Follow The Coaster King

Get your fill of the Coaster King by following him on the social medias such as Facebook and Instagram! Your world will be better for it... but mostly my minions are too lazy to update this page on a regular basis, so this is the best way to keep up with the area's premier coaster artisan.

View this post on Instagram

Another etched coaster. Nakatomi plaza from Die Hard! #handcrafted #diy #coasterking #diehard

A post shared by Tom Pearce (@tompearce09) on Oct 12, 2018 at 5:40pm PDT

MI Home Coaster

Made up a couple of sets of these Michigan Home coasters for some custom orders I received.They got a good amount of interest at a craft show I participated in! 

The "home" thing seems to be pretty popular these days and there are an endless number of variations that you can come up with to keep them fresh and cool looking. I like the way these came out a lot. To me the great lakes almost look like a coffee/water stain on the tile. 

To create these, I printed out the image on a laser printer and transferred them to the stone tile using Modge Podge. The coasters are then sealed with more Modge Podge and an acrylic sealer.

The Golf Club Patent Coasters

Despite popular belief, I did not invent golf clubs

These awesome coasters were created using images retrieved from the US Patent office website which the Google will conveniently search for you. I'm no lawyer, but since these are public domain images, they are free to use... probably. Here's an interesting take on the issue by a real intellectual property lawyer. I used Modge Podge to transfer the printed images onto tumbled stone tiles, a process I will outline in a later post.
I had to rework the images a bit to get them to fit on the square tiles.

I think they came out super classy and was proud to give them as a present to the best golfer I know... my dad!

Quick Tip: Dentless Beer Bottle Cap Removal

Bah, damaged, my project is ruined!

One thing we like to do here at the Coaster Kings Labs is make #beercrafts with beer bottle caps. Here is a quick tip about how to remove the beer bottle cap without putting a dent in it! I picked this little nugget of information up in the comments section of a blog somewhere a few months ago. Sadly, I can't remember where I found it.

Depending on the style of bottle opener, it can be pretty easy to dent up that bottle cap, leaving you with feelings of sadness and despair as you realize your carefully planned out #beercraft is already flawed.



Things You'll Need:

mmmm beer...

• A quarter. I've had success with other coinage as well. 
• A bottle opener. Church-key style openers work the best.
• A bottle with a bottle cap on it still... duh.
• Electrical Tape (Optional). If you're worried about scratching up the bottle cap with your quarter, throw some electrical tape on the quarter. 

Try It Out:

Step 1: Put the quarter on the bottle cap.
Step 2: Using the bottle opener, firmly pry off the cap.  You can still damage the sides pretty easily if you aren't paying attention to what you are doing.
Step 3: Drink the beer!
Step 4: #BeerCraft!

Doing this with a camera in one hand is
incredibly difficult.

In conclusion, I think I'm going to dedicate a quarter to this task and stick some electrical tape on it. Depending on the cap, some of them scratch up pretty easy as you can see below, this one got a little scratched up, but no dents! (Also, just throwing it in a container with a bunch of other caps can scratch it up as well.)

No dents!

Hello World!

Welcome to the Coaster King of Kalamazoo's website. If we had followers these would be the kinds of questions we might get:


What kind of coasters are you the king of? 
These kind:

coast·er

ˈkōstər/

noun

1. 1.

   a small tray or mat placed under a bottle or glass to protect the table underneath.
2. 2.

   a ship used to carry cargo along the coast.

.
We lean heavily towards #1 above and we'll be using this blog to post articles of our various projects and adventures in coaster, craft, and beer making. So expect to see a lot more articles on this blog, Don't forget to sign up by email to get notified automatically of updates!

Is there really a Kalamazoo? 
YES and it has an amazing craft/beer scene. You should check it out sometime.

How did you become the Coaster King of Kalamazoo? 
Easily! I woke up one day and declared myself the greatest at making coasters is the general Kalamazoo, MI area, including Kalamazoo county and nearby surrounding areas. To date, no one has challenged my rule. 

How would you describe your governing style?
Fair and just with an occasional flair for totalitarianism.

What kinds of things will we see on this marvelous site? Here is a taste of the wondrous things to come:

Stress testing my hand crafted coasters to go with my home brewed beer. Reused the labels from old beer bottles! #homebrewed #handcrafted

A photo posted by Tom Pearce (@tompearce09) on Apr 9, 2015 at 1:55pm PDT

beer magnets are the best magnets. #beercrafts #handcrafted

A photo posted by Tom Pearce (@tompearce09) on Apr 30, 2015 at 7:40pm PDT