This is something my wife has wanted for years and years. It took me about a year from design to completion – mostly procrastination on my part. The finish is tung oil and paste wax.

For her part she cried when it was finally finished. I’m glad she’s happy with it.

For my part I must say that some project work out the way you planned from beginning to end. The execution, assembly, finish, all work out the way you wanted. This one isn’t it for me. I learned a lot but the overall execution is such that I need to be careful how I look at the piece. There are glaring mistakes that I hid in the photos but it’s really bad in spots. I won’t go into the details but I feel like I made beginner mistakes at every step of the project.

Short of starting over I’m using each issue as a point of improvement for my next adventure. It means I need to work slower and make sure I get everything the way I want but in the end I’ll have something I’m proud of rather than something that’s doesn’t meet my standards.

Comments are welcome.

My wife and I made this sign out of cedar for a friend who just took over a horse boarding business. The details of the process came from the video “Sign Carving With Your Router” by Jim Bartz. The video was very helpful and simplified the process for us.

This was our first project together and it turned out well. Our friend is extremely happy and it telling everyone where the sign came from so I hope it generates some commissions.

I just noticed that I have three telescopes in my projects list. I do build other things – take this adjustable height observing chair for example. Instead of looking through it you sit on it ;-). Basically the problem is that when you use most telescopes the height of the eyepiece changes as you look at things high in the sky vs. low on the horizon. Constantly bending down or standing up can really take a toll on your back.

This chair solves that by having a seat that’s adjustable. The first picture shows it best. The seat is made with two metal bars in the back (covered in heat shrink tubing to soften them and add some friction). By tilting the seat up it allows it to slide from where the legs attach to near the top of the back.

The construction is all 5/4 hard maple execpt for the seat slats which are 3/4 soft maple. There’s no stain just 3 or 4 coats of wipe on satin polly. This is my first real project with maple and I had really enjoyed working with this wood. 5/4 is really beefy to start with and the nice tight grain and hard wood make this stuff a dream to work.

Now if only those clouds would go away….

This project was for a member of my astronomy club. He bought the tube for a song and needed a portable base. The construction is all 3/4” home store oak plywood. The top of the tube stands about 6” tall when pointed straight up so this thing isn’t small.

I didn’t feel like throwing in the hours of finishing I knew it would take to complete the scope so one weekend I sent my buddy home with a bunch of cutout parts, sandpaper, stain, and a quart of laquer. Four weeks later we put it together in the basement to avoid the heat in the garage.

All of the components are dowelled together. The finished result was surprisingly sturdy. At one point my friend asked if the box holding the tube would be sturdy enough to hold the 30 pound tube assembly. I simply responded by putting it on the ground and bouncing up and down on it. ‘Nuf said ;-).

The Yen/Yang was cut out with a saber saw and with a circle jig on the router table and dressed up with sanding. The white outline is a 1/8” router groove filled with epoxy colored with white paint – I picked that one up from the Woodsmith video podcast. It worked great!

Thanks for looking!
jerry

These were the justification for the new table saw. I bought the saw last August and complete the shelves this past June. Only 10 months!

The doors are purchased and all other materials are Home Depot. That is the last time I buy my lumber from them. I’m also a little tired of oak.

It turns out that even when you are working on these things and not procrastinating they still takes a looong time. I discovered once again that patients and attention to detail must be maintanted through the whole project. I tend to get sloppy towards the end and then with the finishing. There aren’t any major finishing mistakes on this one but there are a few construction errors. If anyone spots them please feel free to let me know how glaring they are. So far no one but me can spot them around here.

The kids have been playing with the Lava Lamp since I installed the shelves. It makes for good converstaion. The last picture is the shameless kid pic. Indulge me ;-).

thanks,
jerry

P.S. The bottom shelf on the first unit really isn’t crooked. It’s sitting on the top of the L-shaped shelf pin so it’s only crooked in the picture ;-).

So why post a goofy birdhouse to a fine wood working website? Simply because this is the first thing my son and I have ever really built together. He’s old enough at 6 to learn shop safety and handle working the drill press and screw gun. I bought him a full face shield a while back because he has a nack for getting stuff in his eyes like no other kid I’ve ever met.

He walked into the garage with me the other night and says “Dad, can we build someting?” I was a little surprised. With the attention span of a 6 year old I knew we didn’t have much time so I suggested a scale model of the Death Star or a bird house.

He picked the bird house.

He sketched a plan and I followed up with a little rough drawing of my own just to keep the cuts in order. About an hour later we had this baby. I will do a few things different next time but I still think I’ll skip the finger joints for now. It’s one of those things, an hour or two of time with my son and a cruddy bird house are memories neither of us will forget.

Please, no comments on the construction. I was in such a huge hurry to get the parts so my boy could get to his part of the project that I kept all the dimensions as equal as possible to reduce the number of set-ups. That’s why the end grain shows in the front. He likes running the drill so we used some glue and screws to hold it all together.

This one I completed a couple of years ago. This was my first telescope building project. Beacuse of all the cutouts and fancy finish it took me almost 5 months to complete. I have to credit my wife for encouraging me to build and put quality components in it. I had been doing a cost compairson between lots of cheap telescope mirrors and I was showing her the options one day when she said, “Why are you fooling around with this cheap stuff when you should just buy quality and get something you will be happy with.” What a woman!

The next day I ordered a premium mirror that cost more than most imported 8” scopes by itself. I have been happy with it from day one. I get lots of compliments on the wood working and almost just as many on the optics. Nothing stands out like quality.

The details of the construction can be found here: http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1096

Basically the wood is a combination of 3/4” Home Depot birtch ply and then a sheet of baltic birtch ply. Baltic birtch is the way to go, I will never use anything else. The tube is a 10” Sonatube from the local contractor’s supply. It’s wrapped in post-form Wilsonart. I must also add that the design was copied from someone online who was in business for a while building these guys. He was very helpful and gave me lots of ideas.

There are several issues that you can’t see in the pics. Mostly the finish I used is cracking :=(. I used a water based polly and put on too may coats. Next time it’s oil-based and I’ll probably spray it on before assembly. There are a few parts that are not 100% square but they don’t impact the movement or look of the scope, but I know they are there.

Thanks for looking.

This is my most recent telescope project. It started because I’ve always wanted and Edmund Astroscan. When I finally could afford one I decided to build one instead. I used a model car finish in place of natural because I needed to paint the acrylic globe with something, and how many times in life to you get to color something metal-flake blue?

The first picture is of the complete scope on it’s “bucket” mount. The next two show most of the internals that are used to support the mirror and the poles for the ring that will hold the secondary mirror, focuser (the place where you look) and the finder.

As a woodworking challenge imagine putting together a spherical puzzle that needs to contain an adjustable platform that is accurate to within a fraction of an inch. The key to that isn’t in the construction tolerances but in some spring loaded 1/4-20 screws that allow everything to be tilted to make it all line up.

I’d also like to add a plug for my favorite component site, McMaster-Carr. It’s like having the biggest hardware store in world right down the street.

Thanks,
Jerry