This all started last year when the wife wanted some nice salad tongs. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/16360#

Well I don’t care much for salad and I do most of the cooking around the house I decided I wanted some new cooking tools so…. I picked a few old wooden spatulas from my kitchen and tried to figure out what I liked about each and did not like so much. One was too short, one (my old trusty) was a tad thin in the handle and none of them fit the rounded edges of my largest fry pan. I started with the Spatula (1st photo).
I fiddled with the shape of the handle and the angle and taper on the blade till things felt right. But it was still not quite right. One of my old wooden spatulas had a pretty good curve in it from midway down to the blade.
Luckily I remembered reading an article in FWW (issue 205) about hot pipe bending. Viola!, now I had a spatula that felt just right in my hand!
The next steps were the slotted spatula and the rounded one that works great in my big fry pan and also woks. The most recent addition is the Spaghetti server. Made with the same handle shape as the earlier utensils, only slightly thicker wood to allow the maple pins to have a good amount of wood to glue them into.
I have been able to thin out my cutoff stack(s) pretty well, so far I have made them in Maple, Cherry, QSWO, and walnut. The last photo shows an assortment of tools in a box I made up to display them in at craft shows, and I have even sold a few of the boxes!
All the tools & the box are on my Etsy store

I’ve seen simmilar tongs around the net & we needed a new set for home so after one aborted prototype I came up with this design. They worked so well I made a few more sets in Cherry, Maple and Walnut. They are all about 12” long by 2”. For the hinge pin I used a length of heavy gauge bare copper wire & peened the ends, just like the hammered copper hardware on authentic Arts and Crafts or Mission furniture. Like my cutting boards they are finished with food safe mineral oil. I put some up for sale on my Etsy shop (tpursell.etsy.com). Thanks for looking

After seeing all the beautifull cutting boards posted here I started to think of how I could make some boards that would tie in with the Arts and Crafts style furniture I design & build. I also do some stained glass work and live in a Chicago Bungalow built in 1921. What I ended up with were some interpretations of the stained glass often used in the Chicago Bungalows. The first few I made were beautiful, some said “too pretty to cut on”, so I made some that were only “pretty” on one side. flip “em over & cut on the “back” side! The center photo shows the “Bridgeport” , an example of my inlayed boards.

I’ve got to say when I first read about this method of highlighting the grain on Quarter Sawn White Oak I was not too sure I wanted to try it on a piece I had spent so much time on. Kind of hard to undo dye. I did test it out on several pieces of scrap, but still …. once you see what your project looks like after the first step you get that gut tightening feeling what the Heck was I thinking! I dyed these tables with a YELLOW alcohol based analine dye.

I don’t recomend you let ANYONE in the shop to see your cherished project at this stage. It’s way too hard to explain the why & how it will look once you get the stain and varnish on….. especially when your loving wife keeps glancing at the project & is less than sucessfull at hiding the mirth in her eyes.

Here’s what they look like with two coats of Watco Black Walnut oil and three coats of wipe on oil/varnish blend. Whew, The wife no longer thinks I’ve gone off the deep end!

This was a very long drawn out project. I made the posts & rails, cut & fit all 66 sq. spindles, then got waylayed by other projects. For over a year! Once I got back to it I still had not figured out the best way to attach the sideboards to the Head & footboards. I wanted something very strong, but not obvious. My son had been playing with a handfull of “super” magnets one day & left them laying out. HMMMMMM?!? A little experimentation & EUREKA!! The “thru” tenons in the second photo are fake. They hide two 3/8”x12” bolts that connect to blind nuts morticed way back in the side rails. The fake tenon ends have dowels glued into shallow holes to center them in the bolt access holes. I installed T nuts & bolts (for adjustment) with the super magnets epoxied to the heads. That’s the third photo. They do not have to touch the bolt heads, just get close & they snap into place. Looks great & the bed is rock solid. The posts themselves are lock mitered 4” sq. with blocking glued inside at the tenon joints.

I posted on my Sideboard project that I used UHMW tape to create my drawer slides. The second photo shows(kind of, it’s hard to see) how use the slick tape to make my drawersslide in and out smoothly without any sign of hardware. I buy 3”x 10’ lengths of the UHMW and use a straight edge and utility knife to slice it into 3/4” wide pieces as long as needed. Six pieces are used for each drawer, one under each side of the drawer side, one above each drawer side and one one either side. The drawers slide in & out quietly & smoothly no matter how heavy you load the drawer.

This lamp was made to compliment the table lamps I’ve made in the past. It’s 50” tall. The base is 12”sq, and the shade is 20”sq. All faces show QSWO. Another job where the Wixey angle gauge for set up and Sketch Up for layout saved alot of time and wood in order to get all the miters to line up. the second photo shows a grouping with all the lamps having matching shades.

Here are some variations of an Accent Lamp I build. The design started as a display case for Beanie-Babies. The Wife wanted a few made & I decided to add stained glass or Mica & a 25w bulb. The glass panels are slid into slots on the uprights & can be replaced easily to match any decor or season. Due to the heat buidup in an enclosed lamp I use a reflecting foam backed insulator inside the top. But I just found 25w candle base flourescent bulbs that will eliminate that problem.
7-1-09 I’ve added a few more photos and a link to my signature at the bottom of this post to my Etsy store.

I”ve been making this style of lampshade for several years. We won’t go in to how much kindling I made before I was happy with the design & the quality of the assembly. The prototypes were made long before I upgraded my tools to include Sketchup & the Wixey angle gauge. How much easier it would have been with them! I’ve seen other versions of this style of shade but they all seemed too “heavy” for a shade. Despite being made from very thin stock they are amazingly sturdy due mostly to the shape. I do my own glass work & use many different colors & designs as well as Mica sheets.

The Buffet went over so well I decided to make a matching piece. I added the thru tenons on the stretchers, but the rest is very similar comstruction as my buffet. The drawers have no metal runners, I just donot like the look or feel of any I have looked at. My favorite way is to use 3/4” wide strips of stickey backed UHMW above,below & on each side of the drawer box. The drawers are a bit of a challenge to fit just right, but the feel is just what I was looking for. They slide in & out with little or no effort & no sign of hardwear.