Trivets  1                                                2-2026

 

My daughter Angela wanted me to make her something that would go between her coffee brewer and her countertop. She requested this piece to be made out of black walnut, six to seven inches in diameter and be about 3/8" to 1/2" thick. Well this sounded fun to me so I stopped what I was doing and got to work on her project.

 

Working With Wood

 

I had some black walnut laying around so I looked at both ends and decided to use what you see below. And while I'm making one, I decided to make two of them while I was at it. At the time I was making these, I didn't know who I was going to give the second one to.

I cut off a 15" piece on my compound miter saw as my first step.

 

 

 
Next I ran this piece through my thickness planer to a size of .400" (slightly larger than 3/8").
 

 

 
Then I cut my pieces in half.
 

 

 
Here I'm doing some layout with my compass. The diameter of the circle is seven inches.
 

 

 
I used my bandsaw to cut on the line.
 

 

 

I could have used a router jig to make this piece round but using my lathe works just as well, if not better. I removed the three jaw chuck and installed my faceplate. Then I placed a sacrificial piece behind my work pieces (arrow) so I didn't cut into my faceplate. To hold both work pieces in place, I used a larger piece of aluminum along with my live center to clamp things in place.

To make sure I had my work pieces centered, I drew a layout line the size of my aluminum piece while I was laying out the outer diameter. Then all I had to do was center my aluminum piece inside the layout line and I was good to go.
 

 

 
I ended up turning my work piece to 6 3/4" diameter on the lathe. Then I setup my router table with a 1/8" round-over bit to give the top surface a softer edge.
 

 

 
Next I did some sanding with my D.A. along with some hand work as well.
 

 

 
On the bottom I added some rubber feet so it wouldn't slip on the counter. I used a 5/16" diameter end mill and went about 1/16" deep.
 

 

 
I'm using some rubber that is 1/8" thick for the feet. By using a round punch and a hammer, I was about to knock out these feet in less than a minute.
 

 

 

Here is a close-up of what the rubber looks like.
 

 

 
I used this method on a previous project and that worked out really well.
 

 

 
To make sure the feet stayed in place I used some five minute epoxy to hold them.
 

 
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