Hanger for Pots & Pans

Got sick of shovelling dirt - and besides I finished most of the hard stuff and need the electrician before progressing - so I thought i'd hack up a hanger for my pots and pans and get them out of the draws and cupboards they're choking up at present. Yep, a bit of physical hacking ...

It's something i've been meaning to do for a while - I had some salvaged jarrah which came up something wonderful with a bit of a plane and a sand down, and finished with linseed oil. I kept the design 'simple/modern', and just put a chamfer around the whole piece, there is a larger chamfer in the mid-section which is a rough attempt at hiding a piece missing from one side (it didn't completely remove it and it can been seen in the second shot, but it reached the limit of my tools). It's not very visible so not very important. In general I could've finished it a good bit better but a bit of lived-in rusticity just adds to the charm.

The hooks and chain cost about $50 - mostly from the ceiling hooks which are stainless steel (~24$ for all 4), but otherwise it was just a bit of elbow grease. This old jarrah is almost as hard as steel but luckily I didn't have to do much to it. Trying to locate the beams in the ceiling was a bit tricky and trying to measure square to the walls didn't work - the window end came through right on the edge instead of the middle. At least I know those are in the middle of the beams but i'm not sure about the other end. The anchor points are further away from the centre than I would have liked but I didn't have much choice for stability vs length.

I estimate the total weight is around the 30kg mark - pretty hefty but apart from some initial anxiety I don't think there should be any trouble with it holding up even if it is only anchored in pine. I was worried at first that it would cast too much shadow from the down-lights, but as it sits toward the rear of the kitchen bench it isn't a problem. Same with respect to head-clangers.

It's just under 2m long, and mostly over the sink anyway.

All in all, i'm "well pleased"[sic] with the result. The oil turned the wood from a deep brown-red to a dark chocolate, which works particularly well with the brass plated fittings.

Now I probably need something for the lids ...

But for now my next project is a toe^H^H^Hbiltong cutter, and I think I came up with a cheap and easy-to-procure source for the cutting blade (vs a bench plane blade, which rusts anyway). More on that when i've got it sorted.

It wasn't the only thing i've been up to, I filled all my bottles with homebrew (4x worts), did a batch of biltong, and did some work on one of the gutters today. I really should've written down the second spice mix recipe for the biltong because it's really tasty! From memory the differences were black pepper, pimento (all-spice), fennel seeds, and i'm not sure if coriander came along too. I'm still making some of it a bit too salty (i'm kind of mixing up various recipes on the net but I think i've worked it out for the next lot), although it goes very well with beer ...