Sam met Taz at work and it was love at first site. Since work romances can get awkward Sam decided to adopt Taz. Taz was so named because of the collar he was wearing when he was found wandering the streets. We are currently fostering him and let’s just say that the first week was not easy. Continue reading
When taking the plunge to remodel our kitchen we had to decide where the microwave would live. We have had them over the stove, in an upper cabinet next to the stove, on the counter and now built into a lower cabinet.
Microwave Surround
A few years ago I stumbled on a blogger who I enjoyed a great deal. She hasn’t blogged since 2015, which makes me sad, but just the other day I was reminded about how we touch each others lives.
Continue reading
The process of turning seems like it could be simple. You take a blank and you pick out a kit. Put the blank on the lathe and turn it put in the inserts and there you have it a pen. I’ve learned it’s very personnel to the individual receiving that pen maybe even more so to the person creating that pen.
I have another cutting board to make. I would have liked to make it out of maple, but I do not have any maple milled. But I do still have a lot of walnut. This time I want to make an end grain board. Here are the steps I took to make it.
First, I cut 1 1/2 inch strips, 26 inches long. I then jointed and planed them all to the same thickness and width so that I had square strips.
Walnut Strips
I have been making my own cutting board finish, which I like to call Cutting Board Butter, made from bee’s wax and mineral oil. This is very easy to make. You can order melting bee’s wax pellets online. Simply add them to a tin at a 50/50 ratio by weight and heat the tin. A hot plate works well for this.
Homemade Butcher Block Oil
Once heated, stir well until well mixed, and allow to cool. It makes a very nice paste wax.
I am making an end grain cutting board, and for the edge treatment, I decided to go with chamfers. Now while the router left a nice edge, it did need sanding. I could have just used a sanding block and hoped I kept it perfectly on the chamfer face, but seeing as this face is only about 1/4″ wide, chances were good that the edges would get knocked down or rounded.
I decided to make a sanding block for sanding the chamfer, with a flat registration face and a sanding block face set off by 45 degrees. I mulled this over for a couple of days, and the resulting jig can be seen below.
Chamfer Sanding Block
So this isn’t really a corner. Well, kind of. It’s the corner of a walnut strip in a cutting board I was making.
After gluing up the board, and cleaning off the squeeze out, I noticed one of the strips had a broken corner. I could opt to just cut this end off, or fill it, but since this will be an end grain cutting board, filling it wouldn’t look good, I thought. And just cutting that much of the end off would shorten the board by an inch and a half. I opted to repair it.
Board Cleaned Up
Celtic Knot Pen Blanks
I have a couple of pens to make. I wanted to make them similar but contrasting, and have always wanted to try making Celtic knot blanks. This was the perfect opportunity.
