1 Board Challenge

Welcome once again to BOT10PROJECTS!

This time around I decided to join in the fun and throw my hat in for the Instructables 1 Board Contest. I was working on some home improvement projects and happen to have some wood left over when this contest came around. I took a piece of Poplar wood with the rough dimensions of 4" X 24" and cut it into 1" X 24" strips with my table saw. I then used my chop saw to cut the strips into 1" X 1 1/2" blocks. Once I had a bunch of these blocks I started to place them together to see what patterns would come out of the cuts since I know I wanted to make something with end cuts.

I first thought of making a cutting board, then charcuterie board, and lastly landed on a Trivet. Granted this is not going to be a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but I figured it would teach me how to make a "product" out of wood and give me something to enter the contest. I do not work with wood at all and I do not have a workshop for this craft so I had to use what I had on hand and hope for the best! Once I laid out all the blocks I needed a way to glue them all together and make the Trivet board. I only had small clamps so I decided to glue the blocks in the following order 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 etc..

Once I had most of the pieces glued I ended up with 2 "blocks" that I glued together and held them together with rubber bands as the glue dried. Again given the rudimentary approach to the job really highlighted the need of certain tools. For instance I did not use a "Stop block" when cutting the pieces with the chop saw so they were not the same size. That would allow minimal sanding and an over all better look.

Another thing to note is that this was the first time I use a table saw so the wood really danced around and the strips were not really square so putting the pieces together shows how the pieces are not squared at all. Of course time is of the essence and I needed to move on there is a deadline that I needed to meet, plus I was working on other projects that are in my profession and could not dedicate much time to this.

With that said, I already took everything I learned and will do this project again. I cannot leave this project this way I need to try again and soon! After the glue was dry I used an orbital sander to sand both sides of the Trivet and just like that I made a board out of a board?!

Moral of the story is I have not worked with wood since high school wood shop and the only thing I used there was a band saw... but I did "something" and that is good enough for me at the moment.

Until next time CHEERS!