step one is to drill a hole for the magnet

it’s important that the magnet fits tightly in the hole you drill - so maybe you need to find half size drill bits. 7.5mm for example

the type of wood makes a difference too

in a soft wood you can drill a smaller hole - the wood will expand when you push the magnet in

a harder wood, or harder material - like glass or a rock - won’t expand , so if the hole is too small you’ll have to sand a few mm away - wrap / tape sandpaper around something cylindrical that fits in the hole

when you’re drilling the hole - if the wood is very soft like pine, be very careful not to let the piece move side to side, otherwise the hole will wallow out and become too big

it’s possible to drill the hole the correct size and insert the magnets without any epoxy and they will stay and be fine

wood absorbing water and changing shape with humidity - these are things that could be problems and cause the wood to crack someday

the depth of the hole is something else to consider. the magnets will have the strongest connection if they are flush, touching each other

the last thing to think about is the polarity of the magnets and making sure you are installing them in the attractive direction if you want them to snap together etc.

ok drilled the hole and have the epoxy mixed already.

i think the only tip is not to coat the entire inside of the hole with epoxy - and not to fill it too much- don’t fill the hole like you would fill a bucket with water - fill the hole like you are cleaning the inside of a bucket with a wet sponge

if there is epoxy on the entire inside surface of the hole, when you go to insert the magnet, it won’t push into the hole because it’s making complete contact on the sides and there’s no where for the air to escape

just coat most of the inside of the hole with epoxy, but leave some place untouched so air can escape and you can easily push the magnet all the way to the bottom of the hole

use other magnets to insert and remove the magnet you’re installing

after the magnet is in the hole push on it with something - in this case a pencil

then wipe away the epoxy

and be patient and let it dry 24 hours - or at least 6 hours. if you wait 2 hours the magnet will pull out and you’ll have to do it all over again. maybe put tape over it if you need to test something and the epoxy hasn’t set.

if you chop a tree down in a standard way, you will expose the rings of the tree, and this is called the end grain

the end grain is full of xylem and phloem and little shoots for water and nutrients etc to go up and down. i think the idea is that the end grain won’t dull your knife as much, because the knife blade is passing inbetween the grain. a block of end grain wood seems to be stronger too.

so you need some wood - don’t use pine, i think it’s too soft - but it’s usually free because you can find it in the trash. wood with a tight grain is better because there’s less space for bacteria and stuff to hide. an open grain like oak isn’t the best for a chopping surface for this reason. but something like beech is okay.

first you need to plane it - using a machine like this plane 2 sides joined with an edge like this:  |_

then you need to use a machine, let’s call it the thickener, because i don’t know a better name - and you use this machine to make the other two sides the same thickness

it is most important that the blocks you are going to glue together are the same size

otherwise there will be gaps that the glue won’t fill and it’s fucked

this machine is going to make the piece 40mm thick - it takes material from the top surface, so you let it slide through on the planed surface

it comes out the other end, then repeat with the other side.

chop the planed piece of material on the scariest circular saw you can find:

go very slowly at the end of the cut so you keep the edges nice and clean instead of splintered and ragged - this is a problem with pine, a harder wood might not have this problem.

now you have a lot of blocks - great work.

at this stage you can choose to make blocks for babies with the alphabet on them or with farm animals or turtles and whales and butterflies and dragons and sharks.

or you can continue making the chopping board; you’ll just have to glue the pieces together.

it’s easy, but not that much fun.

some of your blocks might be the wrong size, so use the nice ones and figure out how to orient them to hide or show the knots in the wood etc

it’s like a puzzle. and i said it wasn’t that fun, but it kind of is.

i marked the edges where the glue is going to go and i wrote numbers on them so i know the orientation because i am easily confused

take your time gluing them and use a lot of glue. if two sides are going to be glued together, put glue on both sides. the glue will squeeze out anyway. and you can use your fingers because wood glue peels off easily, it’s not stupid like superglue that you have to use sandpaper to remove.

as the pieces have glue on them, i join them with the others, squeezing them in place

so you assembled it and it’s mostly glued. now you squeeze everything together by hand and make it line up - make sure you’re working on a flat even surface and keep it flush to that surface - also don’t let it dry to that surface, maybe put a piece of paper under the blocks

wipe off the excess glue (especially along the edges!) with a damp paper towel

then when the corners match and everything looks good, clamp it

notice the pieces of wood that go in between the clamps and the blocks - they should be the width of the final piece

apply even pressure and don’t tighten one clamp completely, go from one to the next to the next to the next. do you know how to tighten a wheel on a car? you start somewhere and then tighten it a little bit and then move diagonally to the next bolt and tighten it some and then diagonally to the next and so on and so forth until the wheel is tight and this is the same principle of applying relatively equal pressure so the whole thing doesn’t twist and stuff

let the glue dry for about 1 day. maybe less if you’re impatient, but at least 8 hours. at least 4 hours. a minimum of 2 hours but your piece might fall apart so keep that in mind.

after time has passed, 8 hours if you can manage, overnight is best - remove the clamps and get the extra wood pieces off. maybe you’ll have to use a chisel or hit them with a mallet, but be careful not to break your piece in half while you’re doing this

then take it to a sander and make everything nice and make the extra glue go away

your first try will probably look something like this - corners don’t match and there isn’t enough glue

but your second try will be quite okay

now figure out how food safe your glue is.

i used PVAc wood glue in this case because it’s free around here. it’s probably okay. there’s probably more lead and fluoride in your water and more mercury in your fish and more pesticides on your vegetables and more hormones in your meat and more benzene in your teflon and always diesel fumes in your grey grey city - so something like wood glue is small in the scale of dangerous things, but maybe find something safe anyway

after realizing october and octopus shared the same prefix, i decided to devote more energy than usual toward admiring them, making at least one every day of the month

here is a long side scroll image of the process.

here is a sketch explanation.

here is the burner.

here are the tools.

here is #6

oh yeah, this one fell on my arm and then on the floor because it came off the pontil.

you know, a lot of glass techniques aren’t possible without the right equipment and know-how. i had the best teacher for this one, and feel like passing it along.

first you scratch a line around the circumference of the glass with a diamond bit and then you heat the line with a torch while the piece is turning, to make sure the line is heated evenly.

the glass will crack along the small valley you’ve cut with the diamond tool. it is important that the line is as non-stop as possible, because the piece can crack erratically if there is a gap in the line, or if two lines cross.

materials: diamond bit or file, MAPP gas torch etc., spinning stand

laminating cork is fun and easy

if you already know how to laminate wood, this is more or less the same approach

materials : cork, wood glue, stick etc. for spreading glue (fingers last resort), pieces of harder material to protect shape and distribute clamp load, clamp

• brush off surface of cork until it feels clean, of course it should be as flat and even as possible
• place harder material under first layer of cork
• apply glue, using the spreader to make a fine layer, excess glue is dripped onto the mating piece
• when both pieces are covered in even coats, gently press them together, line them up, and then push them hard together and twist in opposite directions as if you’re locking them in place - it should feel like that as the glue spreads out the sides and they are sucked together
• repeat until all pieces are laminated then and apply the second harder piece of material to go between the clamp and the cork
• apply clamps opposite each other, crank them down gradually, not one at a time, always making sure the cork is still lined up
• when even pressure has been applied, crank them down a little more. you should not see the cork pinched by the clamps, you could probably laminate them without the harder pieces between the clamps, but this method will make the glue line nearly invisible
• let the wood glue dry, at least one two or three hours depending, but why not wait over night? unless someone else needs those valuable clamps…

when it’s laminated and everything, it can be worked just like a piece of soft wood, sawed, shaped on a lathe or belt sander, drilled, etc. it doesn’t chip away like you might think. it’s not bad about water, actually it floats, that’s kind of a nice property. it’s pretty lasting as far as we go. it comes from a tree, cork oak (Quercus suber), that can be harvested without being cut down, every ten years for a few hundred years. cork is easy to re-use, you could probably crush it and glue and press it all back together with some success.

as a bonus, you might try to dye the wood glue and mix up some sawdust or something and put in colored layers. rainbow cork.

cork cork cork, i’m so tired of cork, and yet here we are.

for more information about cork, specifically in the wine industry, check out amorim.