I've had quite a busy week in the workshop this week. Although I can only show some of the things I've been doing as I've got various Christmas gifts in the works which I don't want to spoil the surprise for (although the chances the recipients might be reading this are slim to none...)
Something I've previously made for myself and that I have been meaning to start prototyping for a while are beer cap catchers. These are wall-mounted openers for bottled beer that have neodymium magnets in the back of them so when the beer cap falls its caught by the invisible force of the magnet. So I cut a few design ideas this week some with inlays and some with painted detail as you can see below. the first few I made had a bit of bleeding of the paint despite the fact I was sealing them. This prompted me to order some signmakers sign vinyl mask. The combination of pre-sealing the wood and cutting through this means the finish for edge the paint will be much better and save time. I'll aim to document this process more in the future with some images. I was quite happy with the prototypes I made this week but the next batch should be much better. I particularly like the ace of spades and the roundel but the others seemed to be a hit too with people I showed them to. I expect I'll be making a many of these next year as I know a lot of beer drinkers.
I also worked on what is effectively an architectural model this week. There are a couple of images of this below but I can't show too much as its destined to become something a bit more interesting. It is looking really nice though so I'm excited to show it when its finished.
The last thing I can show this week is the laminate worktop that I cut for my in-laws. They had some installed in their kitchen but a mistake was made with an end piece so they needed a precise ellipse cuttings into it but this had to also blend into the edges. To add to the excitement the piece was 902mm so slightly to big to cut in a single operation on my CNC. My trusty jig for cutting oversize parts worked perfectly though and then I just very carefully measured between cuts. Thankfully there were not problems and the in-laws were happy with the result, which is a real achievement.
