I wish I had made this plywood cutting table a long time ago. It makes quick work of breaking down a piece of plywood into more manageable sizes, especially if using a track saw. Perhaps the best feature of the table is that it is portable, allowing it to be assembled in an area with […]
Projects
The requirements for this wishing well were rather simple: it had to be relatively compact but large enough to cover an unsightly well pipe, but also inexpensive and easy to make. Of course, I also wanted it to look half-decent. I think I succeeded on all counts. The well was built over the course of a […]
Simple Wishing Well
I recently decided to try my at intarsia and I quickly realized that it involves lots of sanding. Much of this sanding involves rounding the edges of pieces in order to create a 3D effect and perhaps the best way to perform this task is with either a flex or pneumatic sanding drum. The softness of […]
Intarsia Flex Drum Sanding Station
My big project over the latter part of winter was this outdoor bench made from reclaimed redwood. The lumber for the bench came from an older, weather-beaten bench that had been exposed to the elements for 20+ years. When I realized the bench was made from relatively expensive and rare redwood (possibly old-growth), I decided it […]
Reclaimed Redwood Bench
6 When I built this cedar bird house last year, I was hopeful that it would attract blue birds or some other colorful song birds. So I was somewhat excited to see a “bird” sticking his head out of the house as I was doing some yard work recently. But as I got closer to the house I realized the bird was […]
Frogs in the Bird House
2 What to make when you have left over wood from an Adirondack side table project that was made from left overs from an Adirondack chair project? How about bird houses? In fact, I had enough left over cedar and cypress to make three bird houses. So that’s what I did. The houses were sized to […]
Bluebird Houses
After building some Adirondack chairs, I decided that an accompanying side table would be an ideal mini-project for using up the left over cedar lumber. So, I looked around a bit to get some ideas and settled on a fairly simple design that is similar to one that Norm Abram used but with longer legs. […]
Adirondack Side Table
1 What could be better on a hot summer day than a cold drink, a good book, and a quiet, shady spot to read? How about a comfortable Adirondack chair? Exactly. After mulling it over for a number of years, I finally got around to building some Adirondack chairs this past Fall. Yes, a bit late […]
Adirondack Chairs
This isn’t exactly a woodworking project although it did require a bit of cabinet re-purposing. If you’re looking to glean some woodworking wisdom, you may want to move on. But if you’re dealing with a clothes dryer that doesn’t dry very well, you may find this information helpful. We noticed that over time, it was […]
Dryer Booster Fan
Most of the furniture from my early woodworking ventures had a red oak theme to it and this entertainment center was no exception. It was made in the late 1980’s and is fairly representative of entertainment centers of that time: an opening to house a nice sized TV (32″ was large back then), a series […]
Oak Entertainment Center
When I made this bookcase some years back, I built it to fit a specific area of an office wall. However, if I were to do it again, I would have made two narrower bookcases rather than one wide unit. At the time, my thinking was that a single wide unit would be the most […]
Over-sized Oak Bookcase
From the back of the rack… I made this dog house for our family beagle Chip (aka, Chipper) way back in the 70’s. It was one of my earliest woodworking projects. At the time this photo was taken, the dog house had seen several years of service – it was starting to fray a bit at the […]
Chip’s Dog House
1 Here is a floor lamp that I built in the early 1990’s. I was in a lamp building frenzy back in those days and this one was perhaps my crowning achievement. It features a tapered pole made from laminated solid red oak and walnut and tapered red oak legs that attach to the base of the […]
Oak Walnut Floor Lamp
2 Some years back, the family was growing and we were running low on coat/jacket hanging options. I decided it was high time to make a coat rack. Or two. I realized we needed something that was functional, able to hold roughly 10 items at a time, but not too utilitarian. Something that could be proudly displayed […]
Coat Rack
Having made several full-size mallets for general purpose shop use, I decided to make some mini-mallets. My initial thinking was that they could be used as tree ornaments, and that’s exactly what I did with a couple mallets in our home. I also discovered they work well as crab mallets, office desk knick-knacks, gavels for calling […]
Mini Mallets
After completing my first carved owl masterpiece, I decided to give it another shot. This time I opted for another owl but larger and more intricate than the first. Here’s what I ended up with: The basic design for the owl came from an image I found online. I converted the image to a black and white […]
Carved Owl Version 2
When confronted with dilapidated shed doors, one can opt to either repair or replace. In the case of the doors shown below, I opted for replacement. These doors were probably 20 to 30 years old and in dire need of TLC. They were made from T1-11 plywood and painted a garish, ugly primer red that contrasted […]
New Shed Doors
To help pass those slow winter months after the holiday season, I decided to make some wine totes (aka caddies) using some cherry lumber stored for many years in the family barn in PA. The wood was well seasoned and appeared to be in good condition. However, after surface planing, instead of finding nice clear material, I […]