This is a box I made for work to hold my herbal tea. It is made from black walnut and the finish is 4 coats of polymerized tung oil. All hand tool work with no hardware used. The symbol on the lid is the japanese kanji letter for tea (ocha).

Well I finally completed it.

10 coats of tung oil on the top and 6 on the legs and stretcher.
The assembled weight is approximately 200 lbs.

See the embedded post for construction details.
Please forgive the poor quality photos, the table is too heavy for me to take it outside to get better pictures.

As I continue the process of furnishing my house, I have arrived at the point where I have nearly completed the dining table. This is the first of 2 posts, the second of which will be the finished project.

The top is solid 1.5” thick ribbon-figured book matched mahogany. I edge glued the slabs and as you can see there are breadboard ends with wenge pegs.

The trestle legs are also from solid 4” mahogany with draw-bored double mortise and tenon joints.

All of the work was done by hand except for rough dimensioning of the stock. I had to cut the wenge on the band saw because I had worn out both of my ryoba blades. Total build time is 105hrs. working ~1.5 hrs each week night and 4-6 hrs on the weekend.

I have a very disproportionately beefy right arm from all of the hand sawing on this project ;-).

I will post the finished project in a few weeks.

This is a small carving in basswood of a shell on sand. Finished in the following order: 1 coat of BLO, 1 coat of walnut gelstain, and 3 coats of spray on clear matte emamel.

My wife is a member of a message board which does an ornament exchange each year. The requirement is that the ornament be handmade by the participant or purchased from a local artist.

The recipient is a woman who enjoys collecting seashells, so I hope she also likes having a “seashell” on her Christmas tree.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures I was in a rush to mail it out.

I apologize ahead of time for how long winded this post will be.

A friend of mine went to New Zealand for vacation and brought me back some small blocks of wood of varying species approximately 3”x3”x10”. In gratitude I decided to make him something and at the same time further hone my hand-tool skills. I decided on a miniature version of a traditional Japanese tool-box, with some modifications which I feel will add some strength and longevity to the piece. I chose to use the block of New Zealand Red Pine as it has a very nice grain and is not too hard, so it would not be too difficult to work with hand-tools.

I began by rough cutting 5/16” slabs off of the original block and then rough and finish planing them with a smoothing plane and bench-hook to a 1/4” thickness (this would have been much easier if I owned a thickness planer). I then squared up all of the edges on my shooting board and began dimensioning the pieces and laying out the joinery. As you can see I used double through M&T for attaching the ends to the sides which were cut with Japanese pull saw, and chisels. If the project were not so small I would have wedged the tenons, however it was not necessary for a project of this size. The bottom of the box is composed of three rabbeted panels riding in 1/8” dadoes I cut by auguring out most of the waste and then cleaning up the sides and bottom with chisels.

The 4 pieces on the top are secured with glue and dowels. The dowel are 3/16” and were cut by first making 3”x3/16”x3/16” stock and then clamping my jack plane in the vice upside down and shaping the pieces until they were as close to round as i could get them. I feel that this is the weakest part of the entire design. If any one has any suggestions on a better way I could attach them in the future please let me know. Keep in mind that all of the peices must be flush with the top of the sides of the box otherwise the lid would not be able to self-wedge and slide closed properly.

The finished dimensions are 8-1/2”x2-5/16”x2-1/4”, and the finish is 3 coats of hand-rubbed tung oil.

The best aspect of this box design is the self wedging action of the lid which keeps it tightly closed without the aid of any hardware. When I began this project I did not know this and had started to install some rare-earth magnets, until I found out that they were not necessary.

Tools used on the this project are:
Band saw (Initial rough cutting of slabs only)
Japanese pull saw
Jack plane
Shoulder plane
Smoothing plane
Mortising and paring chisels
Hand auger
Card scraper
Try square
Marking knife
Mortising gauge

Thanks for baring with with me during this long post.

I made this for my dining room table. It is ~14”x4”x2”. The top is wormy maple, and the “legs” are jatoba (brazilian cherry). All hand work with the exception of boring the holes for the candles. Finish is 5 coats of tung oil.

Thanks for looking!

This is a name plate I made for my wifes desk at work. It is carved with handtools from one solid piece of 6.75” x 4.75”x 7/8” basswood. The finish is one coat of 50/50 BLO and mineral spirits, and one coat of matte enamel. It remains upright via a 1/4 plywood leg attached to the back with a hinge.

This is my second piece of furniture. This time my challenge was to make through mortises, and I think I succeeded as all of the joints came out fairly tight except for one of the joints on the top.

I used handtools exclusively in the construction of this piece, and I have decided that next time I will at least allow my self the use of at least the band saw.

There is very little skill involved in the rough cutting and I am simply tiring myself and delaying the completion of the project.

The materials for this project are: Rift and flat sawn Spanish Cedar for the legs and top, quarter sawn White Oak for the stretcher, and wedges are Wenge.

The finish is 5 coats of Tung Oil, and 2 coats of a mix of BLO and Sparthane.

I just finished building my house and need lots of new furniture. This is the first of many. This is also my first endeavor to work without the use of power tools or mechanical fasteners. The top and knob are composed of canarywood and rosewood, the apron is canarywood, and the legs and drawer-carcase are pine. The finish is Linseed oil, and paste wax. The leg to apron joinery is haunched drawbore mortise and tenon, and the drawer is hand-cut dove-tail joinery. I don’t know what style you would address to it if any.