ice cream cone caddy v0

We eat a surprising amount of ice cream in this house, given that two of us are lactose intolerant. Ever since Cuzzy's reopened, it's like a box of cones a week. So my spouse requested a caddy.

It most ways this is a duplicate of the marking gauge layout holder, but with legs. The only tricky part of this build was cutting the thin strips - this is maybe the only operation that makes me wish I used the table saw.

To square the legs pieces back up, I use the reference edge of the main body to hold them against the shooting plane. They're so thin, this was a dumb thing to do and I could have easily sliced my thumb up - again! - but it worked out ok in the end.

Once I had my leg pieces, I cut them down to an initial size (knowing it'll all have to be shorter in the end) and squared and leveled them. For getting the same length, I just used the shortest piece as a reference and took brief bits with the shooting plane until they were flush.

For leveling, I lined them up with the very handy Veritas shorty plane stops and just planed until they were level.

I didn't have much of a design for this build, and I was sick of cutting straight mortises. I had some idea about the legs being exposed on the edge of the piece, but in the end I don't think I like it. If they were on the corners, and I did some shaping, I might be happier. I came up with a different solution eventually.

To cut these mortises? demi-laps? I ended up using a mini Dozuki, because it was funny, but also it was really effective. Then I chiseled it all out.

A 3/4" Forstner and a Reamer taking me down to 7/8" got me pretty close to where I need to be. Dry fit and client demo with cones.

Next up was sizing, glue-up, shaping, and sanding. I shortened the legs by about half.

I had some idea in my head about the look, but I wouldn't say I got there. In particular I'm not happy with the legs. One of them is definitely wonky, but it's level - I put some sandpaper on the table saw bed and squared them that way.

The lining wood is some Peruvian walnut I had left over the from the plane till, and it continues to be a pain in the butt.

I didn't bother taking any pictures of the shaping or sanding. I marked out about 10cm in white pencil and used a block plane to mostly get down to the lines in a vague curve, then sanded it from 40 to 320.

A few coats of oil and wax and then it gets to sit for a few days to cure before usage.