I had promised my wife to make her a potting bench for Mother’s Day, but needed to finish the crib for my daughter first. Last week I managed to purchase some cedar on Monday after work and working evenings, finished the bench on Saturday morning. She is pleased with it and has already put it to use. I got to use my newly refurbished radial arm saw. I used it to cut all dadoes and naturally all length cuts. No finish yet as some of the cedar was still a bit green. After air drying on our covered porch for a while, I will likely seal the cedar to make the bench last a bit longer.

I just finished a cherry crib for my eldest daughter. As the pictures indicate, I didn’t have too much extra time. The crib used Rockler’s three in one transitional plan which allows the crib to convert to a day bed and then provides plans for the side rails and footboard for a full sized bed. The crib and day bed are finished, I have some extra time for the full sized bed to be completed.

The spindles were the really time consuming part of the project. Now to get started on the matching dressing table.

I opened my mouth and offered to make something again for a fund raising auction. Running short on time, I looked through my scrap pile and found some surprisingly nice wood. The sides, top, and drawer fronts are figured and spalted maple. The sides are re-sawn and book matched, as are the top and bottom. The drawer faces are a continuous piece and the necklace hangar fronts are also book matched. The case dividers, drawer sides and back, and necklace racks are made of cherry. The finish is several coats of wipe on poly and a final coat of paste wax. Hopefully, it will raise at least a little money at the church auction.

I recently completed an oak with walnut trim steamer trunk. This trunk will be donated and sold at a local YMCA fund raising auction. Hopefully, someone will see the value and offer a decent price. The finish is four coats of Formby’s low gloss tung oil, smoothed with 0000 steel wool between each coat. The last coat was topped with paste wax and buffed out.

I liked the concept of replacing the side table of my table saw with a work bench, like Powermatic has offered with their PM 2000 saw. I used 1 1/2” thick butcher block maple trimmed with a border of Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry). The vice faces, handles, and bench dogs are also Jatoba. The blind dovetails were my first attempt at hand-sawn dovetails. I chose a tough way to start. The Jatoba edging is 1 3/4” wide, which made for very deep dovetails. Jatoba is used for flooring for a reason; it is very tough and hard.

I also added two shelves under the work top to store my table saw jigs and sleds. Now on to projects to put it to good use.

I recently turned some mugs as prizes for a fund raising run I organized and held. I also turned the bowl as a thank-you for a long standing donor. The winners liked their prizes and the donor doubled his contribution from last year. I need to make him a whole set of bowls! Both the mugs and bowl were turned from Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry). The bowl is ~2” thick and 12” in diameter.

This jewelry box for my wife is my entry into the Not Just Any Box contest. My blog has additional photos and information. The woods are cherry, figured maple and padauk. Total overall dimensions are 12.5” tall by 13” wide by 6.5” deep.

My entry for the competion is a small side table made from Douglas fir. More details about the table and additional photos are presented in my blog. I’m pleased with the way the table turned out. More importantly, my wife likes it a lot. Now on to the box project.

To do a project recently, I needed to make some tapered legs. I had never attempted tapered legs previously. After a bit of internet research, I learned about various ways to create tapers using a jointer, bandsaw, or tablesaw. My tool of choice is a tablesaw, so I naturally went this route. I reviewed a number of different jigs for creating tapers using the tablesaw, but liked this design from Fine Wood Working the best. It was very simple to make and is just as simple to use. The results are dead accurate and completely repeatable.

The runner for the jig is intentionally undersized to be a bit loose in the miter slot. When you cut your taper, the sled is held firmly toward the saw blade. When you pull the sled back on the return stroke, you pull it back from the blade, providing clearance so that there is no marring of the just cut surface. I added the two wooden handles to the jig to make this easier to accomplish.

The jig can cut either full length tapers or tapers to a set line. You can also cut two sided or four sided tapers equally well. The hold down clamp and wood blocks hold your leg blanks securely in place.

If you subscribe to Fine Wood Working On-Line, the video that I watched and made the sled/jig from can be found at

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/subscription/Workshop/WorkshopArticle.aspx?id=27102

I believe the sled could also be used to joint the edge of a badly warped board, but haven’t tried this yet.

I had made a knock-down router table based on the Fine Woodworking Plans I found on-line. This arrangement worked great. However, after purchasing a new table saw, I thought it would be a good idea to make the router table more permanent and use it as an outfeed table for the saw. I used scraps of hardwood, plywood, and MDF that I had laying around and produced this cabinet. I installed an outlet on the inside of the cabinet and a switch on the outside, along with a cleat to wind the cord on. When not in use, the router fence is stored on two supports between the back of the router table and the back of the table saw. I also made a box to collect the shavings that drop below the router. The only thing I would do differently is to make the cabinet 1” deeper – then the Triton router case would fit on the lower shelf. As it is now, the doors won’t close with the router case in the cabinet. Oh well.