Skip Harrison

I saw some quick and easy bird cages being built by novice and experienced wood workers.  They were using 6-8 foot cedar planks and I thought I since I had some 6 foot planks left over from the planter that I’d just built for the backyard I would give it a shot making one.

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I found some extension table leaves of a table that had been long ago given away to a family member or to charity.  The leaves were in the back of a seldom used closet and had been forgotten about.

One side of the wood was already finished in a glossy urethane type substance and I thought this would be an easy and quick opportunity to make some utensil holders for the kitchen.  That was a false assumption to say the least.  Trying to preserve that finish was way more work than it would have been if I had just sanded, planed, re-sawn or used some other method to get the wood ready for glue-up.

The containers ae 10 sided and about 5 inches tall.  The wood appears to be maple with a OSB (oriented strand board) backing.  I added a small layer of sapele on top with a 45 degree chamfer then a trim of white oak separating the two woods.

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My son-in-law retrieved an old broken down teak bench that was being discarded due to some broken parts and just being in general disrepair. He asked if I wanted it for the teak wood that was still in good shape except for years of weathering, split wood. Some missing parts, and broken bolts, braces, and screws.

It sat in my side yard for a few weeks as I finished up a couple other projects and pending the purchase of a block of wood to replace some pieces that worn, broken or missing. The local hardwood stores didn’t have teak wood so I opted for a piece of eight-four Sapele as a substitute. As it turned out it wasn’t too bad of a match and after a teakwood oil it blended in OK.

I decided to try and restore the piece to its original shape and design as much as possible rather than re-purpose the wood for something else. I think either way would have been OK for such a nice selection of hardwood.

The salad servers were made as a Christmas gift to my two daughters. They are a copy, structurally speaking, of the ones I my for my wife Janet about a year ago. That set was made from contrasting wood of soft maple and walnut. The set pictured below are made entirely of white oak. The “bread butter” t protect the wood from continued exposure to water is a combination of mineral oil and beeswax.

The original design was taken from a post by the YouTube maker Steve Ramsey. I modified his design and made these a little slimmer for looks and functionality purposes.

I made this keepsake box for my wife for Christmas. I got the inspiration from a YouTube maker channel called Newton Makes. It’s made from wenge and curly maple. I planed the wood thickness down to about 7/16 inch and the shelves to about 1/4 inch.

This is the first time I’ve used wenge and it is the most splintery wood I have ever worked with.  Three times I left the shop with splinters in my bleeding hand, especially under the fingernails.  

Newton’s box didn’t have the shelves but I added those after the wife wanted a little more versatility to store various sizes of jewelry and what not. At some point I will be adding red felt to the shelves and to the very inside bottom of the box.  I tried adding the fancy shaped legs that Newton made but I couldn’t get the twice sawn bandsaw shape to come out as intended.  Wound up just cutting an “L” shape bracket leg and adding a small taper towards the bottom.

I used Minwax Clear Semi-Gloss as a finish and applied about 4 coats in total. Fun project!

The box was made of 1/2 inch walnut plywood and purple heart scraps left over from a cutting board I made last year. The dimensions are 8″ wide, 6 1/2″ front to back, and 7″ deep.  

The top handle is made from solid walnut and its is finished with clear satin  wipe-on poly.