The Art of Woodworking

Tennis Court Benches

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 14:49:00 +0000

I designed park benches for the tennis courts in our town. 10 men and boys from our church built them. One of the boys and I built the prototype. It all worked. We built one and had 2 others ready for assembly including staining. One of the men had teak 4X4's, so we used those for the legs. I am sure they will last a long time and are very sturdy. The high school tennis coaches are going to place them around the court and apply a couple more coats of stain. I hope our church gets some publicity for this in our local paper, we will see.

Medal Hanger

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 11:44:00 +0000

After finishing the bed side stands, I finished a piece to hang running medals. The shelf is walnut and the medal hanging wood is wormed maple. The finish is shellac that is waxed clear.

Bed Stands

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 11:39:00 +0000

This project is finally done. I think I was very slow on this one. I built two bed side stands. The wood is cherry and the trim is ebony. The finish is a Bartley Varnish. There is no stain on the wood. The style is Greene and Greene. Here are the pictures. I hope to deliver them soon.... week after next.

Two Bedside Stands

One Bedside Stand

The door handles -- cherry and ebony middle

Top -- no drawer

The pillow ebony plug on the breadboard top

Hinges

Side Profile

Open Door

On to finishing the panels

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 21:18:00 +0000

Now the panels needs finishing, then glue the piece, and lastly build and finish the top. Need to decide stain and finish.

While things go slow

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 22:18:00 +0000

Jigs

Still working on a project for a friend, I am moving way to slow on the project and need to get a cracking. Today I roughed in the panels to be sure they fit. All the cherry is fairly red, with little sap wood, I was careful picking it out. Here are all the parts and jigs I built for the project. I am sure glad I do not give out deadline dates, all would be disappointed!

Parts

Mentoring at church

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 22:14:00 +0000

I mentored a young man at church. We went to distribute water at Flint and made this cross. He designed it, sanded and finished it. I cut out the boards. It turned out fairly nice.

Bed stand plans

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 21:17:00 +0000

Here are the plans for the bed stand. It was a revised plan from a woodworking magazine. It will be a Greene and Greene inspired piece.

Bed Tables

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 21:09:00 +0000

I am building bed stands for a friend of mine. I am just starting and have roughed out the 1 - 1 3/8 inch pieces on my table saw. I just started today. I built the jigs for the legs and rails earlier in the week.

For my Granddaughter

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:14:00 +0000

I made a unit for my Granddaughter. It is cherry, The middle section can be pulled out to get into the closet behind the unit. My son's house in a cape code, so the rooms have an angled ceiling. The bottom of the unit is about 26 inches deep, so there are turntables to get the back. The other side has a desk unit, that changes in height, along with bungee cords to put her stuffed animals and such... so they do not fall our. The drawers in the middle unit are plywood, dovetails. All experts tell you that you cannot dovetail plywood... but i wanted to prove them wrong... and you can with enough backer boards to eliminate chips... not for the beginner woodworker. LED lights are recessed into the shelves and the bottom units. You can see the rafters in the top shelf. Also I turned cherry spindles and put a railing across the top. There are sliding doors on the right side of the unit.

Owl knobs

Spindle rail

Control panel for lights

Lighted unit

Sliding Doors

Turntables

Top Shelf with rafters, close fit!

Recycle Containers

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:17:00 +0000

I built my son a recycle container. There house is small, so to make the most of every room items need to be fitted into spaces. I made this two container recycle center to meet that need. It fit, not as well as I would like, but it is usable. We will see if he uses it. It is maple, painted. The panels are also ambrosia maple.

Turning Bowls

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:12:00 +0000

I was taught how to turn a bowl. The wood was green. I wanted to know if I enjoyed doing it, so I went to a two day class. I did manage to turn two bowls, one is cracked around the edges, due to the wood drying faster than I could turn the wood. We will see if turn another bowl, I may. To get the equipment and tools I need to spend another $300, and am not sure I will turn enough to warrant that money. I do have a lathe and did clean up these bowls on that lathe. I had trouble in the class because the distance of the tools on the bowl did not match my focal length. The teacher at one point, when I asked him again to get my tools started at the right angle, asked if I needed a time out... I told him no, I just need to get started with the tool and then I can feel my way through the rest... he took the time out and left the room. The other student came over and we got the tool at the right angle and all went well! Oh well, I have never been a good student.

Wacky Door Collection

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 19:22:00 +0000

Maple panels -- worm holes or ambrosia

This is part of my wacky door collection, I have been wanting to do something a little more unusual, so since these are in our den, it gave me the opportunity to do that. The main wood is walnut and the door panels are ambrosia maple, worm holed. The doors have a 93 degree angle to make them look uneven. The finish is just shellac and wax. The wood is natural, which is the way I like my woods. The wood is from Indiana, where I get most of my wood. I started with a set of pulls on the doors that I made and went more traditional. I angled the panels at 93 degrees also, you can see that in one panel, the other it is hard to see. The legs have a taper and are solid walnut about 1 3/4 inch square. All panels are matched, as you can see both with the maple and the burl walnut.

Walnut Burl

Bedside Table

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 16:04:00 +0000

Here is a bedside table I just finished building. It is made of cherry. The finish is a brown dye, covered by de-waxed shellac and then I wiped a polyurethane finish over the shellac. The owner wanted it dark. The drawers are through dovetails and the legs are tapered. The sides are bookend matched.

Cedar Chest Top

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 18:40:00 +0000

My nephew broke the top of this cedar chest. His mother blames him, but I think he is an innocence little boy. The original design was lacking, it did not allow for wood movement that weakened the frame around the top. I tried to compensate for that by not gluing the sides to the top allow the wood to expand a little. I had to glue the front. I also used a breadboard design and mortised the top to the frame. It still may crack out, but better than the original design. I matched the cedar the best I could. It will get darker, I have never worked with cedar before and it may have helped to do more research on the wood. Yet the color palette does match. The duct tape that held it together before is gone and all the cracks in the wood have been cut out. The finish is a boiled linseed oil as the base, with gloss polyurethane over that. I waxed it after the polyurethane cured. I hope it fits on the chest, that remains to be seen, I did not see how it attached and tried to hold the dimensions true to the original piece; but, anything can happen.

These Pesky Rabbits

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 12:47:00 +0000

I finally broke down and built a rabbit fence. I have been fighting rabbits for years. They eat flowers and the garden, I hope to at least keep them out of the garden. I have used human hair, stinky potions; home-made and purchased, plastic fence, and an electric fence. All may work for a week or two, then these rabbits find a way to eat the garden. They love green beans, eat them all the way through harvest... we got little harvest this year. Any plant that is just coming out of the ground, rabbit will eat. They do like tomatoes... other than tomatoes, they will eat any vegetable I have grown. So here is my ultimate rabbit fence.

Look at the fence

Closer look at the fence

Post Caps

Electric Polytape at the base for the diggers

Gate with a rabbit patio for the rabbits cook out
with their roasted vegatables

Wire reinforcement buried in the ground

Picture frames

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:19:00 +0000

I have left over wood from every project that stacks up in the workshop. I give much of it away for people to burn as kindling and have made toys from the wood. So I thought I would try to design and make some unique picture frames. It turned out to be a bigger project than I originally thought and thank goodness for Sketchup, because I could have not done these frames without it.

Finished Wardrobe

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 14:05:00 +0000

I delivered the wardrobe in August and am finally getting a picture up. It assembled much easier than I thought.

Trip to the UP

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 21:15:00 +0000

A friend of mine planned a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for us. He mapped out and described all the places we were to go, see and eat. He told me about one of the places he thought was the most beautiful on earth, so I took some shots, stitched them together, built a frame, had a craft shop cut the matting, and framed it. The wood is quarter sawn white oak scraps left over from the wardrobe project. He is remodeling a house of his, so today I gave it to him.

Here is that frame and picture. The dark and light wood are both white oak. The dark wood was dyed brown, with pigment and water. The frame was glued together and shellac is the finish. The interior pieces are all book end matched and the top, bottom and sides are all from the same piece of wood.

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:07:00 +0000

Left Door

Right Door

I have about 2 full days of fitting left to do, yet this cabinet is about done. Here is a view of the entire cabinet and the doors.

The pieces

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 22:29:00 +0000

This piece is going to be assembled on site, so the pieces will all need to go together. Here are the pieces and I am missing one piece. I have to make another piece to have a latch for the door, since I am just using regular hinges... so that is yet to be made.

The doors

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 01:30:00 +0000

The doors are attached to the cabinet. They are fairly even for the first try. I want to fit the top and get the poles for the hanger attached next. Then I will take it apart and round over the edges and give it a final sanding. Then I will put it back together and round over some more edges. After that, I will take it apart again and apply the finish... then reassemble to be sure all edges fit and the fit looks good. Then I will take it apart again for delivery. That is a lot of assembly!

Doors

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 16:38:00 +0000

Well the doors are dry fitted. Now I need to stain the wonderfully beautiful natural panels. I will follow the same process for the other panels I stained. First, the oil base stain, then a varnish, then a glaze, and then two cotes of polyurethane. That will take me about a week, each coat needs at least 24 hours to dry. While that is being done, I will install hinges on the door stiles.

The panels in the door are matched. The gap at the top is an optional item, to allow the clothes to air out between wearing. I hope the owners are happy with the addition.

Starting on the doors

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 21:30:00 +0000

The wardrobe's sides, false top, false bottom and back are attached. I am now starting on the doors. I was going to use European hinges, but now unsure. I do not want the screws to attach to the side panels. I may have to use regular hinges, and if I do that will be another decision the owners will need to make. I would recommend brass hinges. Also a decision will need to be made about door handles. Here are some different perspectives of the piece. A good site to use is rockler.com.

I made a mistake on one of the sides, I made an exact copy of the side and it was to be a mirror image. Not sure how I did that, but that set me back a couple of weeks. Not much new wood, just rework.

The color

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 18:42:00 +0000

Raw Quartersawn White Oak, planed

Stained with Minwax Mix

Now I am applying the color to this piece. I sanded the panels using 100 grit, 120 grit, 150 grit, 180 grit and 220 grit in sequence. The process I am using is glazing. The people who will own this piece wanted me to eliminate all the yellow I could from the wood, so this is the only technique I know to do that. After sanding, I wiped on a mix of Minwax stains (three colors) to try to reduce the yellows in the brown stain. Then I applied a 1/2# mixture of shellac with a brush. Next, I applied a glaze over the shellac, using wiping. After 24 hours I will apply 3 coats of polyurethane by wiping. Between each step I will rough the wood with a 320 grit sandpaper. After a couple of weeks I will wax the piece with a clear wax. You can click on each picture to enlarge it.

Stained with Minwax Mixed

Shellac over Minwax Mix

Glazed

Deck Pieces

noreply@blogger.com (ryerion) — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 16:06:00 +0000

To entertain my very few followers here are a couple of piece I made earlier. The wood is cypress. Cypress will turn dark if untreated. It is like all other light woods, it turns darker with time. Light woods turn darker and dark woods turn lighter is the old saying about woods. That is why I am not a fan of staining wood, it will finally turn a wonderful color with all the grains shown. Both of these piece are not stained. They are covered with a Sikken sealer, which is made in Germany. Above the trunk is a piece I made many years ago of redwood for a planter box, again unstained. I have not put a preservative on that redwood for about 10-12 years. It stands up well outside. Now, redwood is cost prohibitive to buy.