Wooden Coaster : Made Easy
How many of you’ll remember this dialogue between Chandler and Monica in the famous series “Friends”?
Chandler: There's no coaster. It's a cold drink, it's a hot day. Little beads of condensation are inching their way closer and closer to the surface of the wood. Monica: Stop it! Oh, my God.
Obsession or not, we know a lot of people who do get bothered when someone puts something cold or hot on their favorite furniture, leaving marks on the surface. Why let it bother you when you can easily make one of these at home! All you need is - some Popsicle sticks, glue, scissors, any wood stain, one sanding paper and a bit of varnish. Wood stain, varnish and sanding paper are super affordable and can be easily found in any hardware store.
Fun Fact: Popsicle stick is a thin strip of soft/hard wood. Poor thing gets underestimated because it’s so easily available everywhere. That said, technically, we are creating a wooden coaster!
Let’s jump into the procedure.
You needn’t limit yourself to this procedure. Get inspired, build creative and don’t forget to share it with us here! For the coaster shown here, we’ve used 27 Popsicle sticks.
1. Prepping: Take one Popsicle stick, measure and mark both the edges, then cut using a scissor. It should look like how it's shown here. Repeat it for all sticks in your bundle.
2. Building: The coaster has three parts to it - base, middle and top.
a. Middle Part - Take 16 sticks for building middle part. We need to make 4 blocks of 4-stacked sticks. Take 4 sticks; stack it up while sticking one on top of the other using glue. Make 4 such blocks; let it dry for 30 minutes. The picture below should give a good idea.
Tip: Just after gluing them together, if you find them slipping away from the intended stacked-up structure, use masking tape to secure the stack tight before letting it dry, again, this tape is something that can be easily found at a hardware store.
b. Base - Take 4 sticks from your prepped pile for the base of coaster. First, take one stick; mark 4 spots on it - two at the edges and the other two towards the center of stick, equidistant from each other. This is for sticking the blocks. On each of these marked spots, stick one edge of stacked block at 90 degree to the stick. Now, stick the remaining 3 sticks in a similar fashion, equidistant from each other. Let it dry for 30 minutes. At the end, of this, it should look like the picture shown here.
c. Top Part - Take 7 sticks for building the top part. Follow the same procedure as the one used for setting the base part, to stick the remaining 7 sticks. Maintain a little gap between two adjacent sticks. Once you glue everything together, it’ll look like the picture below.
Tip: You can place a lightweight object on this glued, to-be coaster; it’ll help in uniform gluing. Take care to not disturb the structure while placing any object on it.
3. Sanding: Wait until the structure is completely dry, then, gently sand all the parts of the coaster that’s accessible to you.
4. Staining: Now, stain the coaster with the color of your choice. For this, we have used a walnut wood-stain; you can easily find a small bottle of the same stain or other colored-stain like teak in a hardware store.
Tip: You can tear out a small piece of cotton cloth, fold it neat and wet it with a small quantity of stain. Gently apply it uniformly on all visible parts of the coaster. Take care to not use a lot of the liquid. If you’re using stain for the first time, please try it on a spare Popsicle stick, it’ll also help you understand how much to use for a single coat.
5. Varnish: Let the stain dry for a couple of hours and then finish it off with a thin coat of varnish. Then. let it dry for an hour.
Tip: While applying varnish, again, take care to not use too much quantity as it might end up looking too glossy. Varnish is for protecting the coaster from anything liquid that falls on it, it basically creates a layer on top of the stained wood; so, make sure to apply it uniformly. You can also use clear spray instead of varnish.
There you go, your coaster is ready to use!
Written By Chindhu Hari
About Me:
I'm an art enthusiast and love creating things. While I'm not coding and helping to create new products in the Software industry, I try my hands at creating things with new mediums. My current love is wood and fabric.
