i made this: krumkake roller!

for christmas i got my cousin a krumkake press. krumkake is a norwegian cookie, made in a press, and rolled on a conical roller while it’s still hot. it’s similar to pizelle, if you happen to be more familiar with italian baking.

the press i got her came without the conical roller. now, my father in law is a rather outstanding woodworker (oh my gosh, i don’t think i’ve ever linked to this before, but jake made an amazing video of mike making his signature steam-bent table. you should check it out, it’s amazing!), so i borrowed my grandma’s rollers as reference, thinking i’d bring them to the woodshop and show them to mike. he would tell me if they were hard to make (i have zero frame of reference), and i didn’t really have any particular idea about what would happen from there.

this is the shop kitty, patches

so i followed my plans, brought the krumkake rollers over, showed them to mike, and he rummaged around and came up with a piece of sycamore, and before i knew much about it, cut off a rectangular bit and had it ready to go on the lathe.

he handed me the tools i’d need, told me methods that worked pretty well for him and what to avoid. so i trimmed it down from a square to a round dowel, and began to shape the roller, using the ones i’d brought as reference, and checking in with mike periodically. of course, that one sentences worth of work took maybe two hours? mike could’ve done it much faster of course, but this was my first rodeo. it was incredibly engrossing and fun. i’m used to the gratification of creation, of looking at something and thinking ‘i made that!’ but it was really nice to get my hands dirty, use a little bit of muscle, and be able to see my hands shape something so quickly. soon enough, i had this:

which i sanded down on the lathe. mike extracted it from the machine, and i trimmed off the edges and sanded those down too.

i was so. dang. proud. of myself. anybody who came within a 10 foot radius of me in the next few days got a krumkake roller shoved in their face so it could be properly admired: ‘i made it! out of wood!’ once it got home, i used some butcher block oil to oil it. then, you know, a proper photoshoot. let’s see all the angles, shall we?

i totally made this, you guys! out of wood!

Posted by ifandany in craftiness Tags: krumkake, lathe, roller, sycamore, turning, woodworking