Simple trivets

I had some leftovers after a small tiling project in my Mom’s kitchen and decided to put the remaining tiles and some off-cuts from my scrap bin to work. The ‘blue’ one is poplar, stained to match a paper towel holder that I made for her, years ago. The ‘natural’ one is western red cedar, pulled from my ‘maybe box’. They’re finished with a couple of coats of satin poly, rubbed out with 0000 steel wool.

The frame corners are simple half-laps. They have 1/4” plywood bottoms, and the tiles are contact cemented in place, ~1/16” proud of the frame. They are slate, from a 4” x 12” strip. I removed the woven backing and sanded the adhesive off before ‘setting’ them. I also had to do a little bit of sanding to get them to fit the frame correctly. I didn’t grout them, as I felt that they would dissipate heat better without it.

Total cost: $0.00

-- There is nothing in the world more dangerous, than a woodworker who knows how to read a micrometer...