Woodworking Projects at LumberJocks.com

TIMBER TOPPER

socalwood — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:56:31 GMT

Reclaimed coastal live oak kitchen island top. Hewn, scraped top, sculpted edges. Epoxy filled bullet holes and cracks, Waterlox finish, General Finishes glaze. 3 1/4” thick.And yes, on this piece I beveled all the joints prior to glue up to make sure that I had a distinctive glue line separating each of the boards.

Heart Pine Harvest Table

CedarFreakCarl — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:52:07 GMT

Here’s a heart pine harvest table I made for my cousin and his wife. They’ve been building a new home and asked me if I would build them a table for their kitchen eating area. This is actually my very first commission. The wood is 100+ year old heart pine from a store my great grandfather used to own. It measures 6’ x 3’-6” x 30” high. The joints are mortise and tenon. The finish is 7 coats of Waterlox rubbed on and topped off with with Renaissance Wax. This is my first time using Waterlox I think it really brings out the beauty of the old pine. All comments and criticism welcome.

Here’s a few pictures of the last stages of finishing.

First Wooden Ring

skywalker01 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:33:41 GMT

I saw a few of the rings that Franklad made and was blown away. I didn’t think that you could make a ring out of wood that would stand up to any abuse at all. Of course my ring is a little thick but at this thickness it is very strong. I glued it up with tightbond 3 and finished it with general finishes satin. It is purple heart in the center and maple on the outside. I sanded the inside for a “wear easy feel”. It was a lot harder than it seems to shape the outside and get it nice and even all around. I think some sort of sanding jig would be in order. Maybe next time…. Thanks Franklad, your an inspiration.

P.S. I don’t read a ton of the projects of others but what little I have seen in the comments that people leave is that they are almost always positive and almost never critical. A little “creative inspiration/criticism” does everyone good. I welcome it on any of the content on my LJ Home. I only say this because I see some things that are just not good and a lot of comments that lead me to believe that people comment just to comment. Which gets boring after a while…

Thanks,

Router table rebuild, 2nd time's a charm?

Craftsman on the lake — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:24:02 GMT

A few months ago I got a new router and built my first router table. All was well until I made some rails for a cabinet. I had made a braced mdf top. The weight of the router caused a negligible sag in the center of the table. Negligible to the eye, but noticeable when I tried to put a piece of wood through it. The rout of course wasn’t even. If I pressed the center of the wood when it went through it was okay but this was very unacceptable. Back to the drawing board. You can see in a couple of the pictures my old top standing up in the background.

I decided to joint up a bunch of fir sections and laminate them together. I did this in two sections so that I could still put it through the 12 1/2” planer in two pieces. I then glued the two sections together and hand planed any irregularities.

I must say, this setup works great. I used up some of my t-rail for the fence (which I used from the previous setup) and made a ‘roller-featherboard’ ?? I don’t know what else to call it. I saw it on a link to a link on an old LJ’s forum topic. It really holds a piece of work to the fence but still lets it roll through.

As you can see I have a flip up top to gain access to the router for adjusting and changing bits. and I have a plug inside connected to an outside switch. The inside plug lets me unplug the router when I change to another bit.

I found out that 95% of the chips when routing ended up in the table. So, I’ve added dust collection to the hollow table area and will eventually branch it up to the fence too. The table is on kick-out wheels, mounted to a hinged board. I flip the board with my foot and the wheels flip up inside the bottom of the table. Simple, efficient, but it takes a second to flip them with my foot as I tilt the table.
So, this is take #2 of my ‘make tools right the first time or do it again”. I think this one will stick.

Thanks for viewing, Daniel

assembly table

hootr — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:50:54 GMT

i had an old folding table, the kind you find in rental halls, particle board = heavy and not flat
take off the legs and mount them on a hollow core interier door, a couple 1×2s with clamps for face frames and you have a dead flat, light weight table that doesn’t take up much room to store
lumber yards and big box stores often have damaged doors they’ll sell cheap
it’s not one of the great jigs and projects we see here on LJ’s but its cheap, like me

Garden Bench

Lenny — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:42:40 GMT

My oldest daughter attended and, in 2003, graduated from Williams College, an excellent school here in the northeast. While at the school, she established a close relationship with Felicia, the Director of the school bookstore. Felicia, in essence, became a surrogate mom to my daughter. She was someone she could turn to when things got stressful or if she just needed a receptive ear. On a number of occasions she was a savior to my wife and me as we otherwise might have made a three hour drive to the school.

Perhaps as much as a year before my daughter’s graduation date, I decided I wanted to make and present this kind and caring lady with a token of appreciation for all she did for our daughter. We learned over the years that she is an avid gardener. One day while looking through an outdoor projects book from the Handyman’s Club series, I saw what they called a “park bench”. I loved the look of it, particularly the scalloped edges, top and bottom, of the back slats. The rest of the bench looked to be comfortable yet sturdy. Theirs was made from pine and they showed it painted. I thought, this would make a perfect garden bench for Felicia but I prefer to make it from cedar and leave it natural. I purchased the necessary quantity of western red cedar and pretty much followed the plans provided and enjoyed almost all of the construction. Why almost? Because I chose to counter bore all screw holes and fill them with bungs. The back slats alone have four screws per slat, so as you can see there were many of them. Besides the many screws, the joints were reinforced with waterproof glue and I applied several coats of polyurethane as my finish.

On the day my daughter graduated, we presented the bench to Felicia and she was both surprised and elated. Over the years, I would check with Felicia now and then to ask how the bench was holding up. I had never made anything from cedar before and I found it to be a brittle wood. It may be that the supplier had let it dry out too much? Upon seeing the announcement for the Summer 2009 Garden Bench contest, I contacted Felicia again and asked if she might supply a photo of the bench in its home. And what a beautiful photo she provided. She is a far better gardener than I am a woodworker; that’s for sure. I have to say, she was right when she told me the day I presented it to her, she had a wonderful location for the garden bench.

Barnboard Pen (Pen #7)

MsDebbieP — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:19:17 GMT

July 2/09

After making a pen for my brother, using wood from our great-grandfather’s barn, I just had to make one for myself because of the sentimental value.

My Brother’s Pen

My Pen

Pen Kit: Sierra
Wood: Barnboard from my great-grandfather’s barn
Stain: made from wood ashes from our fire pit (perhaps a little more of the barnboard)

I used the wood ashes to colour the pen because I wanted it to have the appearance of old grey boards. To get the stain, I just crushed some ashes in a bit of water and then put some of the liquid mush on a cloth and applied it to the wood. I think it turned out well.

Oh.. and I used “wood hardener” this time and it worked. The first pen was like cutting melted butter!

Sink and cabinet for play set

GCB — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:13:46 GMT

This project is the second piece in a play kitchen set I made for my 3 1/2 year old daughter. This sink and cupboard section was made in a slightly different way from the approach I took with the range and microwave section. This piece is made using as close to typical face frame cabinet construction methods as I could considering the sides of the lower and upper cabinet are one piece. It has a 6” deep stainless “sink” and 2 drawers below the sink and 2 cabinet doors above. 1” multi-color glass tile is used for the counter top. Door and drawer pulls match the color and style of the handles on the range section. Have not decided if this will complete the set of if a fridge is in the future.
This was a fun project and is in effect my practice piece using face frame cabinet construction. One of my next projects will be a set of upper cabinets to go in our laundry room. After that I’m planning a more challenging project of a full wall unit cabinets and bookshelves with a desk return for my office. Not sure yet if this will be “built in” or free standing.

More Framing Samples

CaptainSkully — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:25:04 GMT

So, Kirstie at Framer’s Workshop asked me to make some 3/4” frame samples for smaller prints. I made the large one out of walnut, with a tung oil finish, the next one is TransTint Golden Brown, then Minwax Classic Oak, TransTing Dark Mission Brown, and the bridle joint is another tung oil. I get to make another batch for Pam DeWitt’s gallery next week.

I figured out a pricing matrix based on width, profile, corner and finish. Wish me luck!

Garden Bench

Woodn88s — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:15:54 GMT

Every year in May our little town has a Kiwanis “on air” radio auction to raise money for the Kiwanis club and I always make something for the auction, This bench was made for the 2007 auction and brought $135 for the club.
It is constructed of Poplar and is all mortis and tenon joinery. I sprayed it with Kilz exterior primer (oil base) and then 2 coats of exterior white oil based paint with an HVLP gun.

The initial planning consisted of going to Walmart and buying 2 clay pots….......the bench was built around the pots.
Gregg