OK, while not made of wood, how about a canvas apron I sewed for myself for my shop? I have been home recovering from some minor heart by-pass surgery, and I had time to sew this much needed apron for myself on the sewing machine. I used heavy cotton duck material, I hemmed all the edges with a webbing material, and sewed in the large bottom pockets plus the pencil pocket. I used grommets and cowhide to complete the neck band and waist ties. For some of you astute woodworkers who appreciate a good adult beverage on occaision, I am sure you will recognize the material I used for the upper pocket for my eye glasses.

This is a cabinet built for the specific need of creating more galley space on our boat. The dimensions and shelf locations were set to hold specific sized containers. I epoxied the corners with reinforcing blocks with thickened West System Epoxy. To assure that the food will stay put when underway, I added the very small bungee cords stretched across the front of the upper shelves. Attaching the cabinet required special anchors known as threaded rivets, which I purchased along with the tool to set them from McMaster Carr. (Any project that does not require the purchase of a new tool is not worth doing.) These rivets are essentially set like a pop rivet, only when you relase the installation tool, you have a female machine thread, in this case a 10-32 thread. Ten of these fasteners hold the cabinet to a fiberglass bulkhead that is hollow behind it. The finish is simply lemon oil rubbed over the teak cabinet.

I had leftover oak flooring from a remodeling project a few years ago. I planed the flooring to take the grooves off the back, then ripped the tongues and grooves off. I glued 14 of these strips to together to form the base for this knife block for our son. The slots are simply saw kerfs. I capped the sides with 1/4” pine. Our son loved his new knives and knife block for his kitchen counter.

My sister gave our daughter a set of plates for her birthday. The plates were too nice to be hidden in a cupboard so I built a plate rack so they could be seen while in our daughter’s china cabinet. I used maple dowels and the base is pine. Two coats of wipe-on poly completed the project.

Well, my previous project here was the “Jay Tray.” I have been busy in Santa’s Workshop working on a few other projects, but I wanted to post these now that they are both ready. The Andy Tray is made from scrap birch ply and finished with wipe-on poly. The ledge is cut specifically for his tools as shown in the photos. We have been working together on a kitchen remodeling job that had maple cabinets with colonial black hardware. To simulate this effect, I spray painted the heads of the screws that I used on this tote.

Since I built the Jay Tray, Santa came early to my workshop and delivered a surface planer. The Dave Tray is once again done in leftover oak from a house remodeling job 3 years ago. But what separates this tray is I planed the oak down to 5/8”. This made the finished tote significantly lighter than the original Jay Tray. The plugs conceal the counterbored screws and I used teak for the plugs for a contrast with the oak. It is finsihed simply with lemon oil.

Both designs use the golden rectangle of design.

I could not pass-up the opportunity to use the backdrop of the Christmas Tree and the Lionel train in the background.

More projects coming in the next 7 days!

Chesapeake Bob

I made this tool tray for my son-in-law’s birthday. The red oak was leftover from our house remodeling project three years ago. The design was inspired by both Jim Tolpin’s book, The Toolbox Book and a photo of a toolbox from Mate’s book The World’s Best Sailboats. The dimensions use the “Golden Rectangle of Design.” The length is 18” and the width is 11 1/4”. The corners are counterbored screws with teak plugs. The screwdriver ledge is made so that it can removed (notice the brass screws and finishing washers) and customized or replaced in the future. The finish is Minwax Wiping Poly.