This granite trivet is inspired by Zelbar. I helped a friend move into a new house that had brand new granite counters. I happened to see a couple of boxes of of the tiles and it brought to mind his granite trivets. I thought it would make a nice housewarming gift to make one using the same granite tile already in the kitchen. It’s a guaranteed match.

The wood is yellowheart, cherry and ebony. i needed 6/4 stock for the frame and didn’t have any, so I had to glue up two 3/4 pieces. There was no way to match the grain, so I decided to use two different species. After I cut the bevel, I ran the seam over my thin kerf tablesaw blade and added the ebony inlay over the seam.

The granite tile started out 12” square, which I thought was too big, so I had it cut down to 9”. It wasn’t really perfectly square, though, so tweaked the miters with a shooting board. I pretty much always do that anyway. I just ballpark the miters on my tablesaw and then finish them with a shooting board.

I typically just chamfer the bottoms of my boxes, but as this will generally have hot things on it, I wanted to make sure it was easy to pick up. After the miters were cut, I could mark out the width of the feet. I taped two opposing sides together (bottom to bottom). Then I drilled the ends of the waste with a 1/2” forstner bit, locating the brad point at the seam between the two sides. That defined the 1/4” radius feet after I pulled the two sides apart.

I really don’t like using the router table because I’ve had it rip workpieces to shreds. By this point, I had a fair amount of effort invested in these four side pieces. That’s really why I used the forstner bit to define the feet. But I didn’t see any other reasonable way to hog out the waste between the two feet. So here’s how I managed to do it without any tearout.

First, I set the fence slightly too far back, which would cut a bit too deep. Then I double-stick taped three or four layers of business cards to the bottoms of the feet, so it would cut too shallow. I ran the sides with the feet up against the fence with a 1/4” straight bit just slightly above the table. It was just enough to show me where the cut went. I then removed business cards from each foot until the cut went as close to the depth as I dared on each end. I then ran a bunch of passes, raising the bit slightly each time until I was confident I wasn’t going to get any tearout. Finally, I raised the bit all the way and made a series of passes shaving off 1/8” or so of material sort of freehand until the feet were touching the fence and I was done. It actually went very well and I don’t think I’ll be so nervous about using the router table in the future.

The other new thing for me was attaching the granite to the wood. I’ve never used stone before. Zelbar said he just use regular epoxy without any trouble, but that has a published heat tolerance of only about 150F. I found an epoxy called JB Weld at an auto parts store that is used on engine blocks and is good up to 600F. I dovetailed in a cross piece between two sides and that was the main glue surface for the granite. I put some at strategic points around the rabbet too, but I used it sparingly because I didn’t want any squeeze out where it could be visible. The stuff looks like it would be nasty to clean up.

I finished it with five coats of Bush oil before I laid in the tile, so applying the epoxy neatly was a bit nerve wracking.

This is a trivet I made as a house warming gift. It’s based on a picture I saw after doing a search on the web.

The wood for the base, from the center out, is domestic cherry, ebony, brazilian cherry and walnut. They slats are brazilian cherry. I used one coat of Bush oil to bring out the grain. The walnut on one side, in particular, was pretty intense. Kind of looked like marble.

I could have just used dados and dropped the slats right in, but I wanted to do ship laps. Then I realized that would not work with the rounded edges of the base pieces, so I made the lap joints in the slats shorter than the width of the base pieces and notched out the edges to the full depth that the slats would set in. I’m wondering if there is a particular term for this style of lap joint…you know, besides unnecessary.

I used a dado set to rough out the half laps and I used a router bit in a drill press to rough out the full depth parts of the lap joints on the base pieces. Otherwise, all the joinery was finished with chisels and a small router plane. All the round overs were done with a block plane and a spokeshave. I actually found the block plane easier.

This is a box I made for a martial arts (Aikido) dojo. The box is going to be used to hold attendance cards. These are 8×5 index cards; not the 3×5 ones. The dojo name is Zenshinkan and that is the kanji carved into the top. This was a very educational box for me.

I designed it myself, although much of the design process was really just winging it. I started by measuring the dimensions of a store bought box they already use. I decided I was going to employ my first hand cut dovetails. I modeled the basic box in Sketchup, which turned out to be a good thing. My first intuition was to make a box and cut it in half, which is a typical box making technique. But when I played with the 3D model, it became apparent that the front of the lid was going to hit the top of the index cards when it was opened and closed. It was only in playing with the model that I realized the hinges in the back have to be higher than the front edge of the lid. Centering the lid front vertically and locating the back edge a quarter way from the top causes the front edge to arc forward first as it opens. It returns to the plane of the front edge about where the top of the box is, which means it clears the box contents.

Having figured that out, I didn’t want to give up on the dovetails. That meant having a horizontal cut for at least the thickness of the front and back. I decided to connect the two lines with a graceful curve. I milled the two sides, taped them together, marked out the lines and cut them on a bandsaw. I had to borrow a friend’s bandsaw, as I don’t have one. I cleaned them up with card scrapers and sandpaper to fit.

The sides are Brazilian Cherry, which I learned recently isn’t really cherry at all. The kanji is carved into ebony, which is framed in cocobolo. That’s inlaid into ambrosia maple. The maple is framed in walnut. I was concerned about the maple expanding and blowing out the miters. My solution, which I hope works, was to mill the maple a scant 1/4” thick. It’s face glued to an oversized 1/4” birch plywood. That sits in a rabbet in the lid and the walnut is glued on top of that and to the maple. I’m hoping the ply will keep the maple in check.

My friend turned the ebony knob for the pull. I cut the groove and made the bottom of the pull. One little trick there was to cut the mating surfaces slightly wider in the back than the front. Then I could get a perfect fit by mating them together and sanding the surfaces flush. I located them on the box by first drilling two 1/16” holes in each part. Then I inserted snipped off ends of wired nails and pressed them into the front to mark the locations. I drilled matching holes in the front and then used toothpicks as dowels.

I figured it would be easier to carve the kanji on end grain, so that slab of ebony is actually three slices edge glued together. That stuff is so dense it’s almost impossible to see the glue line. I originally carved the kanji and then cut the slab down to size. Then I framed it in the cocobolo. Since glue ups suck, I had to plane the result flat again before I could inlay it, so much of the carving was lost. Then I did the inlay and it was a bit proud. After planing that down the kanji was completely erased. That meant that the new carving was the very last thing I did before apply the finish. You can bet I took my time.

The maple is spalted, so the color is natural. I bookmatched it to sort of give a landscape look to it, although I don’t particularly care for the growth rings. I put one coat of Danish oil on the inside and two on the outside. The maple just sucked that up like a sponge and the surface didn’t have a nice sheen at all, so I put on another couple of coats of wipe on poly. I had never done that before, so that was really nerve wracking. There were a couple of streaks on the front that I thought would drive me insane because of the pull being there. But I was able to clean it up with a combination of the 8000 grit paper, steel wool and a lot of buffing.

I made small gift boxes for my two nieces. This one is walnut with cherry keys. The lid is ambrosia maple. The design is from Fine Woodworking. Except for slight dimension changes, I didn’t change the design.

I’ve done several experiments with bookmatching and this one is the first that really matched well. The third picture shows it. This piece of walnut had a quartersawn pattern, which I think made all the difference.

Note that I’m posting the two boxes separately. I didn’t have any pictures of both together.

I made small gift boxes for my two nieces. This one is cherry with walnut keys. The lid is Goncalo Alves. The design is from Fine Woodworking. Except for slight dimension changes, I didn’t change the design.

I tried to bookmatch the cherry, but the grain was such that it didn’t match too well. I do really like the lid, though. The wild part in the corner was the edge of a knot, which had some voids. I kept shaving off a little at a time on the tablesaw until the voids were gone, so I could keep as much of it as I could.

Note that I’m posting the two boxes separately. I didn’t have any pictures of both together.