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Well, this is woodworking related, but it's by no means fine woodworking, so I figured I'd put it in this forum. Mods feel free to move it if you think it's too on-topic for the off-topic forum.
LOML has a co-worker who's a serious scrabble player, and she had apparently lost one of the little wooden letter holders that each player uses to hold their letter tiles. Somehow, LOML volunteered me to try to make a replacement for the missing holder, and brought one of the original ones home a few nights ago.
Although I couldn't copy the profile exactly, I came up with a combination of a couple bits on the router table that would come close. Since my revised profile didn't exactly match the original, I figured I should make a set of four new ones. The original was made from maple, but the scrap drawer didn't have any suitable pieces of maple, so I found four padauk cutting board offcuts that were already almost the right size. The grain in these scraps was running width-wise instead of length-wise, which showed it off better anyway. (Not great for strength, but it's not like they're holding up a truck or anything.)
About 15 minutes with the table saw and router table and a couple quick coats of wipe-on poly later, here's what I ended up with. Here's the old vs. the new:
And the set of four new ones, with the original:
And yet one more group shot, to try to show the grain a bit better:
Sorry for the picture quality...I didn't feel like setting up the photo tent just for a few Scrabble letter holders. Although they're not fine woodworking, I was real happy with the way the padauk looked and the profile I ended up with, and the co-worker was completely floored. A few days later she gave LOML a homemade German chocolate cake to bring home for me as payment for the work. (Eating a piece of it as I type.)
LOML has a co-worker who's a serious scrabble player, and she had apparently lost one of the little wooden letter holders that each player uses to hold their letter tiles. Somehow, LOML volunteered me to try to make a replacement for the missing holder, and brought one of the original ones home a few nights ago.
Although I couldn't copy the profile exactly, I came up with a combination of a couple bits on the router table that would come close. Since my revised profile didn't exactly match the original, I figured I should make a set of four new ones. The original was made from maple, but the scrap drawer didn't have any suitable pieces of maple, so I found four padauk cutting board offcuts that were already almost the right size. The grain in these scraps was running width-wise instead of length-wise, which showed it off better anyway. (Not great for strength, but it's not like they're holding up a truck or anything.)
About 15 minutes with the table saw and router table and a couple quick coats of wipe-on poly later, here's what I ended up with. Here's the old vs. the new:
And the set of four new ones, with the original:
And yet one more group shot, to try to show the grain a bit better:
Sorry for the picture quality...I didn't feel like setting up the photo tent just for a few Scrabble letter holders. Although they're not fine woodworking, I was real happy with the way the padauk looked and the profile I ended up with, and the co-worker was completely floored. A few days later she gave LOML a homemade German chocolate cake to bring home for me as payment for the work. (Eating a piece of it as I type.)