coasters from scrap

One last thing about "Good Clean Fun," at least for now. I might have a few more small projects in me further down the line.

One of the shop projects they go over in the book is the coasters you can buy from the OWS. I have plenty of scrap laying around right now, and since I also had lots of time waiting for poly and lacquer to dry on the desk, I figured why not cut a few slim squares out of something and try my hand at making some. They turned out acceptable.

Get the grit out.

I cut these out of a strip from a 4x4. Not the actual 4x4, mind you, but a strip of about a quarter inch that had been trimmed off it so there was lots of sanding that needed to be done. Since it was trimmed with the circular saw and not a table saw, the strip itself was very uneven. After trimming it into square pieces, I chiseled things relatively flat. Then each one got clamped down and sanded with 60-grit to get more flat, then with 160 to get a little smoother.

Okay, fairly uniform in shape and smooth. Good enough.

Smooth enough that the stain didn't show many grit marks.

Out of everything I've made, I keep coming back to the finish on the patio table as the one I've liked the most. So I stained these with the gunstock finish and got two coats of seal with what was left of the spray lacquer. I may not have liked the fumes, but that stuff does leave a good finish.

Recycled Cheerios box as improvised painting area.

Scratching a table wouldn't be good.

Staining and sealing turned this small project I started while the desk was drying into one that took several days on its own while I waited for them to also dry, but in the end they turned out pretty well. Once dry I added felt to the bottom, since our dining table is already in rough enough shape, and now we have three classy looking coasters to use upstairs. These were so easy, and I have so much scrap around the garage right now, there are definitely going to be more in the future. Not a bad little project.