woodworking for mere mortals is sponsoredby microjig, maker of the grr-ripper. work safer, work smarter. this week's project is another great designinspired by carmen salamone. many of you will remember carmen, whose marshmallowcrossbow shooter became one of the most popular projects oflast year. carmen's pretty much been in full productionmode lately making lots of these really cool tankards. i used his technique for making these, onlyi simplified them by eliminating the handle
and making them larger for use as flower pots. i've got a thick epoxy finish on the insideof these to make them waterproof. i'm resawing and planing all these boardsdown to â¼" thick. i'm going to rip all these strips with a12 degree bevel. i'll start by making one bevel on the edgeof each of these strips. now with my fence moved over, i can cut aseries of 1" wide strips. and with my blade straightened out again,i can use my crosscut sled to cut all of these down to 5" long pieces. i've clamped a straight piece of plywoodto my workbench to help me line these all up.
i'll lay out a couple pieces of maskingtape, sticky side up. and i'll tape the ends down. i'll line these up by butting them up againstthe plywood. i figured out that at the size and bevelsi made mine, it takes 16 strips. now i can squeeze some glue in between each of these slats. now it's just a matter of rolling this upvery carefully. well, that's interesting. for some reason this one only takes 14! maybe the slats are thicker than the one imade before?
so that's obviously a different size thanmy test version. this one i clamped together using rubber bands. i'm going to try something different onthis one: i've got some of these hose clamps. i'm going to edge-join these two â¼" panelsto make the bottom. these two boards will help keep it flat. i'm not really sure why this test one imade used 16 slats and these used 14. i'm sure there is a mathematical way tofigure it all out, but i think if you just cut extra pieces,you'll be fine. and that gets it mostly round, it's verysmooth though.
before i put the bottom on, i want to roundover the top. this is going to be a lot easier to do beforei put the bottom on so i can see where i'm routing. this is a â¼" roundover bit. i'm cutting this out oversized so i'llhave room to sand it flush. i'll use a flush trim bit in my router toeven up the base with the rest of the pot. i'll ease over the bases with that sameâ¼" roundover bit i used on the tops. to waterproof the insides of these, i'mgoing to use this pour-on epoxy finish. it says here that one thick coat of this equals50 coats of varnish. i guess somebody had to measure that, don'tyou think?
50 coats of varnish??? i'd be happy with 40, really. the critical part of this so that it willwork is to make sure that you pour out equal parts of the hardener and the resin. i've got a whole bunch of these plasticcups that have lines on them so i can use that to measure. and i've got two disposable knives thati'll use to mix these together. and this gets stirred for a full two minutes. then after two minutes of mixing that, you'vegot to pour it into a clean cup
and stir for another minute. the pour it in. i've got a disposable brush that i'lluse to spread it around on the inside. and i can let that sit. well, that worked out pretty well. i let this dry overnight and it's formeda really hard, thick, almost plastic surface. i'm going to finish the outside with somespray lacquer. i think this turns out to be a unique giftproject. it's also the kind of project that lendsitself to a lot of tinkering with.
spend some time experimenting with the width and the thickness of these slats as well as the bevel and see what you come up with. and i'd like to thank you all for joiningme this week on woodworking for mere mortals. if you are not already subscribed to my channel,please do so now: i have new woodworking videos every friday. and don't forget: if you've completed a project you'd liketo show off, please feel free to post it on the woodworkingfor mere mortals facebook page so everyone can see it!
and once again, i'd like to thank carmenfor helping me out with this project and for his endless source of great ideas. i have a feeling this isn't the last projectwe'll be seeing from carmen. thanks everybody, i'll see you next friday!