Xmas Present for my Mom.

Like most that are getting into building again after some time away (close to 20years away lol). I have started off small with what I think I can do. Well it is getting close to xmas and since like most folks out there money is tight. I have made gifts for my family (I have already posted the finish gifts in my gallery). Right now I am making a gift for my mom and one to take to work for the gift exchange.

My mom likes dolphins and I recently watched Steve Ramsey show me how to cut finger joints.
http://www.youtube.com/user/stevinmarin

Unfortunately when I used my hand made jig my joints moved 1/32 so by the time I cut them all they were off. 1/32 and obviously that carried so by the end the joints were starting to line up with each other lol :-). Well to save my sanity until I can figure out how to fix the jig. I decided to cut them by hand. This of course took me a little while but hey 1. It is for my mom and 2. I hate for something to get the best of me.

So after spending a lot of time I finally got them done. Unfortunately since the final ones were still a little off the box did not sit flat. I watched the wood whisper and learned (again) how a small plane can flatten it back out.

http://www.youtube.com/thewoodwhisperer

Also, I am finally learning on how to inlay.

Now I said I was learning so they are not perfect. Again, I went back to wood whisperer to learn how to take care of those little gaps (it is my lie I will type it they way I want :-)). Placing a little amount of glue in the gaps and then sanding I was able to fill them in.

And yeap, I learned what happened when you apply 60 grit paper to a piece of stained wood. Luckily I still have some left and well it needed to be touched up. LOL :-).

I have it now resting in my TV room waiting on the stain to cure and hope to start to to apply a clear coat and a good couple coats of wax.

Well it was time to build the small shelf to rest on those small pieces inside. The base apparently warped a little.
I made the decision to just stack some heavy things on top of it to see if it would help flatten it. I then used the old theory if one clamp is good five must be better.

It is kinda flat… right? I guess I need to use thicker pieces or learn how to flatten aspen. Oh I noticed I glued the sides the wrong way. I planned on laying them down width wise but alas I did not. When I was testing the fit of the top with the small tray is when my wife noticed. lol

Well, mmm… I guess I have a tiny problem…. ? I guess a trip to the table saw is in order.

Fast forward about five minuetes….. I was measuring the amount needed to remove and just temp mark it with my pencil then turned to grab my scribe….. I hear plink plink plink….. The piece fell from my table saw… and the Two sides fell off. And here I learned my glue up was not very good. lol Well back to clamps….

I decided on leaving the burn marks on the wood because I left it on the outside. Eh….

So with that I guess I call this one done. I have to write I learned a lot and wished the purple heart came out better. I have read it will come out more in time.

And the corner inlays bleed for some reason.

Any hoots, I look forward to the next one and wonder what I will learn from that project.

Thanks to all willing to spend their precious time reading my blog. Also, I like to write thanks to everyone graciously sharing their experiences in their blogs (Like Big Al) so I can improve my projects.

Cheers.

-- BD, where bad wood finds a home. Va