Trivet from recycled wine corks

Materials :

*1 piece of wood (eg. oak) of ~ 80 * 3.5 * 1 cm  (32" * 1.5" * 3/8")
* 64 wine-corks
* wood-glue (preferable waterproof)
* wood oil
* sandpaper

Tools :
* Saw, preferable a jig saw
* Cutter knife

Time : takes about a day to complete : mainly because you need to glue a row of corks, and then wait for the glue to dry.

Step 1: Make a mold

when assembling this pot holder, the corks will be 'squeezed' into the frame. In order to be able to glue everything together (and then keep it that way for a couple of hours) I decided to make a mold.

It is very simple : cut a square hole out of a piece of leftover wood, eg an MDF board. If you want to make a lot of pot holders, you can cut several mold-holes out of the same board. 

Comments

[m2grzegorczyk]

This is such a great idea.

[CatalinRO]

I have a question: how to cut easy the cork? I used a sharp blade, I used a saw blade, but there are 2 problems: cork is kind of elastic material and the friction stops the blade. Thanks!

[strooom]

I added an animation to step 3 that shows how to cut it nice and easy :-)
Good luck !

[CatalinRO]

OK, I saw it after reloading the page, initially I thought it's only an image, after reloading, I saw the animation. Thanks :)

[sgarner1]

Nice trivet. If you lay them on their sides, you not only get to see all the various winery names and designs, but you don't have to cut them.

[andro000]

*versital

[andro000]

Cork is such a beautiful and celestial material. Thank you all for sharing.

[Wroger-Wroger]

This is a wonderful pot holder, maybe we could ask Slamonella to come fishing with us and catch a herd of salmon, or a gander of trout, or even a flock of whales.

Then we can cook them all up in your pot and when it's all yummy and ready to eat, we can park the pot on the pot holder while we make pallets of toast, applicated with a stratification of toasted cheese, shooken all over with cracked black pepper.

Dolphin patties or fish brane soup!!!!!!

[slamonella]

Neat little project, but that's a trivet, not a pot holder.

[Wroger-Wroger]

It's actually a pot holder, not a trivet.

I know, I invented them 4227 years BC.

So there.

[strooom]

Well thanks slamonella, as I'm from Belgium, I'm not native English speaking and so I didn't know the exact word for it, but nowI know ! thanks

[slamonella]

Your English is better than many native speakers, don't sweat it too much :)

[tencentdress]

Nice! And thanks for adding the video regarding the cutting of the cork with a sharp utility knife.
One could hang this or a perhaps larger one on the wall and use as a traditional cork board.

[strooom]

"One could hang this or a perhaps larger one on the wall and use as a traditional cork board"

Great idea ! You would need a lot of corks : eg for a 60 * 40 cm you would need ~527 corks,  but know that most restaurants have a surplus of corks they don't know what to do with.. So you could give them a box, write your phone-nmbr on it and then wait for a call when the box is full.

[scooterdad]

this is a brilliant idea. I can imagine the acquiring of materials is as enjoyable as the manufacture of the pot stand. Have you tried auto weld ?
It can take quite high temperatures and I have seen some people using it to fix parts in alcohol stoves so will probably be quite good in the heat tolerance area, Worth a try I think

[strooom]

Well, in fact corks are good thermal insulators, so I never had any problem with the glue not withstanding the temperature. To me the idea was simple and straightforward. Still I am very glad that many people like it. Don't forget to vote : I'm in the reuse contest :-)

[tbrugada]

nice

[RainDog07]

I made four cork boards this week so I thought I'd pass on some notes. Corks are not all the same diameter although most I have in my bin are the same - approx. 3/4 in. The only glue I've found to be satisfactory on synthetic corks is a two part epoxy, but a hot pot may melt them, so only use natural corks for this project. The easiest way I found to trim a cork to length is a disc sander with a dust collector attached - they make a LOT of dust. I'm going to try this idea, using the wine-stained ends to make a pattern. Thanks for the instructable!