Blogger she-nanna-gins

For whatever reason, Blogger is not letting me respond to reader comments. So, thanks for reading, thanks for the kind words, and to Brad: the horses I carve are made from basswood, and sometimes butternut. Both are great woods for carving. They are relatively soft woods (though still hardwoods,) with straight, dense, grain. It's almost as easy to cut across the grain as it to cut with it. Hopefully Blogger will fix these issues with the comments.

Custom Beer Tap Handle

I love custom orders, especially ones that give me a challenge. Some friends asked me to carve a tap handle for their brother-in-law, a beer hobbyist with a home tap system. Never having made one before and being wholly unfamiliar with how a tap handle attaches to a tap, I said "You bet!"



My friends specified that they wanted the name "Williams" painted on, but other than that I was free to carve whatever.

After some pencil sketches on paper, I selected a piece of wood and cut out the general shape with a coping saw. I envisioned a simple chair leg spindle for the body, with a frothy mug perched on top. Somewhere along the line the plan expanded to include a flat shield and a hop bud.









I opted to leave it mostly unpainted, preferring to let the wood speak for itself. I gave it four hand-rubbed coats of linseed oil and sanded it between each coat with finer and finer sandpaper. Finally it was buffed with a cotton cloth. The name on the shield was applied with acrylic paints and sealed with a few coats of spray shellac.

The brass ferrule is from Kegworks.com, as is the combination metal/wood screw with which to attach it. They have a nice selection of hardware for tap systems.