This week, I made a simple wooden bottle opener. I recessed two magnets into the back to catch the bottle caps after opening, which really adds to the functionality of it. I used scrap cedar and pine from around the shop to make this piece, but you can use anything you have available.

I glued the pieces together and let them dry. After about an hour, I took them over to the miter saw, and cut off the edges.

Now that my boards have nice clean edges, it’s time to clean up the gaps on the face with my planer. The planer is my new favorite piece of equipment lately. No matter how messy the glue up is, the planer shaves it down nicely.

One of the best tips I learned, was to use “Waste Stock” around your work pieces when cutting, to avoid tear out. Here I’ve surrounded my work piece with MDF. It really creates much cleaner edges than from sawing alone. I’ve also used masking (or painter’s tape) when cutting, but I usually get better results with waste stock.

I used a forstner bit to create recesses for the magnets, and drilled pilot holes for the hardware and mounting screws.

A few coats of water based Polycrilic, and it was done.