More Off cuts

  In a previous post I said I hated wasting wood.  My buddy Ron calls me wood junkie, I save every piece of wood that I can imagine a use for some day.  Often that thrift pays off, but the penalty is a shop, basement, garage and back yard that is storing wood, all sorts of sizes and types.


  When I make cutting boards I end up ripping many board feet of oak, maple and birch into thin strips, that means lots of long narrow off cuts.  Which ultimately means a bin of thin slats of nice wood, with no real purpose.  Finally some of those slats have found purpose, I made the vise rack jig with a hand full and I made a bundle of book markers with some more and....

my latest brain wave is a woven oak mat/trivet for our granite counter top. I cringe every time I but a hot casserole dish or pie plate on the counter top, hard ceramic vs. granite always makes me wonder who will win and who will crack.  (no real fear for the granite, no real interest in having to clean up the mess.)


   We have several large cutting boards that are used on the counter but the are heavy to move with one hand.  My solution is an woven oak mat.  The pieces are about an inch wide and about 1/32 think.  All the pieces were longer than necessary and cut down once the glue set.  This was a great little project to work on.  I wove it together on evening, showed it to my wife another, she thought it was good idea, next I did some sanding, then some glueing and clamping and then cut the ends off.  This probably floated around in my shop for two weeks before I finished it with sealer last night.  
   
   Now that I have a method I think I will make a couple more, everyone has a counter that they'd like to protect.