Wood Drink Coasters

Every year for the past several years, I make batches of wood coasters to hand out as Christmas gifts to friends and family. It is a rewarding process, and one that reminds me of my first days as a woodworker where simple projects like cutting boards and coasters were the ones I spent a lot of time learning from.

The project begins in the late days of fall. I gather this year’s scrap pieces of wood that are 3/8" to 3/4" thick and at least 12" long. Usually I have enough to make a couple of dozen coasters and rarely require milling additional wood.

I then sort the wood into blocks, trying to match length. I usually end up with 3 batches - under 14", under 18", and several really long pieces over 24". I have had situations where pieces at 36" long I had to cut into shorter blanks, they are just too long to reasonably work with.

Once that is done I then try to make a pattern of several runs, each at least 4" wide. The width and pattern are difficult to work with at times. My preference is going symmetric and contrasting species of wood, though with time this becomes more and more difficult having fewer pieces.

After the sorting and arrangement is done, the glue up begins. I glue the coaster boards over a couple of evenings. It’s a quite fast process, taking just a couple of minutes to put glue on the boards and clamp them down. I typically do 2 boards at a time and repeat the process in the morning to get 3-4 long runs a day.

The most annoying part is next - planing. Getting a uniform thickness per board takes several passes of my DeWalt 13" planer, and it’s a dusty and loud operation. I reserve a whole afternoon for the process. Passing the boards over and into the planer takes a while. One of these days I might look at helical planing head for the planer, or maybe even upgrade to a 240V planer that can take thicker passes.

Once the boards are of uniform thickness, I square the ends and run them through the miter gauge on the table saw for a uniform width and height. My go-to is 3.75"x3.75".

Finally a quick sand & planing of the edges can be performed. Over the years I tried several different styles, a 45deg chamfer is the one I like the most.

For finishing I use Tried’N’True mixture of wax and mineral oil. It’s food safe, dries relatively quickly, requires only a couple of coats and leaves a nice finish to the touch. Being a penetrating finish it does need to be re-applied occasionally, but that is quite easy to do.