Offset Turned Door Stop

For whatever reason, I decided to create a door stop. Perhaps it’s a result of a subconscious longing for spring, when we can prop our doors open without getting snow in the house, or suffering flies that come with summer. Compound this with that I, like many, often find myself searching for new ways to use scraps, and trying to come up with new project designs.

I did a lot of on line searching under terms like “turned offset door stop,” “2×6 offset doorstop” and so on, but the only thing that showed, over and again were, for example, a 2×2 that, after both ends were turned, were cut diagonally down the middle to produce very low slung (so to speak) stops.

I thought it would be interesting to turn a handle on extremely offset pieces of wood, like 2×6’s and 2×8’s. What I came up with is the simple door stop in the picture.

To make it:

1) I cut a piece of 2×6 down to about eight inches long. Leaving it a bit longer allows me to more easily set the pieces up for turning on the lathe.

2) I drew a line diagonally across the face of the wood, starting the line down from the edge about half the distance of the thickness of the wood (e.g., if the wood is 1-1/2” thick, start the line 3/4” down from the top left corner.

3) Once you have your diagonal line, draw a line ninety degrees to the line, at both ends and such that the line can project half the thickness of the wood both right and left of the diagonal line.

This line is only to allow you to mount the wood on the lathe without the centers having to penetrate and hold the wood at an angle.

4) You can now trim off excess wood that would contribute to throwing the turning off balance, minimizing vibration. Of course, leave plenty of wood for your general design, the turned handle and for mounting.

5) Mount, turn and sand the handle.

6) Remove the turning, then use a band or jig saw to cut away the excess, which was left for mounting to the lathe.

7) Sand, finish, allow to dry, then prop a door open.