Handmade Woodworking Projects for the Kitchen E-Book

Larry Okrend

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 157

Beschreibung

There are few things more rewarding than making something yourself – and being able to use it every day! A collection of 17 functional woodworking projects for the kitchen for food preparation, storage, serving, and more, this complete guide to making custom kitchen accessories features step-by-step instructions, coordinating photography, plan drawings, and expert tips for both beginner and intermediate woodworkers. Offering original designs from lifelong woodworker and previous editor of American Woodworking magazine, Larry Okrend, make beautifully handmade cutting boards, a knife block, wine rack, tea box, and other kitchen essentials that are perfect for using, gifting, or even selling! Also included are opening sections on tools, materials, and basic techniques for a complete overview in gaining fundamental woodworking skills!

Leseprobe

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my friends and fellow woodworkers, Marke Lane and Chris Marshall, for their helpful feedback on the project designs. My wife, Jan Watkins, was incredibly supportive assisting in the shop and with photography. Of course, I owe a great deal to the editors at Fox Chapel Publishing, Colleen Dorsey and Kerry Bogert, for their hard work that made this book possible. Finally, I’m grateful for the support I received from Megan Powell and Rob Johnstone at Rockler and Mike Mangan and Lauren Gomez at Worx Tools.

© 2022 by Larry Okrend and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Handmade Woodworking Projects for the Kitchen is an original work, first published in 2022 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc. The patterns contained herein are copyrighted by the author. Readers may make copies of these patterns for personal use. The patterns themselves, however, are not to be duplicated for resale or distribution under any circumstances. Any such copying is a violation of copyright law.

All photos by the author unless otherwise noted. The following images are credited to Shutterstock.com and their respective creators: back cover (wood texture): dowiliukas; p. 3: liloon; pp. 4–5 (background): Pixel-Shot; p. 11: S_Photo; p. 115: Mary_Morgan

Print ISBN 978-1-4971-0144-9

eISBN 978-1-6076-5854-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021940321

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

For a printable PDF of the patterns used in this book, please contact Fox Chapel Publishing at [email protected], with 9781497101449 Handmade Woodworking Projects for the Kitchen in the subject line.

INTRODUCTION

The kitchen is a creative workspace and, much like a woodshop, needs the right tools and accessories to make it a pleasant and productive environment. In many respects, woodworking and cooking perfectly complement each other. The sustenance we need to do woodworking comes from the kitchen, and some of the most used kitchen implements are products of the woodshop.

The goal of this book is to present projects that are useful, accessible, and simple, yet still aesthetically pleasing. Most of the projects are fairly compact in size, which makes building them manageable and affordable. The designs are also a good starting point for those who want to try their hand at more ambitious versions. Because these projects are relatively quick and easy to make, they lend themselves to being made in multiples, which of course makes them perfect to give as gifts.

The question always arises: Why make it when you can buy it for not much more than it costs to do it yourself? Of course, you can buy almost anything, but if you seek a sense of accomplishment, want to learn new skills, or have the desire to create something unique, manufactured products simply can’t deliver the way handmade items can.

In terms of skill and shop requirements, the projects in this book range from very basic ones that require few tools and beginner skills, to intermediate-level projects that are more challenging and involve more shop equipment. However, all the projects can be pulled off in small shops. If you don’t have a well-equipped shop, it’s worth looking into the availability of a community shop, which is a popular option in urban areas. If you’re just starting out, perhaps this book will be the inspiration for you to expand your woodworking horizons and invest in the future of your hobby.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GETTING STARTED

Preparing to Work

Skills and Materials

Tools

PROJECTS

PREPARATION

Cutting Boards

Pizza Peels

Knife Block

Rolling Pins

STORAGE

Wall-Mounted Rolling Pin Rack

Breadbox

Wine Rack

Tea Box

SERVING

Salad Serving Set

Table Trivet

Lazy Susan

Table Caddy

Refined Serving Tray

Rustic Serving Tray

Coaster Set

ACCESSORIES

Table Lamp

Herb Planting Box

PROJECT PLANS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RESOURCES

GETTING STARTED

Being organized may be the most important part of doing any woodworking project. Having fixed and convenient storage for tools and supplies will help make your workflow smooth and frustration-free. Knowing what you need to accomplish a task and gathering those items before you start are also essential. And understanding the limitations of your tools, shop space, and materials will serve to make the process rational and enjoyable. This section is meant to help you formulate the approach you’ll need to accomplish your goals and pave a path to success.

Preparing to Work

It’s always tempting to spontaneously dive into a project and hope for the best, but a little planning and preparation will usually save time and diminish potential frustration. Before you begin, be sure you have all the necessary materials, supplies, and tools ready to go. If you’re in doubt about your ability to execute certain project details or the suitability of the materials and tools you have on hand, the best way to put your mind at ease is to build a prototype. It doesn’t need to be fancy—make it out of scraps—but it’s simply a way to verify the process and smooth the path to a successful conclusion. And sometimes prototypes can be keepers!

Woodworking isn’t anything like machining metal, and there’s a lesson in that. Unlike with metal, normal fluctuations of temperature and humidity can quickly change the dimensions of wood, particularly across the grain. Also, most woodworking tools can’t provide the level of precision delivered by metalworking machinery. That’s why it’s important to understand that dimensions given for projects are always nominal. You should remember to check and adjust the dimensions of wood workpieces to fit, because it’s unlikely they’ll fit as precisely as machined metal parts.

Whipping up a prototype with inexpensive scrap wood is a good way to ensure that a project is suited to your skills and tools without having to potentially waste a lot of good material and time.

Before you ever touch a tool, it’s impossible to overemphasize the importance of safety. The short-term and long-term effects of a shop injury can be devastating. There are basically two types of safety: passive and active. Passive safety is mostly about personal protection, including eye, ear, and lung protection. If there’s a potential for flying debris, dust in the air, and high decibel levels, you should wear protective gear. The specific gear depends on the degree and type of risk, but for most woodworking operations, the minimal gear includes safety glasses, ear plugs or muffs, and a dust mask. Active safety, by contrast, is about reducing the risk posed by tools, particularly power tools. Examples of active safety accessories include items such as featherboards to prevent kickback, pushsticks to keep your hand a safe distance from cutting edges, and blade guards that are typically included with many power tools (such as a table saw). You should never attempt to override or bypass machine guards. Don’t be complacent when it comes to portable power tools and even seemingly benign hand tools. A chisel, a pull saw, and a cordless drill can each inflict painful injuries if you let your guard down. When in doubt, refer to your tool’s instruction manual, which should also be available online if a print copy isn’t readily on hand.

Aside from employing common safety equipment, you should also keep in mind that the size of the workpiece needs to be proportional to the tool. A common beginner mistake is to attempt cutting a workpiece that’s too small for the tool—small stock and large blades aren’t compatible. This combination can be especially hazardous with a table saw or router table (among others), where short or undersize stock can jam and dangerously kick back. One of the most important things you can do to ensure safety is to be patient and think before you act. Frustration and rushing through a task only magnify the odds of having an accident.

Skills and Materials

There’s almost always more than one way to do something. The step-by-step information for these projects is limited to specific tools and techniques for the sake of clarity and space, but if you’re familiar with accomplishing the same or similar task in a different way, don’t hesitate to take the familiar path (provided it’s safe).

When you prepare stock (jointing, planing, sizing, etc.), it’s almost always more efficient to get all of it done at once rather than doing it piecemeal. The dimensions will be more consistent, and you won’t be faced with repeatedly setting up machines to do the same task. Make more stock than you need; mistakes happen, and you may need to make test or practice pieces. Although you can buy premilled stock, milling your own wood is far preferable and opens up creative possibilities not otherwise attainable. You’ll need a jointer and a planer for this, but those tools should be considered woodshop essentials.

Safety is paramount. Wear earmuffs to protect from high decibel levels, a dust mask to protect your lungs, and safety glasses to protect your eyes from flying debris. Safety accessories for specific machines, like the featherboard and pushstick pictured, should be used as directed.

Woods

Most common wood species can be used for the majority of the projects in this book, but there are a few that require wood with specific properties. For example, the cutting boards should be made of wood with a tight or closed-grain pattern, such as hard maple. This recommendation holds true for any of the projects that come in contact with food. Specific recommendations are provided for each project.

Cost and availability are always factors that should be taken into consideration, and they can differ considerably depending on your location. When choosing wood for a project, don’t forget to consider its working properties. The hardness or softness of a wood can affect its durability and the way it machines. Other factors, such as how the wood is sawn (flat sawn, quartersawn, etc.) will have an impact on appearance, stability, and cost.

Common woods used for the projects in this book include (from left to right) cherry, mahogany, walnut, and maple.

Shop Supplies

Shop supplies are necessities that consist mostly of expendable items that keep your workflow on track. Sandpaper is one of the most important items; you should have a selection of at least four grits ranging from 60 to 220 or finer. The most common grits used for the projects in this book are 80, 120, 150, 220, and 320 (for sanding between coats of finish). Steel wool is also useful for finishing; #0000 is the best choice. Shop rags, either paper or cloth, are indispensable for cleanup and finishing applications. Adhesives and finishes are also necessary basics. You’ll also find that painter’s tape is useful for far more than painting, so keep plenty on hand.

Adhesives

The type of adhesive you choose will vary depending on how the item is used. If the project is exposed to water and needs to be food-safe, a waterproof PVA is the best choice. For general-purpose gluing, yellow wood glue (also a PVA) is the obvious choice. But for more specialized applications, such as achieving a quick bond or joining dissimilar materials, cyanoacrylate or epoxy might be what you need. Polyurethane is another adhesive that’s ideal for creating a waterproof bond between both similar and dissimilar materials. Most types of glue will create a bond that’s stronger than the wood when the joint is with the grain. However, end grain doesn’t bond well, so a strong gap-filling glue such as epoxy is needed for this application. An adhesive’s open time—that is, the time when it is workable and hasn’t started to set yet—is also an important consideration. Complex assemblies need more open time or need to be done in stages.

Consumable essential supplies like shop rags, sandpaper in various grits, and painter’s tape are musts.

Gluing and clamping are relatively straightforward, but here are a few techniques to make them go more smoothly. Check that all the pieces sit flat and make good contact with each other. Adjust the clamps and have them ready to go before applying glue so you’re not fumbling with them as the glue begins to set. If your clamps have metal jaws, use wood cauls between the clamps and workpiece to prevent marring and denting. (Even with soft clamp jaws, cauls will help distribute clamping pressure.) Put wax paper under the work to prevent glue squeeze-out from causing the workpiece to stick to the workbench. Apply glue evenly to all the mating surfaces, then let the glue grab a bit before clamping to prevent the workpieces from sliding. When clamping, gradually increase the pressure, alternating between the clamps. Once the glue has become gummy, scrape off the excess.

You will need to choose the best adhesive for the project and the application, taking into account the materials being glued, the open time of the adhesive, and more.

Finishes

There are many considerations when it comes to choosing a clear wood finish, including appearance, ease of application, drying time, durability, and safety. For most DIY purposes, wipe-on or brush-on finishes are the easiest to use with the most controlled results. Oil-based and waterborne polyurethane finishes are readily available and are good choices for many of the projects in this book. Spray cans are also convenient, but they have inherent safety issues, they’re wasteful, and the results can be disappointing if the cans are not used carefully. Spraying equipment, such as HVLP (high-volume low-pressure) guns, can produce excellent results, but they are really best for larger finishing jobs. For projects such as the cutting boards, rolling pins, and pizza peels, you need to use a food-safe finish. These finishes are typically a blend of mineral oil and edible waxes that should occasionally be reapplied.

Tools

Like many other pursuits, woodworking requires equipment that can be costly. However, once you’ve established the foundations of your shop, most of the recurring expenses are for materials and shop supplies. From a purely practical standpoint, there’s no need to spring for top-of-the-line tools, but you’ll never regret buying the best you can afford. On the other hand, buying tools because they’re the cheapest often results in frustratingly poor performance. Just be sure that the tools you buy will accomplish the work for which they’re intended and fit in your workspace. And don’t forget that you’ll need a sturdy workbench; it’s the hub of your shop.

Finishing is largely a matter of personal choice, but you always need to remember to use food-safe finishes on projects that will come directly into contact with food.

Shopping for supplies is an inescapable part of making projects. Most of the hardware and materials for the projects in this book were obtained from Rockler, Amazon, Etsy, and Lowe’s. Check with local hardware stores and lumberyards as well—it’s amazing how much they offer, including good advice.

Stationary Tools

The stationary tools considered to be essential depend to an extent on what sort of projects you do. However, for general woodworking purposes—and for most of the projects in this book—a band saw, a table saw, a jointer, and a planer are the four tools that will provide the most versatility, accuracy, and efficiency. The band saw and table saw have some overlapping functions, but there are enough differences to make them both indispensable. The jointer and planer will allow you to mill lumber to exact dimensions. Other tools that are useful complements to the essentials are a drill press, air compressor, compound miter saw, and dust collector (for the table saw, jointer, and planer). Benchtop and portable tools that come in handy for many of the projects include a router table, oscillating spindle sander, and shop vacuum or dust extractor (for the band saw and portable power tools).

To properly execute most of the projects in this book, you’ll need a band saw (pictured), a table saw, a jointer, and a planer.

Power Tools

Portable power tools you’ll find essential include a cordless drill, a random-orbit sander (or similar tool), a router, and a jigsaw. Other tools that are helpful to have but not essential include a plate joiner, a 23-gauge pin nailer, and a small rotary tool (such as a Dremel®). When considering a cordless drill (or any cordless tool), keep in mind that battery compatibility and availability is a key factor. Look at the manufacturer’s system and the other tools they make that may interest you. If possible, it’s most efficient to stick with the same system so that batteries can be swapped between tools.

Pictured from left to right are a cordless drill/driver, plunge router, and random-orbit sander.

Hand Tools

Hand tools might not have the same allure as power tools, but they’re really the unsung heroes of the shop. Power tools can do the heavy lifting, and hand tools can refine work to perfection—with a little help from you. Saws, planes, and chisels provide control that power tools can’t achieve. They do take practice to tune and use, but the effort is worth the payout. Don’t skimp when buying these tools, as there are significant differences in quality between products, and this is particularly true with hand planes—cheap planes barely work for carpentry, let alone woodworking. There are many types for a wide variety of applications, so do your research and seek advice. There are several other tools you should have, including clamps (bar, spring, handscrews, C-clamps, etc.), hammers and mallets, scrapers, screwdrivers, a hacksaw, and mechanic’s tools for maintaining stationary tools.

Pictured from left to right are paring chisels, a pull saw, and a hand plane.

Marking and Measuring

Marking and measuring tools you’ll need include an engineer’s square or similar precision square, a combination square, precision rulers of various lengths, a tape measure, a pencil compass, a trammel point, an awl, a center punch, mechanical pencils, and indelible markers. All of your measuring devices must be consistent, so check them against each other to ensure they agree. Some cheap tape measures can be wildly inaccurate. One tool that’s worth paying extra for is a combination square. A well-made square is more accurate and will stay that way, and it’s much easier to adjust. Your best bet is to get one that is made specifically for machinists or woodworkers.

A multitude of tools will allow you to accurately mark every dimension you need at every stage of work. Pictured from left to right are a combination square, tape measure, compass, awl, engineer’s square, small precision ruler, mechanical pencil, and indelible marker.

PROJECTS