Descending Ashtray

I used to love the comics when I was a kid. The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were far and away the best ones in my local paper. Later entries into my world included Fox Trot and Non Sequitur (and much later Don Hertzfeldt), but I never forgot my first loves.

It’s been snowing in Portland the last few days, which reminded me of the Calvin strips that were among my favorites – when Calvin would make snowmen … Not the happy, cute kind, with a button nose and a corncob pipe, but the kind of snowman every 10 year old dreams of making – the kind sure to piss off your parents.

So this year, rather than carve yet another Santa for my grandmother, I decided to do something a little different. Grandma was known for her yearly calendar gift, and mine was always Calvin & Hobbes (which she is a fan of, too). So this year’s Christmas carving is a dual salute: to Bill Watterson, the strip’s creator, and Grandma Selden, its avid promoter.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I can’t help it. Cutting boards are just fun to make. Most everyone on my gift list has already received a cutting board from me in recent memory, but I enjoy making them. It’s also a really good way to reduce the pile of “too nice to throw away” offcuts, and I’ve got the process pretty well dialed in now (see also my post on how to do end-grain cutting boards):

1. Cut scraps to consistent length. This time I did two lengths – about 18 inches long, and about 12 inches long. This gave me two sizes of cutting boards.
2. Plane the scraps on both sides to make sure they’re all parallel and smooth for gluing.
3. Lay out the boards. For the bigger boards, I went with symmetrical layouts, but for the smaller ones, I did some asymmetrical layouts.
4. Glue! I put a bead of glue on one side of the board, then spread it with a disposable brush. Then I put another piece on top of it, and repeat until the board’s all glued up
5. Apply clamps. Again, you can never have too many. I’ve got ~10 Jorgensen F-clamps, and I usually put 4 per big board, and 3 per small one, which limits my batch size to about 3 boards/day. In weather below 50, it’s a good idea to bring them inside if your workspace is unheated, as the glue won’t set below that temp.
6. Once the glue’s dry, I plane the whole board smooth on both sides to clean up all the drips and squeeze-out. Works great.
7. Square up the ends on the table saw using a crosscut sled or miter gauge.
8. Round over all the edges and corners with a roundover bit in your router (mine is a Bosch 1617 mounted under my table saw
9. Finally, I sand both sides to 220 or so and add a few coats of mineral oil to finish.
10. Pass ‘em out!

The woods I used this year are Birch, Maple, Doug Fir, Walnut, Zebrawood, Oak, Padauk (the red wood) Cherry and some variety of faux Mahogany.