I had recently made myself a mini-bar and the last piece of the puzzle was a chopping board to fit the shelf i had made. In the garage i had a fair few random bits of wood from old furniture that had been take apart, but no big pieces so the obvious solution was to laminate some pieces together, something i had never done before. (i reckon that in total there is £1/2 of wood involved so this is really cheap)

This project is very easy; the entire process only took a few hours and gave a really awesome end product. So... if like me you want to try laminating wood or you want a great, simple, gift idea have a go!!

Materials: variety of wood strips, wood glue, wax/ oil

Tools: saw (band saw is ideal), clamps, plane, sandpaper, holesaw (30mm)

Step 1: Laminating

for this i essentially used what i had and was quite lucky to have some light and dark hardwood. The pieces of wood you have should be cut to approximately the length you want the final product to be and it is best if the depths are similar as it will save on planing later. Ensure that the pieces are as square and as straight as possible as you dont want any gaps in the surface of the final product.

Place the wood you have selected on a flat surface (with something like paper between the wood and the surface so that they dont stick). Apply glue to each interface and when all the pieces are glued clamp firmly. I used 3 clamps for this but the more the better as it will keep the wood nice and straight and close any gaps.

Step 2: Planing

Once laminated the board you have created needs to be planed. I started with the bottom face that was reasonably flat (but had most of a piece of paper stuck to it). Having quickly watched a youtube video to learn how to set a plane's blade depth, i got this surface as flat as possible. This was then repeated on the top surface.

Step 3: Finishing

Once planed most of the work is done, all that was left was to make it square but sawing the uneven ends off, i drilled a hole with a 30mm holesaw, then i rounded the edges with a power sander and when i was satisfied with the finish waxed.

It fits the mini-bar perfectly and I'm really happy with the results, this would also make a great gift.