A day late Tribute to Pi Day

[Brian Brown]

I wanted to post this yesterday, but ran out of time. These pizza cutters are made from 7 woods, olive, apricot, hickory, maple burl, claro walnut burl, red eucalyptus, and great basin curly poplar. Here are a few, and all the handles. This is my tribute to Pi Day. My wife's tribute was peach. It tasted much better than mine. Ummmmm... peach pie. I think I will go get some now.

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[Maurice Mcmurry]

Very nicely done and a lovely selection of woods! Pi day slipped by me too. It is always celebrated at my wife's work and your pizza cutters were needed there . Her co worker organizes a pizza pie lunch every Pi day.

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[John Kananis]

Those are pretty - I especially like the olive... I've looked into having olive wood sent over to me from Greece (my family has trees there) many times as it's dirt cheap there but there's no reasonable way to do it without purchasing an entire container's worth... small pieces in my luggage (when I visit) is all I can manage.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

We have Russian Olive invading the pastures and fields. I am going to save some and see what that the wood is like.

Elaeagnus angustifolia
https://www.wood-database.com/russian-olive/

Russian Olive is not closely related to the wood that is commonly referred to as Olivewood (Olea europaea) (https://www.wood-database.com/olive/) and may be distinguished from true Olive by the endgrain. Olive is diffuse porous, while Russian Olive is ring-porous.

[John Foley]

I wanted to post this yesterday, but ran out of time. These pizza cutters are made from 7 woods, olive, apricot, hickory, maple burl, claro walnut burl, red eucalyptus, and great basin curly poplar. Here are a few, and all the handles. This is my tribute to Pi Day. My wife's tribute was peach. It tasted much better than mine. Ummmmm... peach pie. I think I will go get some now.

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Love the variety of woods! Where did you buy the metal component?

[Brian Brown]

The metal components came from Penn State Ind. I bought them there because I got them on a great sale. If I could get the half price sale again, I would get them from PSI, but I would never pay the full price there. The component quality is good, but the instructions are terrible, and lists the wrong size drill bits. To get a good fit, you need metric drill bits, not the bit they say. It is too large, and causes a very sloppy fit. They say to use epoxy to fill the gap. What a mess, and hard to keep it centered while the glue dries. I knew going in that the sizes were bad, and would cause a sloppy fit. They sell other kits with the same problem. I drilled a hole one size smaller than recommended, and then glued a piece of sandpaper to a dowel that would fit in the hole. I chucked the dowel up in my lathe, and gently sanded the hole interior until it was large enough to get a good tight fit for the threaded insert. What a waste of time. If you want to make some pizza cutters, I highly recommend that you get them from from Craft Supplies USA. About the same price as PSI, and occasionally on sale for 15% off. Most importantly, their customer service can't be beat.

[Brian Brown]

We are lousy with Russian olive here. You can't swing dead cat here without hitting a Russian olive tree. It is very definitely not the same as Italian/Greek olive. RO is chocolate brown with a thin yellow sap wood layer. It is a nice looking wood, but can be hard to work with. It has a soft early wood/hard late wood annular ring. Over sanding can cause a rippled effect. I don't find this objectionable most of the time, and it might be a great candidate for sand blasting effects. The biggest problem, is the dust. Turning and sanding causes a fine choking dust. Wear a respirator. Cough! Cough!Cough!

[John Foley]

The metal components came from Penn State Ind. I bought them there because I got them on a great sale. If I could get the half price sale again, I would get them from PSI, but I would never pay the full price there. The component quality is good, but the instructions are terrible, and lists the wrong size drill bits. To get a good fit, you need metric drill bits, not the bit they say. It is too large, and causes a very sloppy fit. They say to use epoxy to fill the gap. What a mess, and hard to keep it centered while the glue dries. I knew going in that the sizes were bad, and would cause a sloppy fit. They sell other kits with the same problem. I drilled a hole one size smaller than recommended, and then glued a piece of sandpaper to a dowel that would fit in the hole. I chucked the dowel up in my lathe, and gently sanded the hole interior until it was large enough to get a good tight fit for the threaded insert. What a waste of time. If you want to make some pizza cutters, I highly recommend that you get them from from Craft Supplies USA. About the same price as PSI, and occasionally on sale for 15% off. Most importantly, their customer service can't be beat.


Good information here Brian ! Thanks for the reply !

[Dave Mount]

I was given a section of a large Russian olive when visiting a friend in Laramie, WY. I made a cross grain box for him, shown below, about 7" in diameter and 5" or so high. Brian is right that the porous and soft earlywood requires that you take care sanding -- minimized by working to get as refined a cut as possible before sanding so you can start with relatively fine grit, then sanding with a stiff backing, rather than your fingers, to avoid diving into the soft spots. That same earlywood is prone to end grain tearout, you can see some issues on the endgrain side of the box. I remember it having a distinct odor, but I can't recall offhand what it smelled like.

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Russian olive frequently has a lot of small burls on the trunk. The roots of a couple of them are visible in the top of the box. I saved a couple of the larger ones (still only about 2.5-3") and made one into a cap for a an endgrain cherry box.

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I wouldn't put it in my "favorites" category, but it's interesting in it's own way.

Best,

Dave

[David M Peters]

I've had the Rockler pizza cutter for like 10 years now and it's served us very well.