Gifts I made this year

[Matt Schnurbusch]

I have pictures of most of them.

Mom wanted a single person garden bench so she got this & a maple cutting board (question on my cutting boards in another thread)...

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It is reclaimed red cedar with teak oil finish.

No one else told me what they wanted, so they got what I made:
Pictured, are three of 9 oak trivets I made over two sessions in the shop. These three went to my sister, the rest went to the inlaw side of the family (2 each Grandma, aunt, and uncle). These three had some pretty BAD mistakes, but the others all turned out great. All of them were made from red oak finished with a soak in danish oil.

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For my Wife, Brother, and Mother I made maple end grain cutting boards. They are very simple boards, no great design effort went into them other than book matching grain where I could. The one I kept for the wife came out awesome. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't show the grain well. Again, I have a question on my cutting boards, but that is for another thread to be posted momentarily. The cutting boards are all solid maple end grain with a major soak in mineral oil.

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My son, and the daughter of a friend of ours both got ambrosia maple cork boards. Again, the one I have a picture of is the lesser one of the two.

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The cork boards don't have any finish on them. By the time I got around to them, LOML was tired of the stink in my finishing room, AKA the kitchen. I wanted to hit them with a couple coats of tunge but got shot down rather vehemently.

So, let me know what you think.
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[Trent Mason]

Very nice Matt! You've been very busy and the results are outstanding. I'm sure they'll love them. :icon_thum

 

[Ken Massingale]

Nice work Matt. I'm sure all of the folks who received them are very proud of them.

 

[cpowell]

Wow, you were very busy this year. I love all of them. :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap


Guess the bench is my favorite. Although they are all thoughtful, practical, and well made with love. I can only imagine how excited they were to receive them.


Chuck

 

[scsmith42]

Matt, those all look GREAT! BTW - where did you buy your cork and about how much did it cost?

Thx.

Scott

 

[TracyP]

WOW!!! Beautiful stuff. Great Job...........

 

[sapwood]

That's impressive, Matt!
Both quality and quantity :icon_thum

Roger

 

[FredP]

good stuff Matt!:icon_thum hand crafted is always better than store bought.:gar-Bi

 

[Matt Schnurbusch]

Matt, those all look GREAT! BTW - where did you buy your cork and about how much did it cost?

Thx.

Scott

I got the cork for one at Office Max, and for the other at Michaels. I know the one from Michaels was around $14 for a 2'x4' roll. I don't recall what I paid at the Max.

The cork is very thin, so I lined the inside with a layer of cardboard, then backed them with luan. If I were to do them again, they would probably get two layers of cork, or maybe two under-layers of cardboard.

 

[MrAudio815]

I got the cork for one at Office Max, and for the other at Michaels. I know the one from Michaels was around $14 for a 2'x4' roll. I don't recall what I paid at the Max.

The cork is very thin, so I lined the inside with a layer of cardboard, then backed them with luan. If I were to do them again, they would probably get two layers of cork, or maybe two under-layers of cardboard.

Those are some very Nice Gift, I really like the Reclaimed cedar garden bench and that ambrosia maple cork boark is very nice.

Now Keep a look out in the papers they send around once a week and there's a 40% off coupon and sometimes a 50% off coupon to Michaels. It's only for one item, but hey just wait another week for the next coupon, or if your lucky they'll have a coupon on your receipt.

 

[ck1999]

Did you use a router to make grooves in the trivets?

That is a great idea, I had not thought of making these for gifts!

Chris

 

[Matt Schnurbusch]

Chris, I did use a router table for the trivets. Basically I did a slightly modified version of this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZL...0CDAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=router trivet&f=false

I set my fence so that the bit was centered in my workpiece. And only used one 1" spacer and one 2" spacer. With this setup you can make two cuts on each side. Make light passes to avoid burning, and really light passes when you're about to come through from each side to reduce (but not eliminate) cross grain tear-out.

The hard part of this method is lifting the piece from the bit. Making sure not to have any lateral movement to avoid cutting into the side walls. If you look closely at my pictures you'll see I was less than successful at that part.:embarrassed:

 

[red]

All very nice. I like the garden bench.

Red