Lee Harps

It all started on Christmas Day when the Mrs. received a couple of new KitchenAid knives as gifts. I think it was December 26 when a post-a-note appeared on my computer monitor strongly suggesting that, since the NEW knives will not fit into the OLD knife rack, it might be nice if I would consider making a replacement knife rack. As the character, Rumpole, of the British sitcom series “Rumpole of the Bailey” says repeatedly under his breath about his wife: “She who must be obeyed….”

So here is the basic dilemma: 2 new kitchen knives (foreground), 1 very old (and filled, and ratty) hardwood knife block.

Not particularly wanting to recreate a larger version of the old knife block, I ventured into the cyberspace world of the Internet to see what I might learn there that would be helpful. I came upon the following design which I thought was 1) within the realm of my accomplishment and 2) was pretty darned clever! The part that stopped me was the $125 price tag (knives NOT included)!

You can visit the site at:

http://www.greenergrassdesign.com/martinrobitschschaschlik.html

Someone else had, on their site, made a very sculptured version of this same thing which I liked even more, so being the design thief that I am, I felt sure I could replicate something in this order for a few cents LESS THAN $125! To that end, I went to visit my local restaurant supply store and found various length bamboo skewers available.

I opted for the 10-inch version which, if I recall, were $1.69 per bag of 100. I purchased about 1500 of them, not knowing how many I would need. (I think my knife rack used only about 9 bags of the skewers.)

Wanting to see if we liked the concept in practical terms, I fashioned a down-’n-dirty quick prototype for the kitchen, using 1/8-inch plywood scraps.

With knives in place, it looked something like this:

The photo doesn’t show it well, but because the skewers were not packed in tightly enough in this prototype, the 5th knife from the right is sinking, with the handle moving down into the skewers. I made the prototype to accommodate the full 10-inch long skewers.

We decided 10 inches was too high for this to be located under our upper cupboards, but the concept seemed valid, so I proceeded to build an 9-inch version as the final item. Using some eucalyptus scrap lumber that was left over from building my current personal “e-harp”,

(hey, cut me a break! I can include harp photos if I like; after all, this is the “LeeHARPS” blog!) I cut out the pieces (having too much fun to take photos….) cutting 45 degree cuts on the corners. The corners were then joined with masking tape on the outside, Tightbond glue was applied, and the box was clamped together with strap clamps.

If you look carefully, you can see how, by cutting the corner joints on a 45 degree angle, one can have a “wrap-around” effect with the wood grain.

With the corners glued, I installed a bottom, routed out the decorative side openings and, using a jig to cut diagonal slots in the corners, I was able to glue thin walnut strips into the slots, strengthening the corners and giving the box a decorative touch. I then applied fillers and spray-can lacquer as a finish and it was time to install the skewers. First I had to determine what the new skewer length would be (skewers come in even lengths – 6-8-10-12-inch).

Secondly, I noticed that the skewers were not totally even in length, so decided to invert them, point down, into a metal tea can to establish a common level for the pointed tips.

I thought of different ways to evenly hold the skewers for cutting and decided in the end to use a very handy shop item I use for many purposes called “flat twine”:

This product is like a very loooong roll of stretchy saran wrap with a handle. As you apply it, you stretch it and, after several wrappings, it becomes very tight.

With flat-twine-wrapped skewer bundle still in tea can, and holding the can bottom against a wood block on the miter guide of the bandsaw, it was very easy to cut the skewers to length and not have the cut-off pieces flying all over creation.

While doing all this, I was trying some new technics with my camera, (F-stops, delayed shutter, etc.) and, in the act of doing so, learned a valuable lesson: HOLD ON TO THE BUNDLE WHEN RUNNING IT THRU THE BANDSAW BLADE!

Here I was holding only the can and the blade made the bundle of skewers go NUTS! I had pieces of skewer all over the place! I did have to discard a portion of that bundle, but I did not lose any digits nor did I shed any blood in the process. (Rarely does one happen to get photo documentation of causing stupid things to happen, and I guess that is a good thing!)
When all was said and done, the skewers installed and the knives inserted into the new rack, it seems to have turned out reasonably satisfactory. I’ve heard NO complaints from “she who must be obeyed”.

As with most of my projects these days, a sprig of wheat seems to appear somewhere on it.

Imagine that: There is wheat on my harp also!

Coasters anyone?!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.