We live in an age where many things can be recycled into new objects but despite how better technology improves there’s one traditional material that never fails to disappoint and that’s wood.

Leftover hardwood flooring may not sound like a glamorous material to work with but when Instructables user sir_ghattas‘s uncle gave him some leftover hardwood flooring planks from a renovated house to play with the result ended up being spectacular.

Ghatta’s started his project with a plan, and that plan was to use the few pieces of hardwood to create a Viking-style stein.

To begin with, he sliced the hardwood at hand into eight equally sized pieces which he then brought together to fit into a circular stein design.

Using glue to stick the pieces together, then polyurethane to seal the mug (to avoid leakage) he then shaped a discarded antler to attach as a handle, because no stein is complete without a handle.

Here’s how he did it.

Tools & Materials

To create the stein Ghatta used a table saw, router, sander, and hammer. His raw materials were hardwood flooring, antler, wood glue, small nails/ tacks, polyurethane and rubber bands.

Cutting up the pieces

After receiving the recycled hardwood from his Uncle Ghatta’s chopped the wood into 8 equal pieces, along with cutting an 8 sided base. Note from the picture that the base is designed to slot into the bottom of the pieces of wood, not unlike Ikea furniture but without a pile of different screws. The higher offset in the base is optional; if you were doing it yourself you could, in theory, do it higher or lower, but different things come into play if you don’t offset it at least a little bit.

Fitting

Having measured and cut the pieces, including the base, it was time to make sure it all fitted together. This is an important step because if one piece is out/ wrong it makes it difficult, if not impossible to seal the pieces later.

Glue

After making sure that the wood fit together as planned, Ghatta then applied woodworking glue to the pieces. Multiple rubber bands were used to hold the stein together while it dried. At this step, you want to make sure the rubber band doesn’t stick to the glue.

Sanding

Once the mug was dry he then sanded back the mug using a sander to create a smooth, pleasing to the eye finish paying particular attention to creating a smooth lip at the top because the last thing you want with a stein is a rough top where you apply your lips.

Handle

With the stein nearly finished the next step involved cutting a discarded antler to the right size to act as the handle. Nails were used to attach the handle to make sure it was solidly attached along with glue itself.

Seal

The final step was to coat the handle and mug in polyurethane to both seal it and to provide long last durability.

Finished Product

Here’s the finished product and what a great looking stein it is at that.