Nothing really special about this but it was a lot more fun than most other stuff I've been doing lately. The main reason is that I had help from a friend who was thoroughly impressed, overwhelmed, and awed by the process and tools involved. Here are some pics and a brief summary:
If you don't know what a pizza peel is, it is just a flat board that is used to move pizzas in and out of an oven. My friends own a restaurant and they have pizza on the menu. One of the pizzas they make is about 22'' in diameter and there are no commercial pizza peels big enough to accommodate that size. So my friend Richard asked if I could make one, and of course I had to accept the challenge ;-)
Richard really wanted to see how it could be done so he came to my house and we went out to the garage shop to figure it out. I had some rough 12/4 poplar that I thought would be perfect. He was amazed at how we milled it down to 3/8'' planks.
We cut all but one plank to length (need a long one for the handle) and edge glued them together. The next night we cleaned up the dried glue and cut the shape with a jig saw.
We had to profile the edges with two different router bits (a chamfer bit because I didn't have a roundover bit small enough to work on 3/8'' thick stock, and a panel raising bit because that was all I had to put a bevel on the front edge).
After about an hour of sanding (from 80 up through 320), here is what we had:
The best part of the whole project was how much Richard was impressed and awed the whole time. He really could not believe that we started with rough wood and made one of the best pizza peels he's seen. It was truly very satisfying to be able to make something that will be put to good use and solve so many problems for my friends' pizza making :drunken_s
Thanks for looking! If anyone wants some great pizza, my friends' place is called La Strada and is in Waxhaw. Tell them I sent you and I bet he shows you the pizza peel :lol:
If you don't know what a pizza peel is, it is just a flat board that is used to move pizzas in and out of an oven. My friends own a restaurant and they have pizza on the menu. One of the pizzas they make is about 22'' in diameter and there are no commercial pizza peels big enough to accommodate that size. So my friend Richard asked if I could make one, and of course I had to accept the challenge ;-)
Richard really wanted to see how it could be done so he came to my house and we went out to the garage shop to figure it out. I had some rough 12/4 poplar that I thought would be perfect. He was amazed at how we milled it down to 3/8'' planks.
We cut all but one plank to length (need a long one for the handle) and edge glued them together. The next night we cleaned up the dried glue and cut the shape with a jig saw.
We had to profile the edges with two different router bits (a chamfer bit because I didn't have a roundover bit small enough to work on 3/8'' thick stock, and a panel raising bit because that was all I had to put a bevel on the front edge).
After about an hour of sanding (from 80 up through 320), here is what we had:
The best part of the whole project was how much Richard was impressed and awed the whole time. He really could not believe that we started with rough wood and made one of the best pizza peels he's seen. It was truly very satisfying to be able to make something that will be put to good use and solve so many problems for my friends' pizza making :drunken_s
Thanks for looking! If anyone wants some great pizza, my friends' place is called La Strada and is in Waxhaw. Tell them I sent you and I bet he shows you the pizza peel :lol:
