my post.
The leather was a gift from a friend who make shoes for a living. I helped her move her shop and she let me pick through her leather reject pile. I was able to cut 6 steps out of the scraps. I expect Koji will tear the leather apart which is the main reason. If he goes through it too quickly maybe I’ll try kevlar. I’m glad that my attempt at kanji was close to his name and didn’t translate to Flat Toad or something equally weird.
The most fun was finding 6 cat cartoons for the levels.
Looks like great fun, and nice score on the leather. I think I’ve used up all the scrap leather I had from when my brother worked at a custom car shop. I’m too cheap to actually buy it
OK, the levels are done and I conditioned the leather. Everything is home but I’m not going to put up the tower until tomorrow but here are the different levels.
That is so awfully nice! (Our kitties are afraid of leather… we forced them to sit on the couch when we first got it. They don’t like that. It worked. Doesn’t even occur to them to jump on it.)