Category: Woodworking

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Halloween BOO Letters

I had a lot of walnut scraps let over from the coffee table that I made recently so I put together a number of pieces to mae the BOO letters that are hung together.  

The original letters were bought by Janet from a Gradinroad catalog and I traced those on a 1/4 inch piece of plywood to use as a template to make as many as I had the desire to ,make.

I used the bandsaw to roughly cut the outsides of the letters.  A scroll saw and jig saw took care of the interior areas and then a flush trim router bit was used to get the wood down to the refined shape as defined by the template.

The walnut letters were then sanded and a wipe on poly-urethane finish was applied.  The black letters are made of Douglas fir and are simply painted with a flat black spray paint.

The spiderwebs were bought from and Etsy store and pin nailed onto the letters.  They were painted orange or black depending upon the wood they were to be attached too.

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Walnut Coffee Table

The YouTube duo called Foureyes Furniture offered a get acquainted deal to their channel and website by offering a free course on how to build this coffee table.  They sell other woodworking plans and this was a way to introduce more people to their products with hopes of additional sells in the future.

I was impressed with the quality of the drawings and the demonstrations that were presented in the 13 or so chapters in the course.  

This course, I think, was geared toward the people at my skill level showing multiple ways of doing certain task depending upon what equipment you owned and the experience one had under their belt.  

The top, stretchers,  and legs are made from 5/4 walnut and the bottom shelf and rails are from 4/4 walnut and like the top, it is glued together from about 6 inch wide boards to create the needed width.

The finish was Rubio Monocoat, a hard wax product that I had never used before.  The application of the finish was a piece of cake and my wife was gracious enough to apply most of it to help me.  Truth be told, the piece was for her and she took pride in being apart of the build.

This was my first experience with this type of finish and I was pleased with the outcome.  A little of the Rubio Monocoat goes a long way.  Good thing because that material is expensive, very expensive.  

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iPhone Charging Stand

Update

June 15, 2023

 

The charging station worked well except for one issue that was frustrating.  The phone would sometimes slide away from the slanted back and the charging would unbeknownst to me would stop.  
To correct this issue I added a brass strip on the area where the bottom of the phone rest and then for decorative balance I added a brass strip around all sides of the base.  
 

April 12, 2023

This iPhone stand is made from a piece of 8/4 Sapele from another project and then milled to the dimensions noted in the Sketchup drawing below.  Embedded in the upright part is a MagSafe Charger that connects to the iPhone when leaned up against the rest.  

There is also a small tray to hold keys, coins, or the like.  The connection for the MagSafe Charger is a USB-C female that connects to a regular USB-A at the charger brick.

If I make another one I will iclude the option of plugging in a Lightning connector for the iPhone.

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Petition Book Stand

For a number of years, probably 3  or 4, I looked at the stand that held the Petition Book located by the baptismal font at the rear of the church.  The face of the stand had a strip of oak that ran the entire face near the bottom that held the book in place and on display while not in use. I kept telling my fellow sacristans and ushers that I was gong to fix the broken parts and restore it to like new “one of these days”.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and finally months turned into years.  Then one Sunday as I was leaving church I spotted the stand, as I always did, and I decided that this was the week I was going to live up to my promise and get this thing done.  

I called the church office the next day and asked if I could come over and pick up the stand, repair it and return it the next day.  I was told that that would be fine.  

When I got there Father Ace, the Pastor of St. James, was in the office and he opened the church for me and was interesting in what I was doing.  I explained my thoughts and now the pressure was on to do a good job.

I thought the bottom rest just needed to be routed out and a new support strip fitted and glued back in its place but when I got it to the shop I could see the bottom was cracked and parts missing so I decided to cut the whole bottom off with my track saw and replace it with some scrap red oak I had left over from another project.  

So after making the piece, clamping it into place, and routing a slot for the rest piece it was almost done.  All that was left was the polyurethane finish and 24 hours to dry and to get the chemical smell to dissipate.   

Got it back to church the next day and now I smile ever time I walk back there. Oh, and I tell everybody I see back there “I did that!”.

 

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Christmas Gift Box

Hexagonal box to hold Swarovski Nut Cracker figurine.

This box was made to hold a Swarovski Nutcracker figurine that I bought as a Christmas present for my wife.  The general shape of the wooden box mirrored the overall shape of the cardboard box the gift came in.

Original Swarovski Nutcracker Box Inside
Original Swarovski Nutcracker Box Outside

The lime colored box above is the one the nutcracker was shipped in which includes a protective rubber foam and a cutout for the figurine.  The shape was the inspiration for the octagonal wooden box with the blue tinted epoxy resin shown in the photos at the top.

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Bird House

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to Woodworking Tab

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Kitchen Utensil Holders

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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Teak Bench Restoration

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 underside of the bench. Some of the support blocks were broken and pieces of the slats were broken off.

Using clamps to hold things together to see what its going to take to put things back together.

Broken wood pieces replaced. Old weathered finish stripped, sanded and new coat of Teak Oil applied.

Finished bench in portrait view. Length is 5 feet, width is 15 inches and the height is 16 inches.

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Salad Servers

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.

 

These four were made for my daughters as a gift for Christmas 2021.

 

This pair is the original ones I made for my wife for Christmas 2020.
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Christmas Keepsake Box For The Wife

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!