Wooden Tortilla Press

Aw; warm sunny weather, at last, the sun felt so good this weekend I got a jump on planting seeds for our garden, next to wood, play in the dirt, growing a garden is my most favorite past time. I also cleaned off all the junk that landed on my bench over the winter. For those that don't know I still don't have a shop. I have looked at several building, but still haven't found one that meets my needs and since the work is slow here I am in no rush . I still have my tool box in our bedroom, and a small bench and a band-saw on the porch. I can do most of the little project that I build with this set up. I also just purchased a scroll saw that I can set up on my bench and do some craft type projects that my better half wants. one of these projects is a tortilla press.

We looked at the metal press but they are to small and we want to be able to make larger tortillas. Then I remembered a wooden press a friend of mine had when I lived in AZ.  It was an old and crudely made thing, but did a great job at making tortillas. We looked in all the kitchen stores around our area, but to no avail, and finally Tina says to me, why don't you just use some of the small scape pieces of wood you have and make one? So yesterday I sketched a design after looking on the net for some ideas and then me and my grandson looked through my wood stash and found some pieces of 8/4 maple for the base, some 5/4 cherry for the top, and for the lever and arm I will use some 8/4 cherry. I plan on dovetailing the upright in to the base and cutting a curve on the bottom of the handle to give it more leverage.

Now I have a plan, and all I have to do is turn all this,
                                                  into this.

 

Joey