wenge knife rack

For valentine’s day, my sweetheart had bought me a new super awesome japanese knife. I love to cook and it was my cooking, in part, that brought us together. While at the store, we saw these awesome knife racks – very minimalist. They wanted $75 for them (they were walnut) and I looked at it, like most woodworkers do, and said “I can build that”. I confirmed online that yup, $75 is the going rate. So off to the shop I went…

I had some wenge lying around. I don’t know why, but it was there, and there was just enough to make this 18” wide knife rack. It’s really just two pieces of wedge glued together, with one of the pieces having a wide rabbet cut into it. I made 2 keyhole slots on the back with my router for mounting.

Finishing this piece was where I had to do the most thinking. Anyone who works with wenge knows that it can be a pain. The pieces I had were fairly heavily figured and I wasn’t a huge fan of the lighter grain. I had read about sanding with oil on it to sort of make your own grain filler, so that’s what I did, knowing that the oil would darken the light grain as well. 50-50 mineral spirits and mineral oil, sanded and left to dry, then repeat. After that, a sand with 220 and a coat of beeswax, and it’s nice and smooth and I think looks pretty sharp. It’s not super glassy – you can probably tell that there are still some grooves in the grain, enough to still call it wenge, but I’m happy with the result.

Go ahead and make one yourself. Super quick and I saved a ton of cash since this is essentially a scrap wood project! The only cost was that of getting a keyhole bit for my router.

That’ll be the last “kitchen project” for a while (last one was a cutting board). And, hopefully the last wenge project ever. Working with that stuff is a pain! Take care…