The Process: A DIY Wooden Cheeseburger (Free Downloads Inside)
A few Christmases ago, when I first got my band saw, I made my [now] wife this wooden cheeseburger for her office desk. The whole thing was made from old wooden flooring and other scraps, and each of the colors comes from the natural wood tones of a variety of species. I recently stumbled across the photos I'd taken but forgotten to share when re-organizing my computer, so, um, here it is, six years later. At the bottom of the post, I've formatted the images so you can download them and use them as a computer desktop wallpaper, as well as for your iPhone and iPad.
This still remains one of my favorite projects, and I love the interplay of the different species. The buns were made from some glued up blocks of sugar maple, the patty is walnut, and the lettuce is a naturally green wood called lignum vitae. The cheese is some very thin balsa which got a coat of golden oak Danish oil, and the tomato layer is a scrap of a padauk, a naturally red wood.
This project began as a bunch of hardwood flooring scraps that my uncle Steve, a professional installer, saved from the firewood pile and gave to me to play with.
I used a variety of paint and stain cans to create the circular shapes of the burger patty and the bun. The tomato layer is a Venn diagram of circles traced using a spray paint can lid.
This is the top bun blank, glued up to add some height. Once it was dry, I cut out a cylinder, then used a router bit to create the profile.
To keep everything to scale, I used a thin piece of balsa wood for the cheese. This is the only piece that got a boost of color, from a tinted coat of Danish oil in “Golden Oak”
The burger patty and bun got a roundover profile to for a more organic shape. After that, just a little bit of sanding to 220 and some mineral oil to bring out the grain.
I've used my bandsaw so many time since this project, it's strange to remember what a big project this was for three years ago me: coming up with the idea, learning about the different wood species, keeping everything to scale, solving the problems of how to fit everything together. It's still a big hit at my wife's office, and folks always notice and comment on it, and she says it's still one of her favorite gifts.
Since a new year deserves a new desktop wallpaper, I thought I'd offer it as a free download, formatted for several common monitor and device sizes.
Enjoy!
Chris
