Jake Goldsborough

Making a set of wooden coasters inspired by a chess board and diagonal pad

Howdy, and welcome to the first installment of my new segment, “This Old Blog”, where I talk all things wood. From projects I'm working on to tools and techniques I love, I'll cover it all.

I'm going to kick this new segment off by showing a set of coasters I recently made. These were inspired first by a chess board, but after I started gluing, a diagonal pad also came to mind. The coasters are made of alternating walnut and mahogany. I also added a border, but to be perfectly honest, I am unsure of the species. I think it might be some species of pine but that is only a guess based on pictures online.

Before I get too deep into the coasters, I do want to plug the local lumberyard I frequent, Moxon Hardwoods.

Based in Portland, Oregon, since 1990, we are an independent, family-run Flooring, Lumber and Decking company. Featuring Australian, American, and exotic flooring, lumber, and decking, our Hardwoods business is owned and operated by the Nolin family who have over 30 years' specialist experience in the lumber and flooring industry on the West Coast USA. The Nolins' Hardwoods team is ready to help you with your Flooring and Lumber needs.

I'm fairly new to hardwoods and "exotic" woods especially. The folks at Moxon were and are extremely nice and helpful with any questions I had. One of the things I love most about them is they have what I call an "odds and sods" pile. This wood isn't necessarily scrap, but is usually in shorter lengths and harder for them to sell. I've seen this sold as "mill ends" some places.

This is perfect for folks like me because I can get a nice variety of woods at a decent price. If you live in Portland, Oregon or the surrounding areas, I can't recommend Moxon Hardwoods enough. Now onto the project.

Hey, careful man, there's a beverage here!

I started the coaster set by cutting square blocks that were about 7/8" wide and 5" long. I then glued these up in sets of three and alternated between walnut and mahogany. I made two sets that were walnut-mahogany-walnut and one that was mahogany-walnut-mahogany to achieve a chess board pattern.

After finishing the main block, I thought the coaster was a bit small at just under 3" and decided to add a border. I'm not 100% sure on the species of this wood, but it has a beautiful grain so I decided to try it.

If anyone happens to know exactly what this species is, please tweet me!

I will also post my twitter handle at the end of the article, and it can also be found in the footer.

I'll admit I did eyeball the border cuts. There is a mark on my miter saw that I use that is between 5/32nds and 3/16ths. While each cut wasn't exactly the same size, the difference was negligible to me.

After gluing the border on, I was left with a beautiful, solid block of wood ready to be sliced into coasters.

Before slicing, I gave the block a rough sanding with 60 grit sandpaper to try and even everything out the best I could.

After gluing all this together, the end obviously wasn't flat and I decided to take a test cut at the same mark I used for the border cuts.

I did this for two reasons. 1) This gave me a flat face on the block, and 2) It allowed me to test the thickness of each coaster.

I thought that was too thin so I decided to bump it up to 1/4" to allow for a bit of sanding. This seemed thick when measuring but turned out to be a great thickness for them.

I ended up with about 12 coasters and some of the block leftover. I currently only have a miter saw, and the block started to get small and I didn't feel comfortable moving my hand closer to the blade.

I wanted a rough idea of what they would look like finished, so I rubbed one down with a wet rag. I liked what I was seeing.

I sanded the first coaster to 800 grit and applied a heavy coat of boiled linseed oil with a rag. I let this sit for about 20 minutes, then I rubbed off the excess oil with another clean rag. The next day I lightly sanded the coaster again with the 800 grit sandpaper. I then followed the same procedure as before to apply a second coat. I've considered a third coat, but am sticking with two for the time being.

I'm getting the light so I think that's my time. All in all, I'm very happy with how these coasters turned out. There are things I could have done differently and probably better, sure, but I think they look great and I also learned some things.

Please tweet me at @rjgoldsborough with any questions or comments you might have... or if you can confirm my guess of pine.

🌲