Well folks I’ll have to admit at being kind of clumsy at times. I dropped my Stanley #80 cabinet scraper on the floor and broke it. I used it a lot.

So it was an opportune time to try making a scraper, like I had considered doing before. I tried making one printed in a Fine Woodworking planes and scraper book.

The first one was a flop. It chattered and didn’t do so well. It had the blade at an 85 degree angle. I tried resharpening the blade and such but it didn’t work so well, so I tried another scraper in the same book.

After completion I tried it and it worked very well. It has a 65 degree blade angle. Since it worked so well I decided to put on a long wearing sole. I had some brass sheet that I put on it with modified brass nails. You can see where I was overzealous in driving the brads in but it’s OK. I believe I’ll put in a screw in the back to arch the blade some for more aggressive cuts.

A reason I like it so well is that the sole is large and it really helps in keeping the scraped area flat. Sure does work well

Now that I consider the time and materials I think I have maybe $80.00 invested in it and I can buy a new #80 for about $55.00 or close so maybe it wasn’t worth it. Nah! It was worth it!!!

Next will be a special scraper for cleaning up a cove I use a lot on Grandfather clock mouldings and for a crown moulding I use often.

Charles Mullins

This is an occasional table made for a friend from cherry cut from her grandfathers farm about 50 years ago.

It has tapered legs and a tapered edge on the top.

It has no stain at all. It is the natural color of the cherry. It was finished with three coats of lacquer sanding sealer and two coats of Sherwin Williams Dull Rubbed Effect lacquer finish. After the sanding sealer was good and dry, I wet sanded it with 180 grit then sprayed on the finish.

The drawer has poplar sides and a birch plywood bottom.

Turned out nice and made the lady very happy. That’s what I wanted.

Notice the radiance of the cherry on pictures number 1 and three. I love it!

Well Folks, my computer has been seriously sick so I have not been able to show some other project completions. (Ignore the date, the camera has the wrong date in it)

This was a cherry cabinet made of some plywood, the sides and interior parts, the back and the counter top at the rear were plywood. Everything else is solid cherry, the table top, legs, door and drawer front, and all trim.

I milled all the trim in my shop.

The cabinet has some lights in the top, a file drawer, and storage areas behind the doors. The computer is behind a door near the end of the table. The keyboard is installed on the drawer under the table.

The monitor and printer go on top and not installed here.

It was a fairly big project. It is made in four sections in order to be able to move it. It was very heavy anyway. Whew!

This is an oak bookcase and storage cabinet as a wedding gift for my neighbor’s son.

It is three cases designed to bolt togeather for ease of moving.

The cabinet color is not that bad but the yellow background sure makes it look bad IMHO. It is Early American with a shot of Red Oak to add more red tint, then a coat of burnt umber glaze followed with three thin coats of satin poly. A light application of 0000 steel wool and waxed.

The doors have a cockbead applied to them. It helps to hide rough door edges and looks good—Hee Hee Hee!

These are maple cabinets with granite counter tops.

I used prefinished plywood for the interiors with raised panel ends and doors.

It was stained with a custom red/brown mixture, sealed with two coats of sanding sealer, sanded between each coat, and sprayed two coats with semi-gloss lacquer, sanded between each coat. The cabinets were sanded six times from start to finish. It makes a real slick finish.

This was a desk built for the welcome center at my church.

It’s built of red oak and has removable panels on the outside so that if one is damaged by a kid or whatever it can be easily replaced.

It is stained with a light coat of amber shellac and then finished with two coats of sanding sealer and two coats of lacquer.

There is a 2 foot wide lower desk counter and a 16 inch upper counter around the outside. There are four doors on the inside to cover storage space and a kneehole in the center fora secretary.

This project was for a client that wanted something of the “Ahh-Wow” category. This was the best I could come up with.
She wanted it to hide the ‘resident of the throne’ if someone came in unexpectedly and to have lots of storage.

The lower section has two regular drawers, two doors and two slide out sections on the ends with three shelves in each.

It’s made of straight grain maple with curly maple panels in the doors and end panels. I put on an ebonized strip at the top of the “Towers” and another at the bottom above the four bunn feet. The ‘Towers’ have two adjustable shelves in each and a glass glazed door at the top for display of artsy objects. It has a hand relief carved panel in the center in front of the sink.

None of the normal stains appealed to her but one was really exciting to her. So I used STRONG COFFEE as the stain. It was finished it with a glaze of burnt umber and several coats of wipe on poly.

She elected to use granite for the tops making it really elegant.

The pictures don’t do it justice since my camera can’t get a wide enough angle to get all of it.

This was the first effort at building grandfather clocks. My wife and I decided to build the clocks for our kids for Christmas a few years ago. Man, were the kids ever tickeled. I even got a hug from the son-in-laws.

Any way, I loved the project and I guess I’m hooked.

They are made of cherry from an article written by Lonnie Bird in Fine Woodworking magazine.

Here’s a cabinet I made for an older lady that had to move her buffet to change her A/C filter. She wanted more surface area and storage. As a result it has castors hidden behind the bracket feet so it can be easily moved.

It’s made of red oak and has poplar as a secondary wood inside for the drawer sides.

It was finished with Minwax Early American stain with some red oak stain added for more of a reddish cast followed with a glaze of burnt umber. It is sealed with semigloss poly and then hand rubbed with 000 steel wool for the gloss desired.