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Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

author-gravatar harrison17 Dec 11, 2018

This came from a piece of black walnut that was given to me by my grandpa. He managed to save a chunk from an old tree they had (bark and all) and held onto it for a long time. I sent this back to him as a little surprise and thank you.  I added the horseshoe because he's always been involved with horses, whether in rodeo, raising, or racing.

It has some character like the bug trail I left in the sapwood and the surface checks I filled. It's outfitted with some pretty intense magnets so no bottle cap will go uncaught. It can be mounted on a fridge or with the keyhole hanger for the wall. For the finish, I tried Arm R Seal for the first time.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

Finished photo first.  It was tough to photograph with the gloss finish, but you get the idea.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

Resawing down to rough dimensions.  I had just gotten my bandsaw so I was trying to figure things out.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

There were a lot of little surface checks.  I used medium-thick black Starbond Adhesives glue to fill them and it worked pretty well.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

I put one coat of finish down on my show side to protect things and to prevent contamination for when I start flushing the inlay.  First time using Arm-R-Seal and I really like it.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

Getting the back ready for the magnets and the keyhole hanger

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

I made a horseshoe shape in Sketchup to make sure it would be symmetrical and the right size.  I printed it out and then used carbon paper to transfer the shape to the wood 

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

Here's my little homemade chisel.  The goal is to part the fibers, not remove material for the flat wire.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

In progress with the flat wire inset and working on the metal dots. 

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

After I had filed and sanded the wire flush.  There's a lot of metal debris created, hence the pre-finishing to try and keep it out of the wood pores.

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

Adding some round overs to the edges

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

More roundovers

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

A view of the back with the magnets.  They're large and mean business. 

Photo of Magnetic Bottle Opener With Wire Inlay

On my fridge.  I have a video of it catching caps, but no pictures.  The lapse in photographs must have been cause by my excessive dedication to quality control testing to make sure it worked in a real life situation.

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