Dope Crafts

[Somatek]

Making things is what I do, usually somehow related to pot or pot accessories like these hand carved bong/dab trays or joint rolling tray.  The dog treat bag was just a fun side project and something new to cover in patches so I tossed it in even though it’s just a Brigham pipe bag with a food safe vacuum seal bag sewn inside to keep it clean.  Not very crafty lol.

My personal tray for doobs/bongs or dabbing is the first one, made out of live edge black walnut and shaped like a fish accidentally.  The dab tool holders are magnetized so they don’t fall off, it holds two 10mm bowls and three 14mm, as well as having a recess between two of the rosin/kief containers for a couple terp pearls.  Silicon dab mat, cork bong mat, grinder and paper holders and a finely sanded wooden pot tray round it out. This was the first one I made as I had collected the wood on Pelee Island over the summer I spent there and couldn’t figure out what to do with it until I had this idea one very stoned day when I was annoyed visiting friends and having to go grab gear inside constantly.

The next two were never finished, I made the dab tray specifically to slide under the rosin press table for easy dabs while waiting for the press to squish out all the goodness.  Pretty self explanatory, dab mat, holders for the glass dab rig, dabber and bubble cap with a couple jar holders and a recess cut for q-tips. The joint rolling tray was for someone as a gift but they burned me so I’ve decided to keep it for myself.  Also pretty simple, jar for bud, paper slot to hold square 1.25″ papers, rolling tray with recess to hold the paper while it’s filled, a couple jar holders for oil/rosin/kief and a medtainer grinder behind them. Both were carved out of spalted maple (those black streaks through the grain) and should really pop once I’m done sanding and finishing them (I just use hemp or olive oil for a natural finish).

Any other builders, crafters or DiY’er that have some projects to share, pot related or otherwise?

[Keith]

Man, that’s all really great and super cool.  I just recently scored a bunch of free 2×4’s about 6ft long with a bunch of decent sized 1/2in osb pieces and I put together this for the puppies we had coming.  I figure I saved myself at least $250 in material or if I just bought a whelping box from a store.  I’m big on scavenging and making use out of free material.  From the same guy I also got a bunch of 3/4 inch pvc and put together this tent frame.  I’ve been holding onto bags on insulation we tore out of a place and was going to be thrown away.  My best score was these rough cut 4×4 and 2×6 oak boards I was getting from work.  Over 2 years time I gathered a lot.  I moved it all to our new house last year.  There had to be at least 50-60 boards.  But I have used them for so many different things.  The people we bought the house from left 2 fucking pigs in the backyard and I built a house for them with it and other scavenged material.  I’ll post pics of that too.  But every bit of the material was free, except the screws and the roofing.  I also put together a work bench with the oak.

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[Keith]

Here’s the work bench and the whelping box.  And the stack of wood I moved around 3 times now.  Also there was this shelf I made to hold work stuff.  All this stuff was mostly free.  I spent a few bucks on 2x4s for the work shelf but only bc they were reimbursing me.

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[Keith]

Sorry I just realized you had mentioned dope related crafts.  I just got all excited bc I thought my projects were dope and wanted to share.

[Somatek]

No worries, I called it  “dope crafts” as a play on words to mean cool crafts or crafts related to dope and of course cool crafts related to dope hit all the notes lol.

Thanks for sharing, those are all definitely dope crafts as they look like happy whelps and pigs.  Free scores are the best and building furniture out of reclaimed material is music to my ears.  About half my furniture is stuff I made (well, more accurately started and got as far as being functional before I got distracted by another project, so they’re still waiting to be finished) and another chunk is stuff people I know have made.    Looking around my bedroom the bookshelf with articulated laptop arm, rosin press table, my wall sconce lamp, dresser and side table were all made my me, my bed and arm chair were made by my step father, my table was modified by my aunt when she was in university back in the 70’s (she couldn’t afford chairs so cut the legs off the table and everyone sat on the floor), one shelf was bought at a yard sale and was made by the home owners, which only leaves 2 shelves from ikea and a chair as commercial products; all of which I scavenged over the years.  I’m a really bad consumer now that I think of it…

I’ll snap pics tomorrow when it’s light out, plus I’m exhausted after helping a friend reno his basement today and need to rest.

[Keith]

What did you use to carve the square recesses out of the black walnut.  I made a plaque out of black walnut for my in laws when I married their daughter.  I just used a wood burner to burn a Bible verse into it though then finished it.  I’m try to find a pic.  It was 9.5 years ago.

Strike me dead if I didn’t just open up Google photos and scroll down the this pic.  Granted I knew what year I was looking for mostly.  But I was going so fast I couldn’t see it very clearly.  Here it is though.  I was in rehab when I did it.  We had gotten a bunch of this wood donated.  I made one for my parents too.

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[Somatek]

lol I cheated…  The black walnut tray was originally a piece of wood that was twice as long but tapered off to half the width around the middle.  I originally bought it as I had saved up money living on Pelee Island and was planning to build a tiny house, which is easy when you’re living off grid and working constantly as there’s no tradesmen/handymen on the island other then the local drunk.  I was going to rip it in half and make matching floating shelves.  After I ruined my back that fall, when I recovered enough  to be semi active I was really bored and looking for projects.   So I came up with the idea for the tray by cutting the narrow end off and laminating it underneath to double the thickness (the board was only 3/4″ if that).  Which means I could just cut the recesses for the bong and dab mats and rolling paper holder right through the board with a multi-tool and flush cut bit.  The joint rolling tray is simply carved out by chisel as I wanted a smooth, concave corner with no gaps for pot to catch it.  Most of the tray was sanded to 120grit, the joint rolling tray was sanded down to 400, oiled and wet sanded again for a polish and wiped clean before I oiled the entire tray to seal it and bring out the grain.  I was a bit obsessive with making it lol.

Thanks for sharing, that looks great on top of having a lot of value as part of your recovery.  Addiction is hard, I have a very addictive personality and have struggled through various ones over my life.  Although I don’t have any dope crafts as reminders of my progress.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Somatek.

[Keith]

That’s fucking genius.  That’s half the fun is figuring out ways to do what you want with what you have.  Seriously a really good idea doubling them up like that.  I didn’t know about wet sanding and how it polishes.  None of the projects I’ve ever done were nice things that got sanded.  One thing I made for my wife but I bought all the wood, I sanded that.  I used the excuse to buy myself a palm sander.  But it’s the only time I’ve ever used it.  But I know when I’m older and have more time it’ll come in handy.  I just wish I had more time to do stuff like that.  I’m really impressed with your tray, I really want to try to do something like that.  I need a tray bad.  If I showed you my smoking set up you’d prob think I was a homeless dude squatting in some guys garage.  I looked at trays the other day in a head shop, but I’m too cheap to buy an item that’s not a necessity.  I honestly bet I could use some of this oak to make one.  I bet I ask you about 100 questions when I do it.  I think I’ll just try to glue 2 pieces together, well, and then try to carve it out.  I have this set of really nice wood carving tools they gave me at rehab bc I spent every weekend in the wood shop.   This is getting pretty long, I’ll let you go.

[Somatek]

Have you seen my average post and how long I ramble on lol?

It was the combination of how much people charge for smoking trays and how poorly they fit my needs that motivated me to make my own.  Ask as many questions as needed if to figure out how to make your own.

I have two pieces of the spalted maple left that I’ve been thinking of joining together to make a big tray for when I have company.  I plan to use a couple biscuits to join them together and make sure it’s a strong joint that won’t break with use.  Something to consider if you’re planning to glue a couple pieces of that oak together.  That should be a stunning tray as oak has a really nice grain.  Can’t wait to see what you come up with.

[Keith]

I’d have to go to harbor freight and get a cheap biscuit cutter.  I actually have been thinking about gluing some pieces together all day for a tray.  I was planning on just winging it and without the biscuits but I don’t see a way to do it without a planer.  This is rough cut oak, at least 2 inches thick.  I couldn’t sand it, it would take me a million years, I don’t know how to do it without planing it down.

[Somatek]

Yeah, that you really need to make sure the join is solid and the glued side is a solid connection.  A couple thoughts off the top of my head would be to cut the inner sides with a circular saw, table saw would be ideal, but drawing a line and cutting carefully works just as well.  The more complicated but solid option would to make a lap joint to create a snug fit. Another option would be to lean into it and use dowel to connect the while creating a space between them.  Clamp them flush together, drill a hole through them and the you can space them out as much/little as you want.

[Nate]

That bottom piece is amazing, great work man. Back in high school I used to carve little wooden pipes out of firewood that my parents had for their wood stove. I only made a handful of them, but I had one that I was really proud of, and I even went so far as to char it and then sand it back down. Unfortunately though I think that one either got stolen, or it fell out of my bag, and I haven’t made one since.

[Somatek]

Thanks, I really need to finish the other two at some point.  The dab tray is going to be mounted under my rosin press for quality control purposes to make sure all the rosin is properly sampled and rigorously tested lol.

Those sound very slick, I have a little wooden pipe my friend brought back from Peru.  Charring wood is going to be the next tray I make, there’s a Japanese technique, shou sogi ban, where you char the wood and then sand it down to a fine polish as it makes the wood harder and water proof.  So the next piece of pine with a nice grain will get carved into some kind of tray, charred and polished to an almost mirror finish.  It’s like 90% motivated by the dark finish it produces, 10% motivated by the facts it’s fun playing with fire lol.

[Nate]

Yeah you mentioned that Japanese technique in a previous post, and it reminded me of the pipe I made in high school. I had never read up on woodworking techniques, I just figured if it was going to char from me using it, I might as well do it beforehand and then sand off the soot/char so it wouldn’t smudge lol. It ended up looking really cool, I wish I still had it.

[Somatek]

Accidental discoveries are more exciting usually then reading up about it first and learning how other people do it.  If you ever decide to carve anymore pipes be sure to post some pics

[Nate]

Yeah for sure. I’d have to get some more carving tools though. If I do end up making anything I’ll definitely post it here.

[Somatek]

Pics of my various furniture I’ve built over the years, may as well start with the messiest shot; my bookshelf/computer area with stadia controller/headset holder under the monitor extension that the articulated arm hangs off of (which is made from teak reclaimed from a broken outdoor chair).

Parchment paper dispenser for pressing rosin with a cutting strip to make clean tears.  The metal rack holds below it holds everything else and is space 12″ below so I know how long to pull the parchment out easily.

Wall sconce made out of driftwood from Pelee Island, collecting driftwood on walks was always fun, so much material to play with.

My “inukshuk” themed dresser made from old drawers from a broken dresser and the chair my step father made out of 1/4 cut oak.  I need to refinish and re-upholster it but have to learn how to properly upholster something first lol.

[Keith]

Bro that scone if freaking awesome.  Super creative and a great use of nature’s freebies.  It made me remember that over the years landscaping I’ve scored a few really cool root systems and stumps that were cool looking.  Here’s some of them.

This is a stump.  We keep it on our fire place mantle.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>This one took me hours of wrapping led wire lights around every branch.</p>

This one is roots, I gave to my mom bc she liked them so much.  My wife was bummed.

Dude that totally worked.  At first I could only post one pic per post.  Then they started the 4 thumbnails and I began using those.  But until I just saw your post I didn’t realize we could post more than one full pic per post.

I really love nature.

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[Somatek]

Very creative use of roots/stumps, that chandelier is really cool and exactly the kind of organic aesthetic I enjoy instead of the clean/crisp lines in modern minimalist design/architecture

[Somatek]

Couple shots of the side table and a close up showing the lap joints and offset stretchers so I could rest jars of pot on an angle, I made this for my last place as my room mate needed somewhere to rest their bong/tray in the Bongnasium, our pot smoking room.

Which brings us to the last piece of furniture, the bong caddy where me and the 3 roomies would keep our gear safe so the bowls didn’t accidentally get broken.  I made it specifically after accidentally clipping one of their bowls, a custom Swears shark that cost $200+.  We all collected glass, one was a glass blower which is how we met as I try to support local artists and bought a bunch of his earlier pieces even though the quality was marginal. It has built in grinder and toker poker/lighter holders, I added the side shelf when I moved in here as I needed somewhere to put my tray.  In this tiny ass, expensive apartment every inch counts…

[Author]

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