Help this YouTube Video go viral (not woodworking related)

Two bowls

I like turning natural edge bowls out of green wood; it is a nice change from flat work since you have a finished product in hours instead of days.  I even sand and apply lacquer an hour or two after I finish turning it.  I don’t see a need to let it dry completely out before finishing (I’m sure I’m breaking someone’s rule, but it works for me).  The bowls distort somewhat after a week or two.

The wood is cherry cut from a local downed tree.  There are plenty of  excuses to use a chainsaw when you are a turner!

Jewelry Box

I decided to satisfy my urge to make a jewelry box by thumbing through a Doug Stowe book and as a result made this one out of sweet gum and walnut.  I used his basic design and dimensions, but I changed the interior and lid and added a false bottom.

I like the look of the sweet gum.  I have had it air drying for over a year now after paying to have milled, and it felt good to finally use it.  It matched the walnut surprisingly well.  I made the sliding tray out of it as well as the lid insert.

Sweet gum is strange wood.  It has interlocked grain and is difficult to hand plane.  As if to make up for that, it does scrape really well.  It machines well with routers with no “fuzz” and little tearout.  It is surprisingly hard, dense and heavy.  The whiter parts of the wood are not creamy white, but rather dirty white.  I do love the streaks in it.

The tray slides back and forth to reveal partitions underneath.

By removing the top from the base, a “secret” compartment is revealed.

Besides giving you access to the false bottom, removing the top from the base also allows you access to rearrange or remove the dividers to suit the items you desire to store underneath the sliding tray.

Backpacking!

My father and I went on a backpacking trip in Dolly Sods, West Virginia.   I highly reccommend this area for backpacking or day hiking.  And yes, this is woodworking related.  We saw lots of trees.

One of the nice features of this area is even in the summer, the temperatures drop at night. Even in July, my feet got cold the first night.  I wore wool socks while sleeping after that.

Any other backpackers out there?  Leave me a comment.

Face shield

I was turning a bowl I had rough turned a month ago when it split.  One half hit my face shield while the other half hit the wall.  If I had only been wearing eye protection instead of a face shield I would have been hit hard in the jaw.

I think I like my $15.00 face shield.

Noelle’s Dresser

I made this dresser for my daughter, Noelle.  The design is Lonnie Bird’s.

Making moldings was a first for me, and quite enjoyable.  Shop made moldings have a crispness that storebought moldings lack.

Noelle likes it.

The obligatory dovetail picture.  I used soft maple for the drawers, and some of it was curly.

The moldings are attached on dovetail keys.  This gives strength and allows for expansion and contraction with the seasons. 

Lots of dovetails in this project.  This dresser is a dovetailer’s fantasy.

The back is shiplapped sweet gum; my first time using gum.  I bought it green and dried it for almost a year.

All the wood for this dresser came from the same tree, so the glueup on the side panels came out great.

MVP award goes to this tenon saw.  My LN dovetail saw was just not long or heavy enough for the big dovetails in thick stock.

Funniest man in woodworking?

The funniest man in woodworking is back!  Check out Jeff Skiver’s blog . . .

Natural Edged Bowl

I purchased a small lathe (Jet 1220) recently, and made my first natural edged bowl.  The wood is spalted oak cut from a downed tree on my co-worker’s property in North Carolina; I helped him cut it up and we shared the wood (he is a turner as well).

I sure I used the wrong tools and techniques as I am very new to turning, but the wood was nice enough that it didn’t matter.  One of these days I will learn the right way to make these.

I love the spalting.

My wife likes the bowl as well; that makes it easier to buy more lathe tools!

Sliding Vise

The pictures speak for themselves . . .

Stickley No. 634 Table Build: Part 6

The table has been finished for a long time now; I apologise for taking so long to post the finished pictures.   I have a slow internet connection (about the only drawback to living in the country that I know of), but mostly I just procrastinated.

Above is the table with no leaf.  It seats up to six people.

With only one 22″ wide leaf added it can seat 10 people!  The racetrack shape is more efficient than a square shape (you can’t seat people at the corners of a square table).  The ability to seat this many people is a real wife pleaser.  The dimensions of the table also give you plenty of room for dishes in the middle.

The pegged through tenon was easier than expected and turned out well.

I love the proportions of the table.

The top was attached with homemade wooden buttons to allow for wood movement (22 in all; I went a little overboard).  I had to tighten up on them after I brought the table into the house; the wood dried slightly and shrank just enough to make the buttons a little too loose.  My workshop is not climate controlled.  Wood in equilibrium in my shop averages 11 percent; in the house it averages 8 percent.

Until I built this table I never knew there was such an animal as curly quarter-sawn white oak.  I don’t know how well it shows in the picture above, but some of the oak had a little curl in it.

The morning  sun brings out the ray flecks.  Beautiful!  My wife catches me admiring the grain sometimes (she thinks I’m weird).  Some people see God through nature; I see His handiwork through beautiful grain.