I started this table some five years ago when I took a furniture design class. The purpose of the class was to teach furniture making from start to finish. We had to research the design idea by viewing classic designs and adapt our design to incorporate some of the things we liked in these designs. Then we had to draw the plans, and construct and finish the table.

One of my unfortunate characteristics is that I tend towards the impatient. I want to see progress. So, between the snail pace the course forced me to progress, and the high hourly cost of instruction and shop time, I quite.

I had milled all the components of the table and took them home. That was before I had my own shop, so the box of table parts got shuffled to the back of a storage area. I knew that they were there, but the completion of the table was something I simply put off.

Last week I came across the box and decided to finish the table. It’s my version of an Arts & Crafts inspired table with a Greene & Green influence. The joiner is traditional Mortise and Tenon and features squared pegs on the breadboard end, and split wedged through tenons at the leg stringers. The finish has a few more coats of Wipe-On Poly before it’s finished, but being the impatient type, thought you might like to see it now.

The black accent wood is African Ebony.

So much for impatience – this table took me just over five years to complete. LOL!

Without making excuses for not being as active here as I once was, here is my latest woodworking project.

A good friend of ours, an accomplished artist, asked me to make a table to specific dimensions that would allow her to place it in her small housing unit.

I’ve been working on it off and on since mid January. Today, I finally finished and took these photos before delivering it to her.

Up ‘til now, I’ve used mortise and tenon joinery for this kind of furniture. But this was a perfect project to give my DowelMax a good test. I found it easy to use and frankly will be unlikely to revert to the traditional joinery again.

The wood is Australian Blackwood and the top is from the same 19mm (4/4”) sheets I used to build this project. The grain coloring is often quite spectacular as it is in this veneered sheet. This time I used the second side (not quite as spectacularly figured) as the surface. I felt it was more in keeping with the solid side-skirts and legs.

The drawers are constructed of first grade pine. I like the lightness of weight and color. The drawer faces are cut from the same piece that makes up the front skirt, so the grain matches.

The finish is five coats of MinWax Wipe-on Poly, cut with fine steel wool and Ubeaut Traditional wax leaving a satin smooth finish.

I’ve made three of these now. I showed my first one some time ago here.

I wouldn’t have bothered posting this one but for the fact that I changed the construction technique on this one. My previous two incorporated traditional mortise and tenon joinery. To be honest, I find M & T joinery tedious and for some reason, I’m prone to make less that perfect snug-fitting joints.

When I was in Vancouver eight months ago, I purchased DowelMax Jig after viewing one of Mot’s early video reviews of the product. Like a lot of things we purchase, I never really got around to putting it to the test until a family member requested “one of these really neat changing table that you make”.

I didn’t relish repeating this project again until I remembered my eight month old purchase. So I gladly agreed if for no other reason than to get experience with the DowelMax. (I have a commission for a small table and wanted to use it on that, but I thought it best to give it a workout on some inexpensive Pine.

All I can saw is that the jig is a real pleasure to work with, intuitive in its use and dead accurate. The result is an extremely strong table with perfectly flush joints. The DowelMax meant I got the job finished quickly – about eight hours all up.

I’ve coated the Pine with Shellac sanding sealer because the family member intends to paint it white. Because Pine and the MDF panels soak up paint like a sponge, the sealer will enable them to finish it more easily.

I have previously told the story of my first rocking chair. As pleased as I was with the appearance of the chair, I was equally disappointed with its function – simply put, it didn’t rock properly. I wrote of the proposed solution here.

I soon learned that the center of gravity was too far forward on the rockers as this previously posted picture shows. You will note how upright the rocking chair sits – it should be leaning back somewhat with the contact points on the runners just ever so slightly forward of the rear rockers.

I consulted with many woodworkers for a solution but it wasn’t until William Kappel gave me some expert help that I even dared to tackle the fix.

You see, it involved cutting off the rockers, adjusting the leg length to establish the proper center of gravity and re-attaching the rockers.

I had to shorten the rear legs by 4 inches and lengthen the front by 2.75. This, of course changes the intersecting angles where the legs meet the rockers, so I was a little daunted by the process.

Bill advised me to make a feature of the re-worked intersections, because they would always show up. I chose a light Beech and an piece of Ebony to make the re-designed intersection look as though this was always my intention.

To cut to the chase, the rocker rocks beautifully, and I think looks fairly nice.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been in my shop. But today was the day. Bad leg or not, Christmas is comming and I have about a dozen gifts to make.

Last year I made some small wooden boxes – and in case you didn’t already know, I just love small wooden boxes!

But this year I’m cutting back; not because I want to but because I need to keep off my healing knee repair. So I whipped these up in three hours from three different Australian timbers – Red Gum on the right, Huon Pine in the center and Tasmanian Blackwood on the right.

The finish is friction polish from Ubeaut.

I’ve inserted a glass vial in each to retain the water. Hope my friends and family understand. Each one is slightly different in shape – not intentional.

Sorry the pictures are similar, but why waste the space?

Today, my friend who asked me to make this box saw it in person for the first time. She has been following my blog about making this box, but hadn’t seen it in the flesh (or should that be in the ‘wood’?). I’m pleased to report that she seemed delighted with it.

I believe that the red wood is Queensland Lacy Oak. The box trim is Victorian Ash and the dividers are American Maple.

I made a minor change that is shown here since the photo’s that I posted in my blog. Can you spot them?

For a full description of this box in a series of step-by-step articles, please see my blog.

Last week my dear wife told me in no uncertain terms that since I love small wooden boxes so much, it only made sense to give a box as a wedding gift to friends who are getting married.

Well, I was in no mood to argue, but I really didn’t want to interrupt my creative justices on this box, and a couple of times I went into my shop with every intention to start a new box but ended up tinkering with the one that was already in process.

So yesterday, I finally got off my duff and started the wedding gift. I am using Australian Blackbutt as the primary wood. I’ve used it before and wrote about the wood here. This is wood left over from that project.

The design is quite simple. The box walls are 1/2” thick Blackbutt, and the top and bottom is 3/8” Huon Pine. The dimensions are 10.5” x 6.5” x 4.25”. The lid is hinges with wedged dowels, and the bottom of the box floats in a rebate held in place by bamboo strung from front to back on both ends of the box. This idea is a continuation of the wedges used in my Joinery Comp entry. This joinery method will allow the solid bottom piece to expand up to 1mm in both directions.

I used Dovetail joints for the box, but did not concern myself with the knots and pitch holes that interfered with the dovetails. I had to cut the top row of dovetails off as they crumbled when being cut through some wood that lacked integrity.

I’ve made up my mind.

Although I like the Mallet I made with glueless joinery, I think I like the small box more. After all, I can’t claim to be a lover of small wooden boxes without being prepared to be evaluated as a box maker.

In theory, I could disassemble this box quite easily. The only thing that holds it together is the bamboo pins that are snuggly pressed into holes. Nothing is wedged because as I quickly discovered with my first attempt, the wall strength of 5/16” wood does not accommodate joinery under excess tension – it simply splits.

The dimensions of the box are: 8 5/8 wide x 5 1/2 deep x 2 3/4 high.

So I came up with the method described here to hold the box together. The pins won’t fall out of their own accord. I would have to pull them out in some way, because there is enough surface tension to hold them in place. I played with the idea of a “Pagoda” type lid handle, but a) I didn’t like the look, b) I wasn’t sure I could design a joint that would hold and c) the natural way to open the box is by the “tabs” at the front of the lid.

Finally, I’ve finished the box with three coats of Danish Oil and three coats of sprayed lacquer on top of a single coat of Tung Oil. The two pictures above were taken with artificial room light and have distorted the color slightly. Although their appears to be a sheen on some surfaces, I’ve actually rubbed out the finish to give it a slightly flat but deeper finish.

Late Change: Karson stated the following here ”No one has asked, but I’ll bring it up. In my mind no plywood, because that is glued. The constructor of the project might not have glued it but it is a joint and it does have glue.

So that means no veneered projects either, in my mind.”

I panicked a little; the base of my box was birch ply.

I must confess, that the idea that plywood was a raw material that had been laminated, hence glued, had never dawned on me, and at first I thought it was being a little pedantic. But as I lay awake in bed last night it suddenly dawned on my that this was one of the hidden benefits of my style of glueless joinery. My retainer pins for the bottom panel were held there by the tightness of the fit. But with a pair of pliers, they could easily be extracted, which is what I did. Voilà! I simply replaced my ply base panel with a 4mm piece of solid Tasmanian Myrtle.

The third picture shows the new solid wood panel. I’m not changing the center picture, because it helps to verify I’ve done so because of the difference in color between the Birch ply (center pic) and the Tasmanian Myrtle (last pic).

I made the solid panel slightly smaller than the ply panel to accommodate expansion. Being a floating bottom, the base will exert no pressure against the walls of the box.

A few days ago, Bill sent me a Private Message challenging me to make a small wooden box using glueless joinery. This is the result.

The joints are held together with pegs made from bamboo meat-skewers. I soaked the bamboo in water overnight so that when pressed into the holes drilled slightly smaller than their diameter, the wood would compress. When the bamboo dried out the pegs expanded and were securely locked in place.

The peg driven down through the box joint holds the box sides together.

The pegs that form the hinge axles were inserted through holes that are slightly over-sized in the box walls and undersized in the lid.

The base is held in place with wedge pins. The base keeps the box square and removes any slight flexibility due to the glueless joinery.

The design idea was somehow to look oriental as the idea of using glueless joints is somewhat reminiscent of the Japanese genre.

The lid is Silky Oak, Cadwellia Sublimis, from Northern Queensland. The box walls are Rosewood, and the bottom is solid wood; 4mm Tasmanian Myrtle. (The picture above shows the box prior to swapping the ply base over to solid wood. The new base is shown here.)

I have not completed the finished the box yet; I have applied one coat of pure Tung Oil, but will be it will be finished with two or three coats of Danish Oil.

Here’s my dilemma, do I enter this one in the Summery joinery contest – am I allowed to remove the Mallet and replace it with the box??? My current inclination is to enter this box, because I just love small wooden boxes! LOL

[One more thing, the box is sitting on a Kangaroo pelt.]

I wrote about this chair here. My purpose in adding it to my Projects page is that it sort of gets lost in my Blog section.

I’ve been thinking about my entry into the Summer 2000 Competition. I find the Joinery Category particularly challenging.

Specifically, the challenge of making something ”without glues, metal nails, screws or other mechanical fasteners” got my interest.

At first, I thought that I would make a small project, dry fit the joinery, photograph and enter it, then glue it up later. But no, this wouldn’t be in the spirit of the competition.

To my way of thinking, the real challenge incorporated in the rules is to make something entirely without glue or mechanical fasteners of any sort. For my interpretation, this means no aspect of the project should have any hint of joinery that violates this restriction. To simply have one joint that met the rules and the rest that didn’t, seemed to be playing loose with the interpretation.

The handle joinery is known as a Blind Fox-Wedged Tenon.

In this case, the turned tenon has one slot into which a wedge is fit prior to driving the handle home into the head of the mallet. When driven home, the wedge is forced between the shoulders of the tenon jambing them against the walls of the mortise. Absolutely no glue was used, or is required. The handle is completely wedged in place and impossible to remove or revolve.

There is no question, this project meets my strict interpretation of the rules. My conscience is clear! However, I’m not entering this project. Rather, I’ve decided to enter a small box with the same strict adherence to the rules.

[The third picture is simply for interest – although the Bow Saw is also constructed without glue or screws, it could possibly be argued that the string and saw blade were “mechanical fasteners”, so I decided to enter the Mallet instead.]

When I saw Mark's Bow Saw last week, I decided that I would make one. His inspired me to make something I’d been wanting to make for some time.

Mine uses the brass pins from Gramercy Tools. I also followed the plans available as a free download on this site.

The wood is Australian Blackwood. The finish is Tung Oil.

The mortise and tenon joinery has rounded shoulders to enable the cross piece to pivot when tension is applied.

Here’s another shot with the saw leaning against an old wooden smoothing plane.

I had a little free time yesterday so went into my shop to tidy it up. As I did so, I picked up a Mallet that I purchased a few years ago from Lee Valley. I have always liked the shape and feel of this mallet and thought as I held it yesterday that it would make a nice model for one turned in wood.

So distracted from the task at hand, I scrounged through my scrap-bin and found some appropriate wood for the task. Two hours latter, I came up with this. It’s well balanced with a heavy head making the mallet feel good in the hand. I applied a coat of Tung Oil, but I don’t intend to add any finish beyond that.

The head is from Red Ironbark a heavy dense wood; Eucalyptus fibrosa ( F. Muell. ), Red Ironbark or Broad-leaved Red Ironbark, is a type of Ironbark tree found in Australia, mainly in Queensland and New South Wales. This plant is in family Myrtaceae.

The tree has deeply furrowed dark gray bark. It grows to a height of about 30 meters. Flowers are creamy white. Leaves are dark green and broader than other ironbarks. The dense, strong wood is valued for lumber. The sap, locally called “kino,” was used by natives to keep fish lines from fraying and by the early settlers for ink.

The handle is Huon Pine, or species Lagarostrobos franklinii which is a species of conifer native to the wet southwestern corner of Tasmania, Australia.

Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec was an 18th century French navigator. It is a slow growing, but long-lived tree; some living specimens of this tree are in excess of 2000 years in age. One particular stand of trees reputed to be in excess of 10,500 years in age was recently found in North Western Tasmania on Mount Read.

The wood was highly prized for its golden yellow colour, fine grain and natural oils that resisted rotting. It is now available in small quantities from reclaimed lumber that was logged prior to the middle of the last century, or trees that have fallen naturally.

Oh, today, I still have a shop to clean up.

This collection of small turned forms is something I do between box making sessions. The discipline of turning is entirely different from box making and I find it a relaxing diversion.

The wine goblet is unfinished and made of Australian Rosewood. (I use this as a form from which I make others.)

The small jug was made a few years back, and I believe it is American Walnut. The handle is bentwood cane.

The lidded box is Wild Cherry. This is a beautiful wood, very dense and heavy, with colors ranging from gray yellow and orange to cherry red.

The bud vase is also Australian Rosewood, finished with shellac. It will have a glass vile inserted to enable it to hold water.

I’ve finally finished that toublesome box which you can view in another of my box project pages. (Scroll to the very bottom of the project page and you will see new pictures of the box that gave me so much trouble.)

So now I’m back into box making. Here’s one that I whipped up yesterday & today.

The primary timber is Australian Rosewood. The aroma of the wood reminds me of aromatic cedar. It’s a fairly soft wood and quite light. The wood was planned down to 10mm thickness which adds to the delicate feel of this box.

The top panel is an Amboyna Burl veneer. I’ve used this in a number of boxes. I make up these small panels by veneering to both sides of 3mm MDF for stability.

I used small rare earth magnets as lid hold-downs. The hinges are my own design and relatively easy to make.

I’ve showed one of these before.

I made this tray a few years back and enjoyed seeing it again at my daughter’s home in Vanouver. They are easy to make and appreciated by everyone for whom I’ve made them.

The wood is Australian Blackwood and finished with Minwax low sheen Wipe-on Poly.

Sorry about the third picture, it’s out of focus and taken under different light conditions than the first two, however, it gives a close-up view of the make-up of the tray for those that might want to use this idea.

In 2003, I gave this small box to my Granddaughter, Maddison. She lives half way around the world from me, so during my current visit, I was pleased to see this box that I had made about four years ago. I had wondered how it would stand up to the use a little girl would put it to; and wondered what that use would be.

When I first showed this box, I referred to it as a jewelry box. Now, ones definition of ‘jewelry’ is no doubt dependent on ones age. Maddie is eight years old. She has put her treasures in this box, so in that sense, they’re here jewels.

But, this experience has reinforced my feeling that it’s wrong for me to name a box with a function, ie. Jewelry Box. Rather, I now simply call my boxes “wooden boxes” – probably not too original, but practical none-the-less.

Finally, the other thing that I was pleased to see, when viewing this box after four years, is that the color has mellowed. The reddish tint has darkened and now is probably best described as reddish-brown. The Blackbutt veneer panel has remained pretty much as it was when made.

It was nice to see my old friend (the box) – it had aged gracefully. But it was even nicer to visit with my granddaughter who is morphing into a real beauty.

I feel a little foolish showing this project with some of the terrific projects that have been posted recently, but here goes -

We are going out this evening and my wife asked me if I could make something simple as a gift for our hosts.

I saw this idea in a shop some time ago, and tucked it away for just such an occasion. It only takes a couple of hours to make these. (If you didn’t guess, this is a salad server set.)

The wood is my favorite Aussie wood, Huon Pine. The finish is a natural food-safe oil.

Viewing Krum’s easel where she showed the ‘French Connector’, I was reminded of one of my early projected, actually my second. My wife is into nicknacks. She never has enough display space and asked me to make a wall-hung cabinet that matched the existing wood trim in our living room. It’s the only painted woodworking project I’ve made; well, I guess it’s woodworking even though it was made mostly from MDF. And although it satisfied her requirements, it’s a project that I’ve never really liked. I guess if it had been wood, it would have been a more satisfying project to make.

Every Christmas, I make gifts for our friends. (I suspect they are now saying, “Oh, not another wooden gift from CanuckDon!”)

Christmas ‘05 saw me making about 15 of these. I varied the detail somewhat, but most were of this design. The one I liked most, I don’t have a picture. It had a laminated arched handle in addition to the curve shown in this example. I gave it to my daughter and husband, so will have to take a picture for my own records some day.

Don’t ask me about the wood. Other than all being Australian wood, I can’t remember what this example entails.

I’ve included a shot of the Makers Mark that I use.