My best woodworking project yet

[BuckeyeDennis]

Somehow, the tree gods and the photography gods all blessed this project. (I have a hunch that the Bourbon gods may have pulled a few heavenly strings.)

Bourbon flight tray.JPG (355.02 KiB) Viewed 6954 times

[algale]

Wow, wow, wow!!!!! Tell me about the wood and the finish! Absolutely stunnng!!

[BuckeyeDennis]

Thanks Al!

The wood is crotch-flame walnut, an end piece from a rough-sawn board that was in a pile of barn-find lumber I bought a while back from a friend of a friend. It was by far the most bowed and warped board I’ve ever seen. I’ll post some “before” pictures when I have a bit more time.

The finish is nothing fancy. I applied eight or ten coats of Minwax wipe-on poly, sanding between coats. It took forever for the finish to build, because end grain was sticking out every which way in that figured wood, and it soaked up the varnish like a sponge. No doubt that’s where all those gold highlights come from. When the finish finally did build, I couldn’t get an unblemished final coat with the wipe-on varnish, so I topcoated it with Minwax semi-gloss poly from a rattle can.

[JPG]

Gorgeous!! Curious where the 'inspiration' for the decision as to what to make from the end piece came from.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Gorgeous!! Curious where the 'inspiration' for the decision as to what to make from the end piece came from.

Thanks, Red! My brother and I both like bourbon, and about once a year when we get together, we’ll have a bourbon-tasting contest. We’ll choose four bottles of good bourbon, and we first get to taste each one. Then we’ll do a blind pour of four samples for each other, flight-style. We each rank them in order of our favorites, and try to match the flavors to the specific bourbons. Whoever correctly ID’s the most bourbons wins the contest.

Edit: To be clear, there can be NO losers in such a contest.

So the inspiration was to make a flight tray as a gift for my brother, and kick the game up a notch. But how to mark which sample is which on the flight tray was quite a head-scratcher. My wife came up with the winning idea. If you look closely at the photo, you can see a cream-colored paper coaster beneath each glass. The purpose of the coasters isn’t to protect the polyurethane varnish — I used that stuff specifically because alcohol won’t damage it. They’re actually there to record the names of the bourbons. Whoever is doing the blind pouring writes them on the coasters, and then places them writing-side down beneath the corresponding whisky glasses.

[algale]

I’ll post some “before” pictures when I have a bit more time.

Please do!!

[twistsol]

That is absolutely fabulous!. The finish shows amazing depth. I'm a Scotch guy myself, but who could pass on anything presented so beautifully.

[john]

The previous posters said it all!

A beautiful piece with a beautiful finish.

Congratulations.

John

[edma194]

This is a case where the simplicity of the piece enhances it's beauty. The bourbon helps also, but I'm waiting to see additional pictures. Very well done, highly impressive work. You have an excellent eye Dennis.

[nuhobby]

Wow! Yes, that's super!!!

I still remember in 2008, one day I took the afternoon off to go buy a few boards of walnut from a guy in the next town. It was probably 7-8 straight grain boards, and one *whopper* plank of crotch grain . I'm curious now what I did with that board...