Hockey Pucks

Andrew VanOrd commented the other day that you could make spacers from a hockey
puck.  I don’t have access to any pucks and can’t imagine what they are made from,
but I liked the idea of a round spacer.  Mine are all squares and “almost squares.”
(Yes, I know those are probably called “rectangles,” and some of them are, except some
are trapezoids and parallelograms caused by inaccurate cutting. So there, my 10th grade
geometry teacher.)

Here’s how I fashioned my puck-like objects.  

-Cut a four and a half inch square of hardwood.  (I tried 4, but it ends up just a little
small)

-Cut the corners off.  Anything close to an octagon is what you’re going for here.  A bandsaw i
s my weapon of choice if I’m outside in the shop. If I’m in the basement shop, a handsaw is
faster than the walk up the stairs and out.  Let prudence and your need for “getting your steps
in” dictate.

-Draw diagonals on one face to find the center of the square.

-Drill a tiny through-hole through the center.

-Chuck the octagon between centers on a lathe.  I use a roughing gouge to round it and
ease the corners a bit. 

-Sand the edges with 80, then 120 grit sandpaper.  Add some linseed oil if you must.  

-Feel free to run up the grits to 1500 and add a mirror-smooth finish of some expensive

oil/varnish/polyurethane/wax mix you’ve purchased online, but know that I will mock you. It’s
a spacer and we’ve already invested 15 minutes in the thing.  It’s a spacer.

-Hold the puck in a handscrew and drill a  2 ⅛-inch hole through the center- using the tiny hole
as a guide.  If you drill 95% of the way through and flip it, the cut is much cleaner.

-Use it.

-Lose it.

-Make another.

Send me a hockey puck and I’ll compare the two.