Make a Wooden "Oven Rack Puller"

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Fun DIY Woodworking Project: Oven Rack Hook

Save your hands from burns with a wooden oven rack hook, which lets you pull out racks and push them in easily. You can buy them online (see below), but it might be more fun to make one! It also makes a unique gift for chefs.

Photos on this page © E. Brundige



It's actually difficult to find oven rack hooks in stores. I tried three different big kitchen stores before Mom gave me hers.

Since then, I've found a few on Amazon (see below), but I've never seen another with such a cute design: it's a fish hook, or rather, a fish with a hook! It may be an Amish design, since Mom got it when we lived at the edge of Pennsylvania Dutch country where Amish wood crafts were common.

Anyway, if you'd like to try your hand at making this handy kitchen utensil, follow my pattern and instructions below. But first, a quick demo:

How an Oven Rack Hook Works

This kitchen utensil saves you from burning your hands on hot metal

Hook oven rack to pull it out:

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Use fish mouth to push rack in without slipping!

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The long fish handle gives you leverage and keeps skin away from hot surfaces.

Recipe, er, Materials for Oven Rack Hook

  • Piece of wood: 11-12" long x 1.5" wide x 1/4" thick (Look for maple or cherry)
  • Chalk or pencil
  • Jigsaw
  • Rasp and sandpaper
  • Mineral oil (optional)
  • (optional) 1/4" drill to make eye and/or woodburning tool for decoration

Directions for Do-It-Yourself Oven Rack Hook

The design is forgiving, so you don't have to be exact

  1. Print and cut out my "fish hook" pattern. My fish is 1.25" wide at the widest part of the tail and gills, 11" long, and just barely thicker than a quarter inch.
  2. Double check that the cutout for the "hook" will fit your oven rack's thickness. Adjust design accordingly.
  3. Trace fish pattern onto wood lightly so you can sand the lines away later.
  4. HARD PART: Use jigsaw to cut out fish. You don't have to follow the curves perfectly -- mine's a little lopsided if you look closely. See this how to make a wooden spoon guide for various tools you can use to cut out the shape (jigsaw is easiest).
  5. Be careful not to make the pointed part of the "hook" so thin that it will break with repeated push-pulling of stiff oven racks.
  6. Sand fish until smooth. No need to be perfectionist; this looks fine if it's rough.
  7. Optional: use wood burning pen and/or drill to add gills, eyes on both sides. The eyes on mine were drilled very shallowly, leaving a curved indentation.
  8. Stain with food-safe mineral oil.

Oven Rack Puller Plus Ruler

This oven hook includes a ruler and handy magnet

Oven Rack Push Puller

Amazon Price: $2.95 (as of 06/02/2012)Buy Now

Here's a handy kitchen utensil: a combination wooden oven hook plus 17" kitchen ruler! It has a magnet on the back so you can hang it on the fridge; that's a nice improvement over mine.

There's a number of wooden oven rack hooks (including the "Oven Rack Jack") on Amazon: here's a selection of them:

Oven Rack Jacks, Wooden Claws, Push-Pullers

Nobody knows what to call these kitchen utensils!

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My Family Recipe File

A few excerpts from my mom's cookbook

This page earns money for charity, by the way: earnings from the ads on the side go to KIVA (Not much, but every bit helps):
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