Wanna Make Beer Flights?

After I made those spiffy boxes for the nearby restaurant/bar, they asked me to make beer flights. But, they said, not the usual you-see-it-everywhere paddle type. And hey, it's me, I always have to put a spin on things.

So I did some research. I thought about how the things will sit on the bar or a table, how much room they'll take up, how they'll get carried, how they'll get spilled on and cleaned.

The shape itself isn't anything new or shocking or earth-shattering. Because of that, I wanted to find a way to dress them up. So I burned them. Yep, grabbed a propane torch and blazed 'em.

Sneak preview!

That was fun, heh.

The key there to get the right effect is to use not-fancy pine, grainy grainy grainy pine instead. Which heh, makes it a little hard to construct straight, true, and not twisted up anything but find the straightest, truest pieces you can.

First things first, after we settled on a general main design shape, I drew it in AutoCAD* so I would know the exact measurements and placement of the cup holes. I think there's a way for me to post it as a downloadable whoo-ha so if you're interested in the drawing, lemme know.

Went with the bottom one, slightly smaller to make best use of the lumber.

This of course was based on a specific glass the joint has which are verrryyy similar to these.*

Mmk, so I popped on over to my second home and decided on which 1 x 4 pine to use as they had three grades: lame, less lame, and too fancy. I'm quite positive those are not the actual labels they used but you catch my drift.

I picked the middle, less lame, as it was straighter than lame but grainier than too fancy.

First up, chop up the wood. For a flight of four, I went with a length of 1'-4". The huge gap between the holes was for their logo.

Hey look, cut wood!

The height was based again on the glasses; the feet I cut were somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 7/8" or so. Just enough so that the glasses would barely graze a surface when set down. I didn't want the glasses to touch when the flight landed as the glasses would pop up and potentially spill or be generally unruly.

I went with simple butt joints. Sure, I could have gone with schmancy forty five angle joints since I have the saw to do it, which ya know, I probably should have, but I wasn't keen on wasting tons of wood with all the mistakes I probably would have made.

To dress the whole shebang up, I piloted some holes, carefully dribbled on some Gorilla glue* (sturdy is key in a bar, right?), pounded in some galvanized roofing nails.*

I had to pilot the holes as the nails just uh uh, would not go by themselves.

Next up, drill out the circles. Using a hole saw* outta that kit I bought which I believe was 2 1/8", I went to town.

If you squint, you can see my hole center marks.

And yes, now I have a bazillion little wood circles I need to find a use for, heh.

A sampling of my now millions and billions of wood donuts.

Anyway, so, yes, drill out the lil' circles. Once that was done, time to burn baby.

Apologies for the weirdly colored photo. I tried to fix it. Really.

I picked up a kit, one with a trigger start, which was super slick. Power that puppy up and char away.

Now, be smart, do not char yourself. And do this outdoors so a.) you don't burn your house down, b.) you don't set off your smoke detector, and c.) you don't burn your house down. Mmk?

There was no rhyme or reason to how I burnt and practicing on scrap first is advised. I charred the wood to the point where it looked good to me. Handily, the torch takes care of splintery bits so no need to go hog wild sanding it beforehand.

Once the whole thing cooled, to even the color up a smidge, a small minute tiny tiny amount of Dark Walnut stain* did the trick.

Next I applied the logo in the top center the same route I did on the boxes, the only transfer-image-to-wood technique you should use ever. I'll repeat the link here for you so you don't have to search for it.

Then, once all that was good to go, I slathered on several several coats of Varathane Heavy Use polyurethane* (bar, beer, spilling, wiping hence Heavy Use, right?)

Whoa, wow! Neat!

Lastly? Delivery. Yay! And they're a hit! I made the four's of course, but I also made one eight beer flight and a twelve since this place has about thirty taps. I, doh, forgot to get a photo of them in situ but I'm working on it.

Not the best photo, sorry. I put a sliver of wood on the edge there to hold a coaster which they'll write the beer names on.

Cool, right? So impress your pals next time you have a get together, have a beer tasting and put these spiffy flight holders together in short order. Way easy to make, way inexpensive to make, and you'll be the talk of the 'hood.

Not much better of a photo. Huh, sorry.

Oh hey, by the wayyyyy.....we finally had a lengthy heavy downpour of rain after a serious dry spell. Perfect confluence of conditions for a flooded back yard. Figures as soon as we put in this dry well thingie, it completely stops raining around here.

I was home for the big storm too which was even better so I sat in the dining room window and watched for twenty minutes here, ten minutes there....I know, I'm a dork.

But! The dry well worked. Yesssssss!

It was the kind of deluge that would have created pooling in the yard, as evidenced by water collecting in the low lying lame concrete "walk" that remains. But we had no pooling of water in the yard. None. Not a stitch. No knock on the door either.

I was shocked. And awed. And I must say, thrilled.

Whew!

Was it a solid complete test and pass in flying colors? Hard to say so please, let it rain again! More! Bigger!

We're still waiting to do a layer of landscape cloth on top, then sand, then the grass which is struggling to stay alive on the patio.

The landscaper guy finally sent a quote and I'm rather dubious it's the correct one. First it says installation of 100 of their Versa tanks, similar to these.* ??? Uh, our yard ain't big enough for that.

Then it mentions patio installation. ?? And a tree, avoiding roots. ?? For $22k. Cough. So uh, Mike is calling to verify since there's no mention of anything else, the other items the guy mentioned. We will be calling others regardless.

Either way, Mike said "Yeah. No. I'd rather dig another hole in the ground by myself." Heh!

But hey, by the way too, The Exorcist got picked up and I'll be getting them rolling on season one for the next month starting tomorrow. Tomorrow, wow, yes! Can't do the whole first season, so it is, but projects will be taking a back seat for the time being.

:( I know, sorry. I'll be back before you know it!

*The AutoCAD link is an AutoDesk affiliate link. The sampler size pilsner glasses, Gorilla glue, galvanized roof nails, hole saw kits, Varathane Dark Walnut, Varathane poly, and dry well tanks are Amazon affiliate links. Mwah, thanks! Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.