Beer Carriers - Version 3

I made five wooden carriers carriers for my brewed beers. Each carrier was to hold a sampling of the beer that I had brewed this fall at The Brew Kettle in Strongsville and was to be a Christmas gift to each relative who had given me samples of beer they had brewed this year. These carriers are made from cherry and have the initials of the relative routed into the end of the carrier.

The carriers hold twelve 22 ounce bottles and are the same dimensions and style as previous models noted in an earlier post. I brewed a very light "Golden Honey", a nice "Dortmund Lager", and a seasonal Oktoberfest beer. Each carrier had four bottles of each of the beers. This was a fun gift to make.

Maple and Purpleheart Cutting Boards

This project came from a podcast, The Wood Whisperer, that I started listening to several months ago. Episode 7, released in December 2006 and January 2007, demonstrates the making on a hard maple/purpleheart cutting board. A free set of down-loadable plans for this project is also available from this website. I will warn you that there are several discrepancies between the podcast measurements and the plan measurements. I didn't catch the differences in time to save me from spending more money on the wood than I needed to and thus ending up wasting some rather expensive wood. Since I was not watching this podcast at the time it was released I do not know whether or not someone caught these discrepancies and brought them to light in the chat room of the website. Had I gone through the construction process more completely before I bought the wood, I might have caught the error.

That would be my single disappointment with this project and I should make it clear that I am very pleased with this project in general. It was challenging and required me to learn a few new techniques and develop some alternatives that I had never used before.

Marc Spagnuolo is the host and wood worker of this series of over thirty podcasts. In the space of nineteen minutes he does an excellent job of taking the viewer from the initial wood preparation through making a choice of finish. You end up with a large, heavy cutting board meant for serious use in the kitchen. It measures roughly 12" x 16" x 1 1/4". Since the hard maple and the purpleheart are heavy, dense woods, the total project weight is 7 1/2 pounds.

The maple and the purpleheart are cut into four pieces of differing widths (2 1/4, 1 3/4, 1 1/4, and 3/4) . Then the pieces are arranged in the order shown in the first picture at left and glued into one slab. This was my first time using purpleheart and I found it to be a brittle, very hard wood.

Once the first glue-up (as shown in the picture to the left) was dry, it was off to Keim Lumber's mill shop to sand the slabs to an even depth. The $3 I paid them for this millwork was a pittance compared to buying a $900 sander for my shop. Next the slabs were cut into 1 1/4" pieces and every other piece inverted to make a checkerboard-type pattern . The second glue-up was finished sanded again at Keim Lumber mill shop. After additional sanding, rounding over the top and bottom edges, and routing in hand holds on two sides, a food-safe "Salad Bowl Finish" was applied.

I cut enough wood to make two boards or to have spare material if I encountered a major problem. Fortunately I was able to complete two Christmas presents - one for my wife and one for my son, Eric. The finished cutting board needs only to be maintained with occasional mineral oil.

The Big M-O-V-E

I finally did it! After a lot of talk and little action, I hired movers for the large equipment and moved almost everything from my basement shop in Wooster to my ground-level garage shop at the lake. I had resisted this final step due to concerns for the safety of the machines and the costs of the move. A lot of mental resistance to a step that needed to be made.

Last Thursday, two young men from Reed Warehouse, arrived with a large moving van to take the drill press, bandsaw, jointer, planer, chop saw, workbench, a lot of small tools, a large pile of wood, and an old chopping block. From their slight physical appearance you wouldn't describe these young men as well-built. However, I had to marvel at their strength as they hefted the floor-model drill press up a flight of stairs. They impressed me with their strength and ability to handle the machines without causing damage. They lifted and toted all the equipment and supplies - every one of their grunts and groans helping me feel easier about the cost of the move. That was Thursday morning.


By noon on Thursday the equipment had been delivered, the van had returned to Wooster, and I was overwhelmed: I had a garage full of machinery with nothing in its final place. I had a thousand decisions to make so that I could clean, move, and try to organize. What an awful mess. There was no room in the garage for a car, let alone two ( I am blessed with what amounts to a four car garage).
The top picture shows the placement of the drill press to the left of the workbench. Out in front of that bench is a work table. Right now both are cluttered with small items that need to find a home in the cabinets and drawers of the workbench. To the right of the workbench across the back wall (but out of the picture) is the bandsaw, router table, and another work table for small machines.
The second picture shows the center island, table saw, jointer, dust collector and wood scrap can. Behind that equipment is the wood storage rack, dust collector, chop saw cart, and radial arm saw. Still out in the middle of the garage are a lot of orphans yet to find a home, mortiser, spindle sander, disc sander, Workmate, etc. This partial organization is the result of a day and a half of working (more accurately described as flitting from one thing to another). What fun this weekend has been!
I'll take better pictures and write an update as I make more progress.