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The Cooks will love it.

2K views 21 replies 7 participants last post by  Sylvain 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi all.

Below is a Holiday gift idea, that can be done on the cheap if you consider a SPF 2×4 comes in at 1 1/2" thick, and they are easy to rip 1" wide rips from. Or you can make cooler ones with either gluing up several pieces of 1 1/2" wide stock of different species, or a nice looking species by itself. Your imagination is your guide.

I made a bunch of plain Jane Hard Maple ones some many years ago. I gave all of the Women in my family, and life one as a kitchen helper, to aid in converting any recipe from 12 people, down to 1, or for 1 person up to 12. If you run into a US Navy cooks recipe for Chili, and it's supposed to feed 500, well you'll be needing a calculator.

Simple, quick, and so easy to use is why the Cooks love them. Pretty basic to make, so doing a few or a few Dozen is pretty simple work, so Woodworkers love em. Seriously I spent more time waiting on Shellac to dry then I did making them, and Shellac dries pretty fast, but then 40 years ago I was a LOT faster than now too.

Anyhow on to the jig. I ran into these back when I worked at ShopSmith, they were in Hands On, the free magazine SS put out a few times a year. Here is a pic of mine after almost 40 years. It originally had bright white copy paper, as you can see it's somewhat yellowed, plus it got dropped, and part of the Dovetail broke off, so I dug out the info for it, and was going to make some for Christmas for all the new girls added to the Family since the original run, and some for new friends too. I thought, gee I haven't seen this repeated anywhere, so I figured I'd drop it here. It's too neat an idea to let it die.

My old version.

Temperature Wood Musical instrument Measuring instrument Office ruler


On to the plan. It's of 3 different pages, so I am adding the links for all 3 in case someone has issues with their computer, phone, device, following links on a page. They will be the main page, that shows a pic, and tells about the build, and how to use them. It's the most important page.

http://freekitchenprojectplans.com

Next is the detail page for the size of all the parts.

http://freekitchenprojectplans.com/Assembly_1.htm

Following that is the portion you have to copy for the label you put on the front, that allows you to see how much of an ingredient to use, and also is the scale to put the number of people the recipe the single numbers show, mostly to the right side and on TOP. Then you set the number of people you are actually making the recipe for on the BOTTOM. The ingredients will line up over each other, telling you the conversion in seconds.

http://freekitchenprojectplans.com/Assembly_2.htm

1 1/2" tall X 1" thick is your size on the plan, but if you are trying to showcase some special wood, you could allow for more wood, just remember the top, and bottom need to be applied in 2 pieces, at the cut line. BUT don't cut the wood there, unless you allow for 2 x the height of your DT, to do after the rip.

Not sure if I typed that so it's clear enough? If you plan a 1/2" DT, make it 1" taller, A 3/4" DT is 1 1/2" taller. Rip it in two, then do your DT. This is much easier than how the plan has you go, and it more easily allows you to use a smaller straight cut bit to route "most" of the stock out first, which is the smoothest way to route a DT track into solid wood.

Truth be told, you could do a Dado, and a tongue, and it would slide fine, just make sure to use the catch, or a tiny magnet, or every time you turn it, the top will fall off.

Enjoy. I hope I snare some makers, if you do, drop a pic here as well as a link for a Make post.

Santa returns to his shop….......
 

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#3 ·
This would be a nice little kitchen addition. I asked my wife about it. She literally said this. "Naw, I just ask Alexa". I guess it would be like having a slide rule instead of a calculator… then again you can ask Alex virtually any math problem and get an answer instead of a calculator. i.e. 2+2, or what is the cosine of the square root of the inverse of 348.

Then again. I am a fan of handmade gadgets like this.
 
#4 ·
I am not an Alexa user. Kinda scares me she would be in my house, sending out, God only knows??? I do know this is yards faster than a calculator for the same use.

I'm with ya on the handy gadgets thing too. I am our main cook, and I get it out most days I am going off a recipe. It's just the 2 of us, and almost all recipes are for 6 or more. For most things I've been cooking all my life, so I know a lot of them, but you get into a few of them occasionally, and you are wondering is this food, or science?
 
#5 ·
I am not an Alexa user. Kinda scares me she would be in my house, sending out, God only knows??? I do know this is yards faster than a calculator for the same use.

I m with ya on the handy gadgets thing too. I am our main cook, and I get it out most days I am going off a recipe. It s just the 2 of us, and almost all recipes are for 6 or more. For most things I ve been cooking all my life, so I know a lot of them, but you get into a few of them occasionally, and you are wondering is this food, or science?

- therealSteveN
We have two of them. I swear that they talk about us behind our backs when we're out.
 
#9 ·
LOL

Me sitting here with a piece of electrical tape over the camera on my monitor. I refuse to be some sickos lab experiment….... LOL

- therealSteveN

- therealSteveN
I figure, if they're interested in what's going on in my house then they'll be very disappointed and bored. I've been in technology both professionally and personally all my life. The amazon devices just have a flash memory of 60 seconds so that they can follow up on what you just last said in case you elaborate on it. When I'm in front of my computer sometimes I just look up, smile and wave in case someone is looking. With 7 billion people in the world I figure there's boredom in numbers. I do keep track of my bank accounts though.
 
#11 ·
Steve all the cooks I have given one to, have loved them, and with making a bunch for new people I have a few redo's for some folks who wore the paper off. I had all of them poly'd down, 3 coats even. That's a sign of something getting used a lot.

This run, the folks I know to be regular cooks, I'm gonna take the papers over to a print/copy place and have them laminated before I poly them onto the wood blocks. I'm hoping that will increase the wear factor a bit.

On the yellowing, we have always kept the one I made for us in a cabinet, solid wood doors, so not in the light except the time it took to work out the recipe. Might be skin oils, if it is, it's strangely even.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
All of the above links are now either sending you to Amazon (imagine that) or are dead.

I was looking for a picture of the actual face that you would glue to the wooden parts. As above I can copy mine, but it's sadly yellowed, and I was hoping for a pristine copy. The closest I found was this redo by American Woodworker# online but again the graphics are pretty washed out if you go to the full sized 10" of what mine is finished.

https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/the-recipe-calculator/#

If anyone has a clear "full sized" copy of this graphic, please post it here.

Thanks
 
#13 · (Edited by Moderator)
Rectangle Slope Automotive exterior Parallel Auto part


Rectangle Font Parallel Circle Pattern


Unfortunately, this site modifies the image on upload to maintain size restrictions, so the graph is a bit fuzzy compared to the original GIF file. Maybe this orientation (original) will work better:

Rectangle Font Parallel Circle Symmetry


Cheers,
Brad
 

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#16 ·
Thank you much Sir, appreciate it. That is exactly the page I had linked to originally, and now it comes up as some Amazoo whatever….

It's the same page I made mine from about 40 years ago. It's from Hands On magazine, ShopSmiths freebie handout.
 
#18 ·
They are like a lot of small woodworking projects. Once ya get set up to make one, you may as well run off a dozen or so. Christmas was when I posted this, then never got to doing them, ran into "life" Want to make some this year to replace Family members made all those years ago.

I imagine for those who sell, they would go quickly based on impact I have seen from them. They actually do something useful, not just allude to something useful. A hunk of 2" x 2" of any hardwood, 10" long. The milling is as close to work as you'll get here. Once your set for the DTs, you can run off several in no time.

So they are cheap, easy, and they get a good reception, way better than I ever got with a cutting board, and with multiple glue ups, you can spend some time on those.
 
#19 · (Edited by Moderator)
Very nice project. I might do one which, on the other side, converts US customary quantities to metric ones for my daughter who has bought an US recipe book.

One can design one's own scale (with the help of a calculator and a decimal rule). It is based on logarithm.

log (A X B) = log A + log B
and
log (A / B) = log A - log B

Handwriting Whiteboard Font Rectangle Parallel


Why was this put in the coffee lounge? It is a good project (even if you made yours 40 years ago.)
I usually don't look in coffee lounge.
 

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#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
How to report a scale on an arbitrary length:

Rectangle Slope Handwriting Font Triangle


a word of caution when making the two scales ( one side for multiplication or division; the other side with fraction numbers) :
The scales must be such that the length between let's say the graduations "1" and "2" on each side must be the same to ensure synchronisation.
 

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#21 ·
Not sure why I posted it in Coffee, probably because it was so old, plus it was a hopeful way to preserve the links, because word around here is ShopSmith is coming to an end, or at least heavily trimmed back on what they pay for, so a lot of the old links are going dead.

My plan was to make several, shoot a bunch of progress pics as I did, and post it as a project but ran out of time last Christmas, and put it on the back burner till this week. I didn't even get around to having copies of the paper diagram printed out.

If you get a crisp metric to teaspoon and Tablespoon conversion chart feel free to add to the craziness, and post it here. I have never run across a metric recipe, so until you mentioned it I hadn't considered that, but depending on Social, IE Religious, Cultural, and probably a lot of other factors, it could be a consideration. Probably is, and for certain for you.

I have used this page when making weight conversion from grams to ounces.
 
#22 · (Edited by Moderator)
Thank you for the link.
In fact doing conversion with the slide rule is just a multiplication.
For instance I would add a (red?) mark at 2.37 labeled dl/cup on the top rule.
Then putting the "1" of the lower rule aligned with this mark I could read for any value in cups on the lower rule the equivalent in dl on the top rule. Or, reading dl on top rule I would find cups equivalent on lower rule.

In the same way I would add a mark at
- 5 labelled ml/tsp;
- 1.5 labelled cl/tbsp;
- 3.0 labelled cl/fo;
- 4.73 labelled dl/pint
- 0.946 labelled l/quart
- 3.8 labelled l/US gal

in the same way I could add marks (in green?) for masses.
I would have the upper rule simply with decimal graduation and the lower one decimal + common fractions used in US.

Now, some UK conversions are different (mark in blue?)
The Windows10 calculator shows a US tbsp to be 0.0147… liter while a UK tbsp is 0.0177… liter.

edit: I just had a look at the recipe book, it seems to be British.
 
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