Coaster Plates

I put this here, as it is a combination of flat and spinny, but I did most all of the work with hand tools, I'm loving my nice sharp planes!

Last week, my lovely wife made an off-hand comment that she needed to give something to the pianist at my daughter's choir group, said pianist seems to have gone and gotten herself married and my lovely wife wanted to give her and her new husband something. She called on me to make something, "no problem" was my answer, "what would you like?"

She showed me a picture in a catalog of these coasters with a space on the side for a snack. It seems that these have become quite popular here. I made one up, to the exact specs of the catalog, and we both realized that unless you were using a very small coffee cup, or a tiny Japanese style tea cup, these were on the small side, so I scaled things up a bit.

Now today it is Saturday, and my daughter's choir club meets on Saturday, and on Thursday evening, my wife says to me "Will you have those coasters done by Saturday?"

Time to kick it into gear. I got up nice and early on Friday, and expected to get right on the job...... no chance, one of our fridge units at the liquor shop, decided to spit the dummy and went South, so I had to coordinate with the refrigeration guy on getting if fixed, thankfully, it was only a relay that went poof, so it was not too expensive, and we got the fridge back online by about 3PM, which is the time I start to do deliveries

Last night around 10PM the Monster-In-Law comes downstairs, boy, that is at least an hour early for her, so at the first chance, I beat a hasty retreat and headed to the Dungeon around 10:30 PM. I worked until about 2:30 AM to get these done. I left them on the table downstairs and hit the sack.



I woke up this morning about 9AM and when I came down for breakfast, I asked my lovely wife if those were OK, she was very pleased with them, but was a bit surprised that I got them done so fast

I said "Well, on Thursday, you said you needed them for Saturday, and the fridge thing kind of killed my Friday morning, so I burnt the midnight oil last night and got them done for you"

She smiled and said "Oh, I did not mean -THIS- Saturday......."

Oh well, that is done, and now she wants some for the house too.......

The size is 14cm wide and 12cm deep by about 8mm thick (5 1/2" x 4 3/4" x 5/16")

The wood is some Blue Keyaki left over from my as yet unfinished Genkan bench

I made up a jig to do the undercut edges on the tablesaw, then I finished all the surfaces with my hand planes. The cut depression was done on the lathe, using my vacuum chuck (man that is sure slick!!).

I sanded only very lightly with a #600 scrubby pad after a coat of sanding sealer and then wipe on poly a few coats.

I'll be making some more, so I'll take some pictures of the process, if anyone is interested.

Cheers!

Very cool Stu!

Did you use some sort of jig to register the postion of the plates when you put them on the vacuum chuck?

They look quite handy!

Brent Dowell said:

Very cool Stu!

Did you use some sort of jig to register the postion of the plates when you put them on the vacuum chuck?

They look quite handy!

Click to expand...

Thanks Brent!

No jig, I just eyeballed them

They are a handmade product, so there will be some variation between pieces, that is part of the charm of handmade work............. and that is my story, I'm sticking too it

Very slick, Stu. I like the bottom edge chamfer, too.

Thanks Vaughn.

The bottom edge chamfer really lifts the plate and make it look a lot lighter, the angle ended up being 27 degrees, don't ask me why, that just looked right to us 45 was way too steep, and 30 was also off a bit, so I just did what I thought looked right and ran with it. I made a jig to cut the angle on the tablesaw, as I don't happen to have a 27 degree bit for the router table
One pass on the tablesaw, and then I cleaned up the chamfer with my LV low angle block plane, one or two swipes and it was smooth! Worked very well on the end grain too, sweet tool!

I am beginning to appreciate the capabilities of a suitably sharp plane....

The coasters look very nice. This is the first time I have ever seen one with a space for a snack.

Mohammad Madha said:

The coasters look very nice. This is the first time I have ever seen one with a space for a snack.

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Me too Mohammad, it may very well be a cultural thing, most of the time, if you are having Japanese tea the host/hostess will serve a small bit of sweet to offset the very bitter green tea. There is not a bowl full of the sweets, just a little bit is all.



Like that, so for the more casual circumstance, I guess these coaster plates have evolved

Cheers!

Those are great. I have seen plastic versions with a hole for your thumb to come through from underneath whilst holding them. I guess the idea is to tote them around while standing about talking on the veranda or something like that, eh? Yours are way classier than those that I saw in passing. Very smooth. Kinda organic and flowing. Really like them.

P.s. "spit the dummy"; good one. You don't hear that often in this hemisphere ;-)

"Spit the dummy" is a new one to me.
Those are really cool Stu. If you make them a bit larger they might be nice for a childs plate as well.

Dang it, Stu! Now I want to make some of those. But alas, no vacuum chuck.

How would you make them without one?

Thanks,

Bill

Stu those are great!

Bill, I don't have a vacuum chuck either, my first thought was an offcenter glue block.

Yeah, an off center glue block or maybe good doublesided tape, the turning part of it is very minimal, very light cuts, so you don't need much to hold it. If you cut the bevels after you turn the cup depression, I think you could work out some kind of a holder for the pieces that would then mount in a chuck or on a face plate

I must say, the vacuum chuck does rock!

I had a bit of time, and as your question of "How do I do that without a vacuum chuck" kind of stuck in my mind, I decided to tackle it

What I decided to make is a fixture that attaches to a faceplate, as I think just about every lathe sold comes with a faceplate. The fixture holds the wood but does not damage it in any way, you could use this fixture many times to make many of these plates.

I used the thick wood specific CA glue for this, I think it is fine, the turning on these pieces is very minimal and very light cuts only are needed, but if you feel safer, by all means, use regular PVA wood glue.


The plates are 120 mm x 140 mm and 8mm thick.


This is what I started with, the main piece of plywood is 15 mm thick, the thin side pieces are 8mm thick, as that is the thickness of my plates, the hold down pieces are the lighter colored plywood, they are 15mm wide and 5mm thick.


Using a plate as a guide, I glued the side pieces onto the main plywood on three sides.....


..... the fit is snug


I then glued the end holder piece on, this one holder does not move and it is good to have it quite snug. The removable end piece and holder are glued together and drilled out for screws. The two long side holder pieces are also drilled out and the holes for the screws that hold them are predrilled, so that the plywood does not split. When the screws are tightened, the work piece is held quite firmly in place


It is also a good idea to drill a hole in the nonremovabe end, so you can push the work piece out when you are finished, it is a snug fit.


Next I figure out where I want the cup depression to be, and I center my face plate on that point, attach with good quality screws that do not go all the way through the fixture.


Here is the fixture holding a workpiece on the lathe, my workpiece was only a chunk of plywood, I did not have any other stock cut and ready, but it is the same size as my plates are.


Check to make sure that the fixture does not hit your tool rest or banjo, then turn on the lathe at a slow speed. I checked, and everything was running smoothly, I marked the center of the cup depression and I also marked the size, which is an 8cm diameter. You can see I have room to cut the cup depression, without hitting the fixture.


A safety point, I place my toolrest so that the end of the fixture does NOT come past the end of the toolrest, that way I know that as long as I keep my hands on this side of the tool rest, and not past the end of the toolrest, they are safe, swinging odd shaped stuff on your lathe can take some getting used to, be careful


Here is the cup depression cut, I guess it is about 2 or 3mm deep, not very deep, it does not need to be deep. From there you can sand it and be done on the lathe. I could run my lathe at about 800 RPM without any bad shaking, but you will have to figure out the speed yourself on your own lathe, be safe!

Cont.......

........

This is where that hole comes in handy to push the plate out, even with the holders loosened, it is still in there snug, so the push out hole really helps!


The work on the lathe is finished!


Now we need to cut the bevels on the underside of the plate, for this, I made a jig, it is just a simple box, with one side sloped and a cleat on the back edge and a clamp on the face of the sloping side to hold the plate.


Like I said, just a simple box. I positioned the fence of the tablesaw so there is an edge left on the plate sides, you do not want it to be too sharp, it will get damaged too easy. My edge is about 2mm thick, this also gives me a bit of wood to plane to make the bevel smooth, as the cut off the table saw is not smooth.


On my plates, my short ends are the endgrain ends, so I cut them first, that way any splintering is removed when I cut the long sides which are ripping cuts.


Long sides to be cut


Bevels cut.


Like I said, the finish from the tablesaw blade is not very smooth, and while you could sand the bevel, that could very easily round over the nice crisp edges of the plate, so I use my LV low angle block plane to smooth the bevels. Once again, do the endgrain first, then the long sides. I made up a very simple planing board to hold the plate while I plane it, makes the job a lot easier. A couple of quick swipes with a sharp plane and the bevels are smooth and ready for finish.


The finished plate, this one was just plywood, but all the work would be done the same if it was a regular piece of wood.

I hope this helps, I know that there are other ways of doing this, but this is fairly straight forward, and uses simple tools, so I hope those of you who want to give it a go can make do with this design.

Cheers!

Bill Lantry said:

Dang it, Stu! Now I want to make some of those. But alas, no vacuum chuck.

How would you make them without one?

Click to expand...

Y'know Bill, I've got various coasters floating around the house, and none of them have a depression for the cup.

(But I agree that really "makes it" for this style!)