Here is a little ‘handmade Christmas present idea’ for people that are keen on cooking, but get nervous when the recipe book is out of sight (or just want to avoid getting raw egg or flour all over the pages!). The ‘recipe book sanctuary’, tirelessly holds the book open in the right place, can be angled to suit working preferences, and folds flat for convenient storage – not that we would want to hide away such a lovely thing…

It is not the most challenging woodworking project, but as always the trick is in the details: choosing and sourcing the material, envisioning which bits to use for what, which wood grain to display and which to hide, and so forth. So yeah, I have included a basic cutting list at the end of this post, but if you are going to go for it and make your own, I would recommend you experiment and play about a bit with the dimensions so that you end up with something with a bit of personality. And if you don’t fancy that, then you could always commission me to hand make a perfectly unique beauty for you ;)

The one picture above is made from:

• Home grown Ash and Oak
• Reclaimed teak
• Two rescued stainless steel torx screws (from a junked dish washer)
• Food safe PVA based wood glue
• And a scrap of one old stainless steel bicycle spoke

Objects like this can be rewarding to design, build and use. It is nice to take time over it and make it how it should be, so that the closer you look the more interesting it becomes. Of course the wood itself is delightful, but by working on the details of a piece like this, we can make the finished work into a really tactile experience, as well as just eye candy.

Below: A close up of the book rest – Ash and Teak show pleasing contrasting colours and grain structure.

Little tricks like chamfering the edges with a hand plane can make the recipe book sanctuary appealing to the hand as well as the eye.

Recipe for a ‘recipe book sanctuary’ (or cutting list):

Side uprights x2 – 20cm x 4cm (tapering down to 2.7cm) x 1.7cm

Central uprights x2 – 20cm x 1.7cm x 1.7cm

Top x1 – 39.5cm x 3cm x 1.7cm

Bottom x1 – 39.5cm x 6cm x 1.7cm

Book rest x1 – 30cm x 2.5cm x 2.5cm (I opted for an uneven shape that slopes towards the main frame)

Prop x1 – 21cm x 2.5cm x 1.7cm

Sub prop x1 – 16cm x 2.5cm x 1.7cm

Note: following recipes exactly is likely to be boring.

Posted: 12|8|10 at 4:29 pm. Categorically squeezed into: Woodplay.
Tags: Cookbook Stand, oak stand, reading stand, recipe book stand, Wooden book stand, woodwork
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