Today I bring you a really cool project — a pallet wood spatula made from free pallet wood, using a few tools in my workshop.

I started by cutting a piece of the 2×4 pallet runner to length at about 14 inches long. This would give about a 13 inch long cooking utensil once the ends were trimmed off.

Over on my Nova Comet II Lathe, I mounted the board and began turning it to shape using my 7/8″ Roughing Gouge — the only lathe tool used for this project. I formed the handle and the transition to the flat part of the pallet wood spatula, then sanded it to 320 grit all while on the wood lathe before taking the utensil off and moving on to the band saw.

I have an old Craftsman 10″ Band Saw that is no longer made, but very similar to a WEN 3962 Band Saw. It’s served me well for over 6 years. I took the utensil and trimmed one edge of the head (the flat part of the spatula) to get a flat face to then turn the utensil on its side and slice out the waste and form the thin curve of the spatula head. This is always a little tricky to ride that fine line between taking off enough material and not taking off too much!

After roughing the spatula head, I took it over to my bench top belt sander, again an old one, but similar to this Shop Fox W1855 with a cast iron base, and smoothed out the spatula head and edges to my liking. The belt sander is extremely useful for making quick work of the shaping of the spatula.

After sanding, it was a matter of working my way up through the grits by hand to 320 grit to get a nice smooth utensil. I finished the utensil with a good soaking of Walrus Oil – a food safe finish, and it was done.

This was a fun project and one that was relatively easy to make in an hour in my small workshop. Hope you enjoyed it!

Be sure to check out the Stuff I Use in my workshop and home!

Made from Purpleheart, Maple, Wenge, and Sapele hardwoods, this tiny cutting board is extremely tough and will withstand all your tiny slicing needs.

Perfect for your pocket, so you can slice your favorite tiny morsels any place you like!

Pinterest friendly image.

https://youtu.be/tx2Jim1EYwM

The over all build for this project was relatively simple, and can be done with basic tools. I started with some rough hickory that was 1″ thick (also known as 5/4 or “5 quarter”) and cut the boards to rough length with my crosscut miter saw — two 15″ long board for the seat, and two 20″ long boards for the legs.

I then ran the board through my thickness planer to get them flat on two sides, and jointed one edge of the boards to square at 90 degrees to the face of the boards on my bench top joiner.

I glued the two 15″ boards together on the edge to give me a large flat square blank for the seat to be cut from, then glued the two 20″ boards together on top of each other to give me a thick slab to slice out the legs from.

After letting the glue set overnight, I began cutting the pieces to shape. I cut out the seat on my band saw and the legs on my table saw.

I planned to turn the legs on my wood lathe, but didn’t realize that they were too long for my lathe until the last second. This made me quickly change my design and go with squared legs.

I cut the ends of the legs at a 10 degree angle then attached them to the seat with 3/4″ oak dowels.

I trimmed the dowels, gave the stool a final sanding, then finished it with Teak Oil.