Cigar/Whiskey trays

It’s that time of year again, and the shop is humming with activity as I work on gifts. I try to do something new each year, and this year’s theme was a cigar/rocks glass coaster combination. For the material, I used offcuts of burls from bowl blanks I harvested and dried.
I also made two coasters for those who do not smoke cigars.

Turning off-center:

One challenge was to make custom-sized cork coasters.


What I learned:

  1. Hot glue will adequately hold an off-center turning to a waste block.

  2. To finish the non-natural edge of a burl flat work section, cut a 10–30-degree corner. It gives the edge a finished look.

  3. Glue a straight edge to the tray to route the cigar slots with a 3/4 round bit.

  4. Rocks glasses have a 3.15" base.

  5. To cut the cork hot glue a 1/4 disk to a waste block, and glue an oversized piece of cork to that disk. Cut with skew watching the disk’s shadow (behind the cork) as a guide.


You might ask why I did not make these with my CNC stuff. My K40 is out of commission and my CNC is also down waiting for me to complete my new spindle driver.

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Since no one was burning to say anything, I’ll state the pieces and burl patterns are smoking hot gorgeous.

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I was going to say that it is very burl-esque! :hushed:

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