I tried my hand at turning a square bowl. The corners of the bowl become wings that have this cool look. I’m using mine for a candle holder, but this would be great as a valet for car keys, or to hold nuts & candies.  I need to turn a few more of these.

I’ve been buying my bowl blanks on Amazon. Which is really great during the quarantine.  I’ve been really happy with the quality.

Here’s what I used:  6″ Black Walnut Bowl Blank

This isn’t my favorite style of wallet, but it was a nice introduction into leatherworking. My next project will be a bi-fold wallet (Also one of Justin’s free templates).

I really enjoying working with this new material. I’m hoping to incorporate more leather into my woodworking projects as well. Things such as drawer pulls, hinges, and liners. I guess we’ll find out where this goes.  It sure opens the world of new possibilities.

You can buy strips of lath at the home center, but I chose to make mine. I cut 1/4″ strips from 2×4. I left the saw marks in the wood and used my rotary tool to rough up the edges of the lath strips so they weren’t so crisp. I glued the lath strips onto some craft paper, leaving a small gap between the strips.

While the lath panels dried, I determined the direction the strips would run for each of the parts. You can use the direction of the lath to indicate detail, dimension, and movement. Once satisfied, I cut the pattern into parts and laid them on my panels.

I cut each of the parts out on the scroll saw. Again, I used my rotary tool to rough up the freshly cut edges. I really want these pieces to look rough and worn. I found it easier to add color to each of the pieces before I assembled the final picture. For the silver areas on the shield, I applied silver leaf. The gold areas on the mask I applied gold leaf. All of the other areas, I used standard craft paint.

Once the paints dried, I assembled the picture like a jigsaw puzzle and glued them into place onto 1/4″ backer board. I trimmed away the excess backer board with the bandsaw. Then I painted the edges and the backer to match the piece.

Captain America is from the 1940’s. I wanted the lath art to look like they’ve been around for the last 70+ years. So I took some sandpaper and starting sanding away some of the paint. The high points tend to get the most wear, so that’s where I remove the most paint. To add some dirt and grime, I used some medium colored stain. I liberally brushed on the stain, making sure I fill in all of the crevices. Then I used a rag to wipe away as much stain as I could. This toned down the bright paint, and filled in the recesses with dark grime. Once that dried, I applied a layer of paste wax to the surface, then buffed it out. This gave a nice soft feel, and added a soft luster.

I really liked how the final pieces turned out. The gold and silver leaf add a nice little sparkle and the lath art has a nice folksy feel, but with a much cooler subject matter.

I built this project over several weeks LIVE from my shop on my channel over at Twitch. I stream every Sunday at 1pm Pacific time. If you get a moment, stop in and say hi. It’s a lot of fun hanging out and doing a little nerdy woodworking.

I used a standard cedar fence board for my material.  I cut it to 12” long and dog-eared the top.  I sanded down some of the rough surface, leaving behind a little bit of the rough sawn lumber.  I wanted it to still have that weathered/textured look.  I put it on my CNC and carved out the Vault Boy logo.  Since I was making these live on my stream, someone suggested I do a Nuka Cola logo as well, which I thought was a brilliant idea.  So I put that into my CNC and carved a few of those out as well.

I drilled a hole in the back of the board to recess a rare earth magnet.  It won’t be seen from the front, but the magnet is strong enough to catch the falling bottle cap through the wood and stick it to the board.  Very cool!  I plugged the hole with some cedar plugs I made with the CNC.

I painted the surface with craft paints.  Then with my sander, I sanded away a bit.  This left a nice weathered paint look.  For Vault Boy, I laid down a layer of white paint as a base.  Once dry, I followed up with the colors.  Once all of that was dry, I used some sandpaper to scuff up the nicely painted surface to age it up a bit.  The Nuka Cola logos, I painted the recesses.

I spread a walnut stain over the entire surface and wiped away anything that didn’t soak in.  This really darkened the craft paint and aged the wood 30 years.  I used an old brush to pool in the stain into the recesses of Vault Boy, which made the awesome outline come to life.

I let the stain dry for a few days, then I came back over it with a furniture wax.  It gave it a nice satin sheen and made the wood nice to the touch.  Then I screwed in the bottle opener hardware and I was done!

In the end, I made 2 Vault Boy and 3 Nuka Cola bottle openers.  I really liked the way they turned out and my buddy was thrilled.

I made these on my Live Stream.  Every Sunday at 1pm, PST, I stream live from my shop.  Stop in and check it out and hang out with me.  Recordings of my live stream are available for 2 weeks if you missed the show.

I decided to throw my hat into the ring and stream some of my shop time.  My first project was a scroll saw portrait of Deadpool.  My wife and I saw the Deadpool movie a few weeks prior and loved it.  So I thought this would be a fun project for my first stream.

The project went well.  I cut the project over 3 sessions (Sundays at 1pm, PST).  I stack cut 3 pieces of 1/8” Baltic Birch plywood.  Normally, I don’t add color to my projects, but this one was screaming for it.  So the black areas, I used ebony stain.  The red parts I used a Sienna Red stain.  It took a few tries as it’s difficult to control the stain.  I used a wood burner to define areas and found that it helped contain the stain in only the areas I wanted.

It was a lot of fun and plenty of folks stopped by to check it out!  Now, on to the next project.  So be sure to join me each Sunday at 1pm, PST.

I cut all of the pieces at the table saw.  The curves I cut on the scroll saw.  I sanded the face and edges with 80 grit sandpaper.  I didn’t want them completely smooth, since I still like the rough saw marks.  I painted the whole thing with blue craft paint and set it aside to dry.  On the scroll saw, I cut out the word “tea” from 1/4” birch plywood.  I purposely didn’t cut out the holes in the “e” and “a” because I liked the way it looked.  Once the paint was dry, I sanded all of the pieces again to strip away some of the paint to leave a nice weathered look.  I glued and brad-nailed all of the pieces together.  Once the glue was dry, I coated the entire piece with walnut colored stain.  This darkened up the raw wood and the paint.  It really made it look old and weathered, which is the goal.  Once the stain dried, I glued the “tea” cutout into place.  Then I coated everything with a furniture wax for a subtle sheen and smooth feel.

I really like the way it turned out.  Now we can enjoy a cup of tea in style.

This was a quick and easy project that makes for a really cool wall decoration for my Geek Cave.

The video below is a vlog style video, where I give updates as I complete each stage of the build. It’s a little longer than normal, but I think it has good information. You should start seeing new CNC projects coming soon as I integrate this new tool into my workflow. Enjoy the show!

Links:

• 1/4″ to 1/8″ Collet Reducer

Today, I’m thrilled to say that 10 years later, I’m replacing my old band saw with something that WILL do what I want.  I ordered the 14” Grizzly G0555LANV Anniversary Edition band saw.  I still want to do band saw boxes and scroll work, but I also want to re-saw lumber.  I checked the reviews on Amazon.com, worked my Google-Fu and found some reviews.  I also checked some reviews of some of my favorite YouTubers such as Jay Bates and April Wilkerson.  Based on what I’ve read, my needs, and my budget, I think I found a great saw.

The saw went together perfectly and I’m thrilled with my new purchase.  I even bought a ShopFox mobile base that makes moving the saw a breeze.