Hammer and Saw

Firewood Box

2010-01-15T21:38:00.000-08:00

I made this firewood box out of leftover wood from other projects. It sits on the hearth and keeps all the wood chips and dirt contained:

The construction was very simple: I made the base box out of beadboard plywood, glued and stapled along the edges. I added the rails, stiles and top flange to the box, using glue and nails. Finally, I added support strips to all the inside corners, gluing and screwing them through the plywood to the outside pieces.

I think the box works well with the asymmetric fireplace, holding enough wood to last an evening.

Ski Waxing and Tuning Bench

2010-01-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

I built this simple bench for waxing and working on skis this past weekend. It's made from about six board feet of 3/4" white oak.

The black pads are rubber drawer liner material that grip the skis and help keep them in place. They are glued down with contact cement.

The bungee cords are tarp tie-downs, which hold the skis by the bindings.

The screws on the inside of the rail hold down the brakes - two are needed for the different lengths of skis.

The feet are big enough to be clamped down to my workbench or a table.

This photo of the underside shows the construction:. The oak pieces are held together with glue and screws:

Here are my 170 cm skis on the bench:

The bungee cords go over the toe-holds of the bindings:

This picture shows the ski-break hold-down:

Here is another picture of the ski on the bench. I applied p-tex and scraped it, waxed and scraped, and filed the edges without the ski moving at all.

For edge filing, the black pads and a couple of clamps hold the ski in place:

Here is my youngest son's 130 cm ski on the bench:

So far, I am happy with the performance of the bench. The black rubber pad really makes a difference - the ski won't move at all when it's in contact with the pad. When not in use, the bench hangs up on the wall along with the skis.

Construction Details:

It took about 4 hours to build this bench, using a table saw, jointer, drill and sander.
White oak was a good choice, as it's really strong. You could also use ash, maple, alder, etc. If I used softwood, I would make the side rails thicker to make sure they didn't break over time.
I paid $15 for the bungee cords, rubber pad and contact cement. I already had the wood, which would have cost about $20 - less for softwood.

Here are the dimensions I used. I made the binding hole wide enough to accommodate wider skis later on.

Rustic Table 4 - Finished Table and Benches

2010-01-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

The sealer on the table and benches had the chance to fully dry, so I mounted the drawers and brought the pieces inside the house.

The drawers need some sort of material (felt?) in the bottom of them to help hold the game pieces in place.

I haven't started the chairs yet. I had a few other small projects I needed to complete, and I want to get those out of the way before I get going on them.

Rustic Table 3 - Benches

2009-12-29T19:58:00.000-08:00

Today I built and stained the two benches that will be on the long sides of the table, and seat two people. They are a very simple design and mirror the other bench I made a week ago. I ran out of stain before I could do the legs of the table - maybe I'll get to it tomorrow...

I also grouted and sealed the chess board stone. The joints were very tight, so the grout is almost invisible:

I decided to build two matching chairs for the ends of the table. I am going to use a design similar to this picture:

This should be good challenge, as I have not built any chairs before.

Rustic Table 2 - Drawers and Chess Board

2009-12-28T18:22:00.001-08:00

The next two photos show how the drawers are mounted, plus the center support spine for the table.

With a top that is 2" thick, I doubt the support spine is really required. My argument for doing it is simple: It really doesn't take much extra time or material, and it ensures the table is stout.

My original plan was to cut out the wood for each slate square to make the chess board. I used a Forster bit to take out most of the wood, then chiseled out the corners. After cutting three of these holes, I realized I had the light and dark squares backwards for an official chess board - not smart...

Half of the challenge of woodworking is to figure out how to recover from mistakes. In this case, it was not too traumatic - I routed out the entire are for the board and "decided" to add light stone along with the darker slate.

Sometimes, mistakes turn out really good. After putting the lighter stone (travertine) with the slate, I am glad it ended up this way...

The top has been stained and sanded. Once the tile adhesive is set, I will apply a very thin amount of tan colored grout to fill the small cracks and gaps.

Rustic Table 1 - Top and Legs

2009-12-25T22:21:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all...

After making the rustic bench, I decided to make a matching game table for our basement. I made our current one from our old dining room table, but it doesn't really match our other furniture, and is starting to get worn out...

I built the top out of 2" thick planks of the blue-stained fir I have. I sized these on my jointer, and slightly rounded the edges, so it didn't look like a single laminated piece. I used wood biscuits to align the top.

Here is the top cut to final size at 35" x 48". I ran my hand planer and belt sander over it to get it fairly smooth, then orbital-sanded the whole thing with 60 grit. I am going to stain it with th 60 grit sanding to give it a course texture. I will sand with 120, then 220 between coats of sealer.

I left some areas slightly rough, as I did on the bench, in keeping with the rustic look. I sanded these to keep the marks but not the roughness...

The legs are make from 2" boards laminated together then planed off.

I mounted the legs to the end aprons with dowels and pocket screws, then mounted those assemblies to the table top.

The side aprons will have drawers in them to hold chess pieces and small games. I should get these done tomorrow and have everything stained.

Rustic Bench

2009-12-19T13:38:00.001-08:00

This project is a rustic bench to sit underneath the screen in our theater room and hold the center speakers. I built a smaller bench, but the mass and scale are too small, and it doesn't look good next to the screen frame. We are now using the bench for an end table, and it works great there.

About five years ago, a friend of mine gave me about 500 board feet of rough miller fir. He had no use for it, and it has been sitting in my garage since then. Here one of the thicker boards...

I cut a 4' piece off the end, and planed it down with a my hand-held power planer. I removed most of the rough-saw marks, but not all of them. The wood was clean, but still rustic:

I used a skill saw cut lines in bench top as mortises for the legs., then removed the material with a hammer and chisel. I like using a brick hammer for this - I sharpened the back end, so it works like a chisel as well.

Here are the legs - same process as for the top:

Assembly was simple: poly glue the legs in the mortises, and hold them with a couple of blind 3" screws until they dried.

I stained the bench with a medium pine stain to match the other built-in furniture in the room.

Once dry, I will apply a couple of coats of acrylic sealer.

My goal was to have this bench look like it came out of a lodge somewhere, and overall I am happy with the results. This ended up bring about a three hour project (before sealing).

Zen Deck

2009-09-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

I made this small deck with a yin-yang pattern for my martials arts teacher some years ago. It's a nice little project that fits well into a zen garden.

The joists are pressure-treated 2x4. I screwed these to the center three deck boards to get everything even and square.

Next, I screwed the rest of the deck-boards on. These are made of cedar.

I cut the circle out with a saber-saw and router the edges round. It's 4' in diameter.

I masked the deck with tape and stained the pattern with dark walnut stain.

Once the stain dried (two coats), I sealed the wood with a couple of coats of CWF.

Chess Table with a Custom Tile Top

2009-09-19T07:12:00.000-07:00

I built this chess table a few years ago for a school auction. My DW worked with a grade school class to do the tiles for the chess board, and I built the table and set the tiles.

I built the table in a basic arts-and-crafts style using cherry. The red color made a good compliment to the green tiles.

Here is a picture showing more of the construction. I used basic mortise and tenon joinery...

Design Details: Pottery Barn Online

2009-09-14T12:28:00.001-07:00

If building furniture has been your hobby for a while, you probably have taken a tape measure into a store to get dimensions for a project. I think the stores want their customers to check if things will fit in their homes, but they don't expect to see someone making sketches and writing down all the detailed measurements. Also, they aren't always excited when I say I don't want to buy anything, but I am using their piece for my own design (though I have gotten a few positive responses).

I found that Pottery Barn, does most of the work for me. For just about any piece of furniture they sell, they provide a detailed list of the dimensions. I used the piece below to design a media cabinet for the family room. Link to this example.

Some of the specifications are so detailed, the only thing you're missing is the drawing itself. This is a great resource if you like to do your own designs. Here is the media (video game) cabinet I am planning on making for the kids:

Twin Bed Frame #4 - Painting

2009-09-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

My DW painted the bed this morning. Here is the headboard...

This is painted with two coats of black furniture paint from Sherwin-Williams. Under this, I sanded, applied a coat of primer, then sanded again.

Here is the night stand I made out of the left-over wood. A simple drawer goes into the top slot.

The material cost was $95, plus the cost of paint and primer, which was about $10.

I looked on line for a bed of similar design and quality, and found one by Pottery Barn, for $700. I also found a couple of other ones from discount dealers for between $300 and $400.

Twin Bed Frame #3 - Side Rails and Platform

2009-09-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

The side rails consist of 1x6 pine with a 2x4 glued and screwed on the inside for support. The fastener hardware gets screwed to the 2x4. I added small support piece for next to the 2x4 for the 3rd screw on the hardware.

Here is the bed frame assembled.

The bed-deck is made from 1/2" CDX plywood with support slats, cut from 2x4.

The deck fits into the frame with about 1/4" space to allow it to go in (and come out) easily.

Now we need to prep for painting, prime and paint. I decided to build a night stand with some of the left-over materials (next post).

Minimalist Sawhorses

2009-09-07T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have used these very simplistic sawhorses for a couple of years. These are simply two pieces of 2x4 put together in a "T". These are about 42" long.

I mainly use them for cutting plywood. They keep the wood off the ground enough to easily use a skillsaw. They are also good for holding large pieces (cabinets) off the ground for sanding.

You could also use a couple of 4x4's for this, but I find these easier to handle.

Twin Bed Frame #2 - Headboard and Footboard

2009-09-07T06:37:00.001-07:00

This post covers building the headboard and footboard, which are most of the work in this projects.

I started off by making the the posts out of 2x4's. After cutting the pieces to rough length, I jointed then to get them flat for glue-up. After the glue dried, I cut them to rough 3" x 3" on the table saw, than jointed them smooth.

Here is the first assembly step for the footboard. The cross-piece is 1x6 pine, fitted into 1" deep mortises. I used wood glue and a couple of corner-joint screws.

Here is a close-up of the bed rail hardware. I routed in a slot to hold the hardware on the right, plus a deeper slot to receive the connectors.

To start the headboard, I glued a piece of 3/4" plywood into the mortises, same as the footboard piece. Note that I sand each piece with 120 grit before assembling. This is way easier than sanding afterwards. I will do a final sanding before painting, but that's a minor effort.

The assembly after this is simple - cut and fit the pine pieces, then glue and nail them to the plywood. One the things I always do is "manage your revels". The cross piece sits below the post (called the reveal), and the uprights are thinner than the cross pieces. Rather than trying to get the joints exact, its better in many cases to keep them offset.

Here is the headboard once assembled. I decided to use less upright pieces than my design in the last post. After laying the pieces out, this had better proportions. Both sides of the headboard are done the same way.

The completed headboard and footboards are now read to have the nail holes patched and get the final sanding.

This took about 4 hours of work to complete.

Twin Bed Frame #1

2009-09-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

My son and I are going to build a new twin bead frame for him. The diagram shows the style and main dimensions

We are planning on painting this, so the lumber going to be very inexpensive: All the pieces shown in brown will be made from either kiln-dried 2x4 fir or 1x6 pine. The blue panel will be from paint-grade plywood.

The bed rails will be connected to the head and foot boards using bed rail fasteners from Rockler. I have used these in the past, and they work very well.

Here are the estimated costs

6 2x4's for posts and rails - $10

8 1x6 pine boards for headboard / footboard; rails - $50

1/2 sheet of 3/4" ACX fir plywood for headboard - $12

1 sheet of 1/2" CDX fir plywood for mattress platform - $10

4 rail fasteners (one package) - $11

Total - about $95

Oak and Slate Bookshelves

2009-09-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

I build two set of oak and slate bookshelves in an arts and crafts style. This is made from inexpensive materials: ¼” and ¾” plywood from Shurway Building Supply (seconds dealer), slate from Home Depot, and oak frames from Rockler clearance pile.

These obviously go well in a room decorated in warm earth-tone colors.

I used Minwax Polyshades for the stain color, which I will never use again. I did not like the way it went on the wood at all, giving an uneven finish. I ended up sanding out as much as I could and re-staining, but I was still not fully satisfied with the results. On all other projects, I just use Minwax stain, then Polycyclic sealer, which gives very good results.

If I make another set of these, I will likely do something more intricate with the slate tile.

Leaded Glass Mirror

2009-09-04T14:01:00.001-07:00

Some of my initial post on this blog will be about projects I have done in the past. Here is a mirror and frame I built a few years ago. This was a fairly simple project that took a couple of afternoons to complete.

The frame is made from 2” x ¼” strips of mahogany, layered on top of each other. The mirror is a single piece of glass mounted to the frame with polyurethane glue. The lead on the glass is stick-on, that I bought from Rockler, which is easy to apply.

My next blog

2009-08-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

I am starting this blog to focus on my furniture and woodworking projects, that don't necessarily have anything to do with remodeling or house building. I plan on going through the projects on a detailed level, from design to completion.

My focus is on creating good, useful content that can be helpful to others out there working on (or thinking about) their own projects. In all my projects, I try to do high quality work, keep the costs down, and use tools that the average person with a shop would have.

As with my other blogs, I am not interested in blogging about other blogs or posting for the sake of advertising. When I refer to other sites or products, it's because I found them personally useful.

My other blogs:

10K Kitchen Remodel

Greengate Ranch Remodel