OnlineMetals.com - DIY | Make Your Own Coasters

Hi welcome to online metals calm today we are going to show you how to make stainless steel coasters this is a really great project because it's super easy once you've acquired your materials you will be all finished with it in just a few minutes there's a lot of different ways you could go about completing this project you can check to make square coasters which is what we're going to do today or you could actually choose to have a round material if you want to make round coasters it would be best if you have your own cutting equipment because coasters are quite thin and in order to get the thin cuts you would have to have the equipment necessary to cut a round piece of metal into such a thin piece so for just the ease of project we're going to go ahead with square coasters for our project the main material we've chosen is a stainless steel T 304 this piece is 0.12 inches thick and because it's so thick we will be able to attach a very thin backing to the coaster to get the final piece that we need this is a relatively inexpensive piece of stainless steel and the to be finish is a little bit raw if you want to finish that's a little more refined you can get the T 304 with a brushed finish which is what you might purchase if you are going to be making a steel backsplash when you get your materials they're going to come with a coating over them a protective coating but if you wanted to go with a more upscale finish then you can actually get away with purchasing a really thin piece of metal and then choosing a thick backing material so that ultimately when you're finished you'll have these steel coaster this part of the project is really easy all we need to do take our four inch by four inch piece of metal and lay it down on the backing material so that we can get it to cut to size we've chosen to get a felt that we're going to use some spray glue to attach it you can also get the kind of felt that already comes with its own self-adhesive I wasn't quite sure if that would stick well enough to metal so I did choose to get a spray that is specifically going to attach a fabric to the metal so it's very easy we just mark it out you could use any color of material that you want another really good choice for backing on coasters would be cork now that our vacuums are cut the next step is simply to adhere the backings to the metal you just want to check and make sure that your adhesive will work on metal some adhesives don't work very well with metal or just let spray this on and it's a good idea to apply some pressure to the thicker foam core as it might try to peel away from the metal surface while the glue is drying if you have something heavy you could just place a book on top of the materials while they're drying now that we've applied the back end to each of the coasters we just need to let the glue dry when the glue is dry we can pick our coasters up and trim off any extra pieces that might be sticking out over the edges it's also a good idea to have a metal file or some sandpaper so that you can rub off any rough edges that might be present on the edges of the metal once the glue has dried you are ready to take the protective coating off of the stainless steel it's a good idea to leave it on until the glue dries so that you don't tremendous fur any glue from your hands to the metal this is the brushed finish you're very lightweight and what are prescription this is a to be finish which is not very polished and it's a smooth surface it does not have texture added to it it is actually more of a solid toilet and that's a fast way to make some stainless steel coasters we have the t 304 stainless steel in a number four brushed finish and a to be finish there both t 304 stainless steel four inch by 4 inch pre-cut squares you