This has turned into quite the project thus far; I have obviously woodworked with Maple and Mahogany, but doing foundry work with lead is quite another story. Quite a contrast in materials over such a small project.

 

It all started out by a small request from my new bride; "can you build me a Recipe Book Holder"? Being between jobs right now, and having just got married, and itching for a nice small project to do in the woodworking shop, I jumped at the chance.

 

It is the traditional, quintessential Recipe Book Holder, with its base of Soft Maple hinged with brass hinges to its sister, the recipe book holder portion, also made of Maple. The swinging uprights and pivot holder are also made of Soft Maple, where as the recipe book shelf, and the rack veer to the contrasting side of things by being made of Mahogany. This gives the project a nice light and dark contrast that fits itself well I think.

 

I am a little silly because I actually like hand-sanding, or at least, realize how much of a difference hand-sanding can make on a project. So this I sanded down using 100, 150, 220, 320 and then 400 grit. I then gave it three coats of oil-based polyurethane, sanding between coats with 600 grit sandpaper.

 

After all this I thought the hard part was done. I mean all I had to do was cast the lead hold downs that are attached to brass chains that keep the recipe book open...which is the whole purpose of the project!

 

NOT SO!!

On the FIRST try, I thought I would make a small box, throw in some dead sand from our gravel pit, impress a wooden ball into the sand, drill a few holes, imbed the brass chain through the mold and sand, and then melt down part of a lead billet I had kicking around, and cast it into perfect ball shaped hold downs. Simple...

 

Well first I had to actually melt the lead. I knew lead melted at a low temperature, but nothing I tried worked. Stupidly I thought my barbeque would melt the lead in a tin coffee can, but that did not do it. Then I thought a small propane torch would do it, but that did not work either. Finally I built a small bonfire out of white pine (this is the Pine Tree State after all and White Pine burns hotter than blue-blazes.) After getting a fire that could be sen from space, and letting it burn down to coals, I found out that such a tactic for melting lead worked...

 

But when it was poured into my sand mold, the water in the sand turned to steam and blew out the molten lead in a massive lava upheaval. I broke the sand mold apart and looked at my work figuring I had to go to a plan B. Well I got two perfectly shaped balls of lead, but they were very rough and pitted with gobs of sand, so in defeat I knew I had to re-melt them.

 

So I found a spare muffin tin since my new bride was not home and I had liberty to raid the kitchen pantry, and started with try Number Two. In short order, I drilled two holes in two muffin tin cups, inserted the chain  the brass chain, and restoked the still smouldering mini-inferno. This too resulted in utter failure because the holes were just big enough to let out the molten lead leaving the cups half filled.

 

Not a big deal, I figured on try number three I would just put the brass chains in over the top of the rim. Well try three failed like the first two, because the brass chains would not sink in the heavy, molten lead.

 

Out of despair, I finally poured the 4th try at backyard foundry work into two muffin tins without the brass chains figuring I can drill and epoxy them in later. As I was doing all this, I was thinking, who in the world but a sheep farmer/shipfitter/woodworker would do something as crazy as all this simply for a $15 dollar Recipe Book Holder you can buy online??