Category: Wood

Wooden Clamps

I've been trying to come up with projects I can do with the materials I already have at home, and found some plans online for making wooden f-style clamps out of scraps. So I made this set of a dozen from scraps and offcuts from when I built my workbench - as a woodworker, you can never have too many clamps! These worked out well enough that I made another set of six that are longer - although I haven't taken any photos of those ones yet. I'm actually considering making yet one more set of six, at an even longer length, to round out the collection.


Recipe Card Box

When I broke down the pallet the new lathe came on, the main load-bearing members of the pallet seemed to be made of better stuff than the rest of it. So I hung onto them, thinking maybe I could use them for something. When I recently wanted to build a recipe card box I tried salvaging that material, and it turned out to be some nice, clear maple. What's cool is that in some spots on the finished box you can see the staining that the nails left behind - those spots are mostly on the back, but I dig them. I also wrote out all of the recipes we've collected over the years and put them in there. Previously they were scattered across emails, browser bookmarks, text messages, handwritten notes, things clipped from magazines, etc. Now they are all in one place, and nice and organized.


Pallet Sunset

We needed something new to hang above our bed. I had a bunch of wood I had salvaged from the pallets that the upstairs flooring and my new lathe came on, so I decided to try to make some sort of decorative art piece out of pallet wood for the wall - I figured if it didn't come out good enough, I could just hang it in the workshop instead. :) But thankfully it came out pretty good!


Bedside Table

Sean asked me to make him a bedside table so he's got somewhere to charge his phone at night, have a lamp, etc. I made this out of red oak, and in a mid-century modern style. That's not normally the style of furniture I build, but it was a fun change of pace. He likes sort of a 'minimalist' look in his room, and I thought this style would go well with that.


Carter’s Bookcase

Carter's collection of books has started to outgrow her existing bookcase, so she asked me to make her another one to handle the overflow. I let her choose all the design details. For the wood, she went with hickory. And for the top, she chose some really cool tiles. They look almost like a sliver mother-of-pearl or abalone, which really echoes the grain of the wood.


Godzilla Woodcut

A friend turned me on to an artist on Etsy called "Woodcut Emporium". He does Japanese-inspired woodcuts of pop culture subjects - they are pretty cool. I ordered the one you see at left - a Japanese coastal scene, but with Godzilla in the bay. I built a custom frame for it too, and tried to stick to the Japanese-inspired style.

Cherry End Table – New Top

As I mentioned in the earlier post about this table, I thought the original tile top was just too plain. I replaced that tile with this hexagonal mosaic tile. I think it looks *much* better - far more interesting.

Cherry End Table

I used some more of scrap cherry leftover from the credenza build, and made this end table for our family room. It's been working out good so far, but I think I'm going to swap out the tile in the top. We've all decided that it is a little plain for that table. I think I might use a sheet of mosaic tile instead, to punch it up a little.

Plane Cabinet

I had a bunch of scrap cherry plywood leftover from the credenza build, and tried to think of some way to use those scraps for something useful. I decided to build a wall cabinet for my hand planes. Cherry is a bit fancy for the workshop, but it sure looks nice!

Screwdriver

Turned this screwdriver on the lathe the other day. It's a lamination of curly maple and cocobolo. It's one of the reversible ones - where both the bit and the shaft are reversible, for a total of 4 different tips.