Rolling Pin

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What to do with all the scrap wood accumulating? I guess an easy one would be a bone fire but I tend to keep everything... So the other option to avoid being flooded in scraps eventually is to use them.

After building the Alaia, I had plenty left and as you may have seen in other sections, I built a hand-plane and a couple of skateboards. Don't ask why (because I can't remember for the life of me where I got the idea) but I thought somehow it might be nice to assemble all the wood in a long sort of square log and then turn it on the lathe.

 

What for though ? My very good friend Xav being a pastry wizard, I thought why not make a rolling pin for him? (I'm nice like that), and so I did :-)

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Although long, it is a fairly easy process so I will not expand too much, just a few key points:

• What really takes time is assembling the blank: with only glue it takes day as you need to allow time to dry - Patience is the key

• Of course, some "gaps" appeared as the blank assembly was not perfect: I used tinted epoxy to fill them and I think it looks nice

• If you don't have a lathe, it is still doable as I'll show in a future project. Be ready for maximum effort though

• As it is a kitchen utensil, the finish has to be food safe: I used a mixture of raw linseed oil and bee's wax (plenty of tutorials on how to make it on youtube). Lots of coats and since raw linseed oil takes quite a bit of time to cure (much longer than boiled linseed oil) there again you have to be patient: slow and steady wins the race !

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In the end my friend was pretty happy and so was I !

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