Butter Dishes

Last year my mom hinted that she would like a wood butter dish. So I decided to make a batch for Christmas gifts. I found this design from WWGOA that I liked the look of but I didn't need to include a spreader and my mom specifically requested one with a cover. I also felt like the size was larger than necessary.

So I made up a 3D model and started shrinking the size down and added a cover and this is what I came up with. The base is birdseye Maple with Walnut legs. I did the joinery the same as in the linked design except I didn't leave space for the spreader. I used 2 part epoxy to glue the parts together to avoid any issues with movement due to moisture since it will live in a kitchen environment. The epoxy is a bit more elastic than wood glue and since the grain direction is the same for all pieces, it should never be an issue.

I fully intended to orient the grain different in the end pieces so I wouldn't have to chop the recesses that locate the cover out of endgrain. But, only after cutting them all to size and cutting the pockets out did I realize what I'd done. So, after splitting the grain on the first piece, I put them on my milling machine and removed the bulk of the material then pared to final depth after glue up. In hindsight, I'm glad I screwed it up because I like the consistent grain direction

The covers are Walnut and the 4 sides are joined with 1/4" box joints. The tops have rabbets cut to fit into the recess then are glued on the ends but not the sides to avoid any issues with movement due to moisture.

In the case of both the bases and the covers, everything was glued up and after curing, the angles were cut on my table saw. All 4 sides of the covers are sloped at 5 degrees as are the ends of the base. The sides of the base are cut at about 3 degrees.

After cutting in the angles, all that was left was a lot of sanding done by hand. I used sandpaper to round over all the edges and make sure none of the angles or joints was too harsh and that when picked up as it will be in use there were no sharp corners to dig into the hand. Everything was sanded to 320 grit and then they were finished with butcher block oil since they're for food service. And I gave my mom and my in-laws a bottle of the oil with cutting boards I made last Christmas so I know it's easy for them to renew it as needed.

I actually drew this one up so I thought I'd post it here for posterity.

Note that this is sized for butter east of the Mississippi.  My understanding is that butter sticks out west are different.  And who knows what furrin' butter looks like!  So check your butter sticks before following these dimensions!

Thanks for looking. Hope everyone had a good holiday! Comments and questions welcomed as always.