Recently, a client in Florida asked me to make them a banana holder. Thinking I could knock out this project in less than a half day, I took the project on.
The base was no problem it was just a small rectangle with a mortis and tenon joint in it. The holder I thought would be no problem as well. After all, it sloped to the top and to the front. So, off I went and beveled the sides of the board. I had to bevel the board toward the front. I thought of it as a compound joint, but without the other side of the joint.
My next step was to cut out the curve. Oops, what happened? I forgot the board was beveled. Well I can fix that, so I went and got another piece of scrap and prepared it as before. But this time, I supported the top of the board so as to negate the effect of the bevels.
After cutting the tenon and fitting the holding arm of the holder to the base. The result now was a wavey curved support arm and a holding point that was thicker than the area right below it. What to do? Well, when all else fails, you just have to either give up or make more sawdust.
In my final attempt to make this banana holder, I turned to my belt sander. With the belt sander I was able to sand both bevels at once for one side of the board and then repeated the operation on the other side. At the same time I “prepped” the board for its finish which Danish Oil followed by polyurethane.
Sometimes in woodworking you have to go through trial and error before your project reaches completion. Fortunately woodworking for many of us is calming so our frustration level may not rise as high as it might otherwise.
-Phil Rasmussen, US Army-retired
Hendersonville, NC
