Oak endgrain trivet

More scrap wood recycling! :) I’m working on a blanket chest made of white oak and so I have a pretty fair amount of cut-offs and scrap. Received a reqest for a trivet large enough for a 9×12 cassarole dish so I thought the white oak might make a nice one.

Decided to make it endgrain by gluing up strips (more Gorilla Glue). Then to make the trivet easier to pick up I routed a rabbet on all four sides but left the corners unrouted. When setting flat it looks like it has feet. Did the routing at my router table with two sets of stops clamped to the fence. An outer set to make the rabbets for the long sides and a second set that I clamp inside and against the first set for the short side. This way I could get the depth in steps of about 1/8” per pass. The outer blocks were always clamped to the fence and I would alternate having the inner stop blocks as I made my depth passes.

The trick I’ve learned after making several smaller endgrain oak trivets is to create them oversize by at least 1/4” on each side. This is because the oak will splinter and chipout like mad during any sort of milling operation. With a good blade and zero-clearance miter sled I can go back and trim the edges to eliminate the chipout. Then use a wood rasp and plenty of sandpaper to ease the edges. Most of the edge shaping gets done with the rasp then even out with 80 grit and work up to 220.

As a trivet, this gets no finish since the dishses could be quite hot. I’m not terribly worried about burning the oak, it is pretty dense stuff. Might get a little burnt smell the first time or two from any sanding dust that I couldn’t get removed. :)

-- Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.