Woodworking for Mere Mortals is sponsored
by MicroJig, maker of the GRR-RIPPER. Work safer, work smarter. This week's project is another great design
inspired by Carmen Salamone. Many of you will remember Carmen, whose marshmallow
crossbow shooter became one of the most popular projects of
last year. Carmen's pretty much been in full production
mode lately making lots of these really cool tankards. I used his technique for making these, only
I simplified them by eliminating the handle and making them larger for use as flower pots. I've got a thick epoxy finish on the inside
of these to make them waterproof. I'm resawing and planing all these boards
down to ¼" thick. I'm going to rip all these strips with a
12 degree bevel. I'll start by making one bevel on the edge
of each of these strips. Now with my fence moved over, I can cut a
series 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 plywood
to my workbench to help me line these all up. I'll lay out a couple pieces of masking
tape, sticky side up. And I'll tape the ends down. I'll line these up by butting them up against
the plywood. I figured out that at the size and bevels
I 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 up
very carefully. Well, that's interesting. For some reason this one only takes 14! Maybe the slats are thicker than the one I
made before? So that's obviously a different size than
my test version. This one I clamped together using rubber bands. I'm going to try something different on
this one: I've got some of these hose clamps. I'm going to edge-join these two ¼" panels
to make the bottom. These two boards will help keep it flat. I'm not really sure why this test one I
made used 16 slats and these used 14.
I'm sure there is a mathematical way to
figure it all out, but I think if you just cut extra pieces,
you'll be fine. And that gets it mostly round, it's very
smooth though. Before I put the bottom on, I want to round
over the top. This is going to be a lot easier to do before
I put the bottom on so I can see where I'm routing. This is a ¼" roundover bit. I'm cutting this out oversized so I'll
have room to sand it flush. I'll use a flush trim bit in my router to
even up the base with the rest of the pot. I'll ease over the bases with that same
¼" roundover bit I used on the tops. To waterproof the insides of these, I'm
going to use this pour-on epoxy finish. It says here that one thick coat of this equals
50 coats of varnish. I guess somebody had to measure that, don't
you think? 50 coats of varnish??? I'd be happy with 40, really. The critical part of this so that it will
work is to make sure that you pour out equal parts of the hardener and the resin.
I've got a whole bunch of these plastic
cups that have lines on them so I can use that to measure. And I've got two disposable knives that
I'll use to mix these together. And this gets stirred for a full two minutes. Then after two minutes of mixing that, you've
got to pour it into a clean cup and stir for another minute. The pour it in. I've got a disposable brush that I'll
use 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 formed
a really hard, thick, almost plastic surface. I'm going to finish the outside with some
spray lacquer. I think this turns out to be a unique gift
project. It's also the kind of project that lends
itself 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 joining
me 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 like
to show off, please feel free to post it on the Woodworking
for Mere Mortals Facebook page so everyone can see it! And once again, I'd like to thank Carmen
for helping me out with this project and for his endless source of great ideas. I have a feeling this isn't the last project
we'll be seeing from Carmen. Thanks everybody, I'll see you next Friday!.