Two Bit Woodworker

It took awhile put the finishing is done on the red oak nesting tables. I book matched the tops, and the grain flows from tallest to shortest. The aprons are continuous grain and also match up from table to table. You notice none of this due to the legs and different heights/lengths, oh well. :P

I've had this quarter-sawn red oak from Farnsworth Lumber since spring and I've finally gotten around to using it in these tables. The tops are book-matched and continuous, and the aprons will be continuous as well.

I finished this shelf back in June with the leftovers from the board that I used for the BiL's valet . I've been trying to put finish on it since then but have been messing up the order and the mix of things. It's finally done now though, after numerous sandings.

Another couple of pine trays, this time from a left over floor board from my parent's house. They're the same design as the weathered pine tray , just a little thinner and cleaner. I didn't end up rounding the corners of the their bases this time.

I've had these Douglas fir 4x4's sitting for half the year. I milled them up this past week and framed out the base for a mobile work/outfeed/assembly table that I can use at Technocopia . The plan is to fill it with four cabinets (two with drawers, one with trays and one for a dust cyclone) so I can bring everything into the workshop with me.

More of a shop project (technically a basement project) but it's wood so I decided to post it up anyway. I've been looking for a bin organizer for awhile but I haven't been able to find one (even used) that was at a price I was willing to pay. I stumbled across these steel panels for the bins that were pretty cheap though, and thought I could build a stand for them with the pine 2x4s that have been sitting in my basement since we moved. This is the result. The back is held together with half-laps, with the crosspieces positioned so had enough wood to drill in to on each panel. I left the vertical pieces long at the bottom to act as tenons and to give me a place to put addition levelers. Pine Bin Organizer Back The base it constructed with some big ol' box joints, as well as half-lapped stabilizers and through tenon middle supports for the back. Pine Bin Organizer Base I made these on the table saw using a big box joint jig. F

His birthday has come and gone so it's safe to say that this was a birthday present for my BiL now. After sanding it up I finished it with my usual method: boiled linseed oil, danish oil, wipe-on polyurethane.

A friend asked me to flatten some wide pine boards that were from a basement door of her childhood home. The plan was to take the cup out of them and clean them up so they could be made into signs for her wedding. I ended up with one extra that she said to keep, but I ended up making this and giving it back to her. Weathered Pine Tray I got the idea from the New Yankee Workshop's serving trays episode, finding a compound angle calculator online to tell me how to set up the table saw and miter gauge. Once it was glued up, I put some cherry splines in to reinforce the miters. Weathered Pine Tray The hole in the side is from a doorknob, I assume. I tried to leave the rest of the flaws alone and put some of the aging back into it after the milling cleaned it up too much. I used an iron buff solution (steel wool pad and apple cider vinegar) and after one coat it darkened up like crazy. After that I just hit it with a few coats of danish oil and

I had some spalted maple left over from the valet so I used it to make a small stand similar to the plant stands . The spalted wood got used on the shelves themselves and the rest is maple scraps from other projects.

I found this 5/4 8" board at Farnsworth Lumber a couple months back. They threw it in the solar kiln for me and got it pretty dry so I started using it to make this valet last week. It's a continuous grain box with a drawer below (still working on that). The top is separated so there's a place for a phone. Spalted Maple Valet I was pretty happy with it when I was dry fitting it, but after glue up some slight gaps in the dovetails appeared and it went out of square by about 1/32". Not a huge deal but just annoying. Any sage advice for preventing these sort of problems? The dovetails were super tight before glue. Spalted Maple Valet Spalted Maple Valet

I put the finish on these last weekend, and they're now sat in the living room awaiting the Great Spring 2019 Plant Rearrangement. The idea for these came from Jay Bates' Angled Half Lap Three Tier Shelf . The biggest change I made was reversing the side that the half-laps were on. This allowed me to rest the shelves on them, as I was worried that the amount of weight from the plants would be hard to support with just screws. Black Locust Plant Stands Another change was adding crosspieces, I was originally going to use wedged, through tenons here but liked this chamfered version enough to keep it. Self Through Tenons These are just over four feet tall and 28 inches wide. The shelves are spaced every 15 inches, start at 14 inches deep at the bottom and narrow to eight inches deep at the top. They are secured to the half lap side pieces via tabletop fasteners and stainless steel screws. Black locust is very resistant to decay so they shou

I wanted to post more about these plant stands as they got built but that didn't seem to happen, better late than never though! They've both been sanded and glued up now, and I spent last night cleaning up the squeeze out, puttying gaps and cutting the shelves to fit on the first one. The second still needs all that and I hope to get them both home to finish this weekend. Black Locust Plant Stand I original plan was to wedge the stretcher tenons, but after cutting a chamfer on them I decided I liked it better. There's seven of these on each side, and they match the front angle all the way down. Stretcher Through Tenons The shelves themselves sit on 3/8" of the side pieces, I'm going to secure them in place with some tabletop fasteners and mortises that I put on the insides of each of the side pieces. Slatted Shelves

I put the last coat of finish on these late last week, got the tops attached and installed the knobs over the weekend. All done!

Last month saw me clean up and sand the cherry end tables, and then begin the finishing. That finished up yesterday and I hope to take some pictures of them once I get the tops attached and the drawer knobs installed. Once those moved out of Technocopia I picked up the plant stand project again. I started these last year but they got put on the back-burner for Christmas projects. The plan is to make two, four-shelf plant stands. They'll be indoor/outdoor, and the shelves will be slatted for easy outdoor watering. I'm using Black Locust for them as my BiL was able to secure a big pile of it for cheap, plus it's super rot resistant. 3/8 Shelves My initial plan was to use a router bit to cut the slat reliefs and then glue everything together. Black Locust is also super dense and after trying it on one slat I decided I needed a different approach. So I cut 4 strips down, cut some 1/4" spacers and then tried glueing them together. That seemed a lot

I notched the legs, and then decided they needed a taper so went back and did that as well. I'm going to have to do a bit of sawdust clean up as there are some gaps here and there, but not bad for my first attempt at this.

Last week I dimensioned the aprons and shelves, and cut the tenons on everything. After a bit of fine tuning with a rabbet plane everything is nice and snug. Dry-fitted Tables The plan is to notch the legs to accept these shelves. Given that the shelf wood was flat sawn I went with the slats to account for the wood movement, I didn't want it messing with the legs. Slatted Shelves

I started on some cherry end tables late last year and want to try to keep a build log of them and future projects. These are the legs all milled up and mortised for the aprons and drawer kickers. They're 5/4" square and will sit the tabletop at 25" high.