IME the completely round smooth ones are not as easy to use as the ones that still have some surface roughness and a little bit of rectangular shape left. (Most of my experience these days is with the semi-disposables, which look like they were just run through a custom router setup, although at home a fluting bit applied several times might do it.) It might be cool to build a jig so that the laser could apply light texture after the rest of the production process.
Here is a chopstick making jig.
It might be worth stabilizing the wood before or after with some form of resin. Cactus Juice jumps out as a first attempt. Though I must say that I donāt know the food-safe of it, think I read somewhere that it was okay. But due-diligence would be needed.
Beautiful! What types of wood did you use?
Walnut, maple, mahogany for the spline
Thanks. Iām tickled that the mahogany was the only one that I could not guess (I have no woodworking experience, but would like to explore it once my supperhappy machine arrives).
this is way cool. how long does a pair take you start to finish? do you make a whole mess of 'em at a time?
You make the blanks in batch mode, cutting the spline and glue up is done in 3 to 4" wide blanks. then cut and sanded into 7mm squares. That takes about 2 hours for 10 sets.
Shaping the chopstick takes about 10 minutes a set using the chopstickmaster jig I linked to above. Alternatively you could use a flat belt sander but I could not get a good result that way.
Nice thing about chopsticks are that you can use up nice wood scraps that might get thrown away or get tossed into the burn pile.
You did a beautiful job on those. How did you cut the slot for the spine?
Just on a table saw using a flat cut blade. I measured the kerf and sanded the spline to fit using my Supermax drum sander. This is a common chopstick design. I thought that the instructions are online. I will post a link if I can find them.
Found it. http://woodarchivist.com/581-making-chopsticks/
I had no luck using the sanding technique shown.
Thank you for the link. I hadnāt thought of cutting a slot for the spine before the chopsticks were cut.
Love, LOve, LOVE this!!
Those are pretty awesome! What kind of finish or sealer would you use on them?
Just food grade mineral spirits
cheers man, thanks.
Having received custom chopsticks beforeā¦please make sure they arenāt too heavy to use!