Design Challenge: Chopsticks

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.

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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 donā€™t know the food-safe of it, think I read somewhere that it was okay. But due-diligence would be needed.

Here is a nice chopstick design along with some of the chips.

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Beautiful! What types of wood did you use?

All those chips just for a chopstick reminds me of this video (but seriously nice job):

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Walnut, maple, mahogany for the spline

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Thanks. Iā€™m 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).

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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?

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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.

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You did a beautiful job on those. How did you cut the slot for the spine? :relaxed:

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.

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Found it. http://woodarchivist.com/581-making-chopsticks/
I had no luck using the sanding technique shown.

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Thank you for the link. I hadnā€™t thought of cutting a slot for the spine before the chopsticks were cut. :confounded:

Love, LOve, LOVE this!!

Those are pretty awesome! What kind of finish or sealer would you use on them?

Just food grade mineral spirits

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cheers man, thanks.

Having received custom chopsticks beforeā€¦please make sure they arenā€™t too heavy to use! :slight_smile:

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