Sometimes I post about some pretty minor stuff, then again - most major things are an accumulation of little things...soooo....  During the course of building the Dining Room Built-In, I accumulated a but of wood scraps, although I have gotten much better about what to keep and what to toss.  I always like making things from scrap materials, 

...and today I made a Board to hold sharpening stones so they don't slide around then sharpening chisels, knives and plane irons.  I got the idea from Paul Sellers, a master cabinet maker.  I didn't make an exact copy of Sellers' board, but we have different requirements and resources.  The first step to making this board was cutting the piece of ceramic tile I bought at Lowes for about $3...

Luckily, I still had my tile cutter from back when we laid tile in the laundry room (I sense a legacy post coming on!).  Because I'm not willing to invest in the sharpening stones Paul Sellers uses, I'll use the tile as a flat surface and tacky glue sandpaper on it, then finish off the sharpening on the Smith stone.  Then it was just a matter of outlining the boards and setting the corners with the corner chisel...

Then I had an opportunity to use the router free-hand.  It's amazing, after all these years, this was actually the first time I used it free-hand as opposed to mounted on the router table!

But here's the funny part...I had forgotten that this was the plunge router, and almost completely ruined the board in about 5 seconds!

Fortunately, it didn't go all the way through!  After the insert recesses were cut I added a stop to the underside.  Paul Sellers used a pretty small stop because he mounts the board in a carpenter's vice:

...which I don't have.  So I added a bit larger stop, again using a piece of scrap and pocket screws.

Then a few coats of amber shellac:

And done!  

Now - no excuses not to sharpen my tools!