this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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Woodworking

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I’m sorry if this is not in the spirit of the community, but I figured my dad would know because of his experience woodworking, and I don’t want to ask him for obvious reasons. I’m happy to remove it if it doesn’t fit.

I have an aluminum herb grinder, that regularly gets jammed up with resin. I tend to use a regular (probably pine) food skewer to clean it off, because I don’t want metal shards coming off of the aluminum from a metal scraper or plastic pieces from a plastic scraper. The pine works okay, but I have to replace it regularly and it can’t get everything. 

I know pine is probably one of the softest woods, but would a hard wood be significantly more durable if it were cut as thin as a skewer (4mm diameter round)? Would anything be both reasonably obtainable (I live in a place with frequently abandoned old furniture, if that would be a good source, or I can go to a lumber store) and more durable enough to be worth it?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I’m in Germany, so it’s not super uncommon that furniture from the 1800s shows up broken on the street for trash pickup/antiquers, but it seems like that’s not a good idea, based on the other things that might be in there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Maybe find a hardwood tree, grab a small branch and whittle it?