Making a pizza cutter with a celtic knot
I purchased the Rockler pizza cutter recently and decided to try a celtic knot in the turned handle. It was surprisingly easy.
I started with a leftover piece of hard maple I had from the legs of the nightstand project. Started with 1 1/2×6 block.
In the center I marked x's at 45 degree angles using my compound ruler. I was looking for scrap that would look nice and fit the kerfs that either my band saw or table saw would produce. I found the perfect scrap of cherry that fit my table saw kerf for the most part. It was a just a bit thin but using Titebond III and clamps I was able to fill the gap and pretty much match the dark color.
Anyways, in order to create a celtic knot, you just need to have an X in two planes criss crossing. Since my miter sled is only set up to do one side of the sled, I decided to do the same angle cut on all 4 sides instead of two x's on just 2 sides. This produces the same affect. I raised the blade up to about 1/4" inch below the height of the block to keep it together making glue up easier. One note, its best to do only one cut at a time and wait for the glue to dry before doing the next. I was impatient with them and only waited about 10 minutes between each side glue up causing some issues with support but nothing serious. So cut, insert piece, wait for it to dry, rotated and repeat for all 4 sides or if you can do 45 degree angle both ways then just do an x on two sides. Since I did all 4 sides same direction you end up with this….
Then drilled the hole for the threaded insert on the lathe using a 15/32 drill bit, and screwed in the threaded insert using the included allen wrench and a little CA glue to make sure it stayed in.
Finally, I mounted the side without the insert on my chuck, and using a live center with a cylindar adapter that fit in the insert without damaging it on the other end.
I then realized it was difficult to do the entire handle this way so I found a bolt that fit in the insert, cut off the head, and placed it in the jacobs chuck and just screwed the handle to it to finish the turning, sanding, and finish.
Tada!
I didn't align all 4 side cuts apparently so one of the loops on the knot is slightly larger than the others, but still all in all I'm happy with the result and will be doing more of them on various projects.
I finished it the same way I have a few of my pens as I'm most comfortable with this method, sanded all the way up to 12000 grit. Then 3 coats of BLO/CA combination, a coat of EEE-shine wax and then renaissance wax.
I purchased the Rockler pizza cutter recently and decided to try a celtic knot in the turned handle. It was surprisingly easy.
I started with a leftover piece of hard maple I had from the legs of the nightstand project. Started with 1 1/2×6 block.
In the center I marked x's at 45 degree angles using my compound ruler. I was looking for scrap that would look nice and fit the kerfs that either my band saw or table saw would produce. I found the perfect scrap of cherry that fit my table saw kerf for the most part. It was a just a bit thin but using Titebond III and clamps I was able to fill the gap and pretty much match the dark color.
Anyways, in order to create a celtic knot, you just need to have an X in two planes criss crossing. Since my miter sled is only set up to do one side of the sled, I decided to do the same angle cut on all 4 sides instead of two x's on just 2 sides. This produces the same affect. I raised the blade up to about 1/4" inch below the height of the block to keep it together making glue up easier. One note, its best to do only one cut at a time and wait for the glue to dry before doing the next. I was impatient with them and only waited about 10 minutes between each side glue up causing some issues with support but nothing serious. So cut, insert piece, wait for it to dry, rotated and repeat for all 4 sides or if you can do 45 degree angle both ways then just do an x on two sides. Since I did all 4 sides same direction you end up with this….
Then drilled the hole for the threaded insert on the lathe using a 15/32 drill bit, and screwed in the threaded insert using the included allen wrench and a little CA glue to make sure it stayed in.
Finally, I mounted the side without the insert on my chuck, and using a live center with a cylindar adapter that fit in the insert without damaging it on the other end.
I then realized it was difficult to do the entire handle this way so I found a bolt that fit in the insert, cut off the head, and placed it in the jacobs chuck and just screwed the handle to it to finish the turning, sanding, and finish.
Tada!
I didn't align all 4 side cuts apparently so one of the loops on the knot is slightly larger than the others, but still all in all I'm happy with the result and will be doing more of them on various projects.
I finished it the same way I have a few of my pens as I'm most comfortable with this method, sanded all the way up to 12000 grit. Then 3 coats of BLO/CA combination, a coat of EEE-shine wax and then renaissance wax.