The head is bookmatched rock maple. The handle is figured purpleheart. The 5 degree angle cut on the head was done with the bandsaw and the majority of the wood taken off the handle was removed with the 3/8” roundover bit on router. The final shape on the handle was obtained with a spokeshave. I used my blockplane to chamfer the head. It weighs 2.25 lbs and and feels really comfortable in my big hands.

My five year old son wanted to work on something with me, so we took the cutout area from a bandsaw box that I had recently made (ambrosia maple) and made a little bandsaw box. My son doesn’t like loud noises so everything was done with hand tools except the drillpress which was used to drill the pilot holes. He calls this his tiny treasure chest and decided he wanted a way to make it close better – hence the latch – after we took the posed picture with him.

First here are the specs on this board 9.5” x 12” x 7/8”
woods used from left to right on the top (or bottom strip): cherry, mahogany, beech, maple, walnut, cherry (heart/sap interface), cumarau
two coats of mineral oil and two applications of butcher block treatment

I hadn’t seen my brother in two years prior to Thanksgiving, so I hadn’t planned on making him anything. This board got added to the end of the build list and I ended up cutting some corners to get it done on time (we’ve all been there). After the strip glue-up. I flattened the top and bottom faces with my router planing jig using my new bowl bit (which gives a smoother surface than the mortising bit). I got one face slightly dished in the center (by about 1/64”). Unfortunately this led to 1/8” curvature on one edge once the end-grain strips were glued together. Had I noticed this prior to glue-up I would have run each strip through the thickness planer. As it is, I tried to compensate by using home-made filler (cherry saw-dust and titebond mixture), but that was not tremendously successful. The walnut was wormy so I filled the holes that I saw with my filler, but other holes were exposed in the gross flattening of the end-grain (using my beltsander) that didn’t get filled. Final surfacing of the end-grain was done with card scrapers and successively higher grit sandpaper on my random orbit sander (150, 220, 320, 400).

My improvised glue-up station

The glue-up was done in two segments.The jig has a level and a right angle helper attached to a flat surface (from an old piece of Sauder “furniture”)

The dry fit (showing the bolors prior to oil)

What the cutting board freeware predicted that this would look like before I started working on it

The first is a purpleheart soundboard with poplar front and back and cherry sides. The bottom is 5/16” pine. While this one looks the prettiest, only three of the tongues reonsate. They rest are pretty much just percussive. This was disappointing, but my two year old does not seem to mind. If I had a do over, I would make all of the tongues on this more narrow. Since the sound board on this is 1” thick and purpleheart is pretty rigid, only the narrow tongues resonate. There is no video of this one being played since I was that disappointed in the sound.

The second (and last) of the tongue drums has a padauk soundboard, 3/4” play ftont and back and maple sides with a lauan ply bottom. Paduak is THE wood for making tongue drum soundboards (the guys who make a living making these agree). While I was disappointed in how the purpleheart one sounded, I was very pleasantly surprised at how tonal this one is. You can listen in the video below. The pattern from the tongue was loosely adapted from some patterns that I have seen on the commercially produced tongue drums. The padauk is 13/16”.

http://youtu.be/w9Ee9Dc1lqU

The second one is a gift for me five year old son. He was so exciting by the one the his cousin, Hannah, received (a few days before Christmas) that he asked if I could make him one. I smiled and said that I didn’t know if I could make one in time since they take a lot of work – while laughing inside because his drum and his sister’s drum were sitting downstairs in my shop.

Very similar to the last three, but much bigger. This one has a cherry soundboard with maple sides and beech front and back. The base is 1/4” lauan ply. One side got strangely muted and persussive once the soundbaord was set into the box while the other side remained resonant. It works well, but it was not by design. I was hoping that both sides would stay resonant. This was given as a present to my niece who apears to really like it. Video link below so that you can hear how the two different sides sound.
http://youtu.be/57cXHpZZBak
The mallets are super balls with 1/4” oak dowels attached.

The dimensions are 22” x 9” x 8”

This is the sister project to the dresser valet that I posted – which is kind of appropriate since it was made as a gift for my future stepmother. The body is alternating cherry and maple with some figured cherry as the top and rosewood pulls for the drawers. The back and the base are 1/4” baltic birch ply. Two coats of BLO as the finish.
The top provides an interesting contrast to the face since they are both cherry, but very different looking cherry. The drawers were lined with blue self-adhesive felt.

I used the drill press to drill the holes that helped me to get as close to a 90 degree turn as possible on the drawer cuts.

This was made as a Christmas present for my dad. The drawers were cut by bandsaw froma glued up block of alternating cherry and maple. The dished maple portion on top was made was a bowl routing bit. The drawer fronts are walnut and the pulls are cherry. The base is from the same maple plank as the dished top. The peice was treated with a couple of “coats” of mineral oil and I would have liked to put a layer or two of shellac on top of that, but I ran out of time.

These are all roughly the same size. The videos embedded give a better concept of size. They were given as Christmas presents to my sister’s kids who are all under the age of 5 so I was concerned with making them sturdy. The first has 3/4” ply sides and beech front and back with a walnut soundboard. The second has the same box build with a mahogany (?) soundboard. The third has sapele sides, beech front and back and a maple soundboard. All three have cedar OSB as the bottom. They are all finished with two “coats” of mineral oil. The mallets were made from super balls and 1/4” maple dowels. All the joints are simply glued with titebond and the corners were reinforced with a glued triangular wedge support. Since I was making seven of these I decided to take the easy way out.

So far the kids seem to like them. Below are the links to the videos that I made while playing these three. Sorry for the quality – I was holding the camera and beating a drum, which is not the easiest thing to do.

http://youtu.be/p9zv7gsWllw
The soundboard does not resonate very well on this one
http://youtu.be/HW6a1PXHmO4
This one sounds better than the walnut
http://youtu.be/eWvxF1pJpl0
The maple soundboard has the best resonance of these three

As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

This was the first bandsaw box that I made once I had a bandsaw. It was cut from a bowl blank. The finish is mineral oil and the pulls are rosewood. If you are a Star Wars fan, this piece reminds me of the sand people on Tattoine.

This was given a Christmas gift to a family friend.

I had a piece of spalted maple that I was waiting for it to tell me what it wanted to turn it into. It finally told me that it wanted to be a bandsaw box (after I got my bandsaw). Since I was unable to make 90 degree turns with my 1/4” blade (I should have been using a 1/8” blade, but I hadn’t gotten one yet), I ended up drilling holes to help make the 90 degree turns. The piece ended being a tipping hazard when loaded, so I added the “feet” at the end of the build. The feet, or course, are the “waste” from two of the drawers. The finish is Zinnser clear shellac. The pulls are yellowheart. The majority of the wood is maple. The drawers are lined with black felt. The dimensions are 22” x 11” x 4”

This was given as a Christmas present to my sister-in-law.

It’s a fairly simple build, but it is what the “customer” wanted. My neighbor wanted a long, tall, shallow cabinet to store glasses in. The size constraints were very particular, 17×8 x 72. The face-frame and molding are red oak, the rest is pine except for the bun feet which are poplar. Pocket-screw joinery used throughout exccept to attach the face-frame to the sides. The most difficult part about the whole build was the molding. I now know why those weird angles are marked on my compound miter saw. Making the plugs for the screw-holes gave me a chance to use my new bandsaw.

I decided to do a series of three candle trays each using a different combination of woods and each with a different hand-cut joint. This was my first attempt at dovetails and I wanted to attempt them by hand before I used a router to go after them in a future project.

The dovetailed one is redheart (chatke kok) and maple. The through-mortise and tenon one is yellow heart and walnut. The lap joint one is redheart and walnut. Each is finished with Danish oil. The only power tool used in the joinery was my drill press for roughing out the mortise which was cleaned up with chisels. I did have some chipping and cracking issues when cutting the dovetails in the redheart – redheart is prone to chipping. I learned a lot from working on these three, particularly this it is easy to be overaggressive with my dozoku saw.

Two of the three were given as gifts this Christmas.

This was the second end-grain board that I have made. Like my first this was also given as a gift this Christmas.

The woods used were maple, cherry, beech, purpleheart and anigre (Bolivian? walnut). The board is 11” x 15” x 0.9” with a 3/8” roundover on the edges. The finish is mineral oil. Flattening was done by router on my router planing jig (shown with my previous board in it).

Surfacing was done via belt sander followed by final smoothing with card scrapers.

I was hoping for more contrast between the beech and the cherry, although there is more contrast between those two on this board than on my previous end-grain board. I was also hoping for more distinction between the purpleheart and the anigre, but they blended together.

I used the cutting board design freeware again and you can see the board that I was attempting to make in the 6th pic. The fifth pic is the dry fit before glue-up to show the changes in the wood once the oil soaks in. The 3rd and the 4th pics are to show how much of a difference the lighting can make in the appearance of the board (the 4th pic was without flash and some retouching via photo editing software).

The board design makes me think of the gears on a clock or in an engine, the way that the beech strips are almost meshing with each other – hence the title.

As always, I am more than happy to listen to comments and critiques.

So after quite a few other cutting boards, I decided to try my hand at an end-grain version. I downloaded the cutting board designer software (freeware, very useful) and designed this board. The woods used are mahogany (I think), beech, cherry and walnut. There is a very slight 1/8” round-over on the edges. The “finish” is mineral oil – five coats. There are some interesting looking gum pockets that got exposed Final dimensions are 13” x 15” x 1.25”.

The initial glue-up worked better when done in smaller steps (less slippage) as opposed to trying to glue all of the strips together in one sequence. I used my router planing sled to do the rough flattening followed by my belt sander (80 grit) and my random orbit sander (120, 220, 320). I forgot about the glue and sawdust trick so their is one noticeable gap in the board, but other than that and some accidental beading on the edges I am happy with the way it turned out.

I’ve been making a lot of kitchen items recently (cutting boards, spoons, napkin holders) and I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making some plates (or bowls). I had quite a bit of figured sappy cherry that I wanted to use for something and I decided that this would be a good use for it. Here’s the problem – I don’t own a lathe. So I had to figure out how to make bowls or plates without one. I was inspired by the lipped plates that my children (4 and 2 yrs old) sometimes use for messy things like pasta with red sauce. I decided to make five so that I could give them to my sister and her family (husband and three kids under 4). These pieces are either deep plates or shallow bowls – 4.5” radius, 3/4” deep.

I also don’t own a band saw so cutting the circles proved to be a challenge since the 1.25” thick cherry squares were too thick for me to cut a circle with my jigsaw. I cut square blanks out of the cherry boards and then turned those roughly into octagons on the table saw. Then I adapted my cross-cut sled so that I could run a screw up from the bottom that would go into a hole drilled in the center of the octagon. The screw was positioned so that it was 4.5” from the blade of my table saw, such that I could turn the work piece on the fixed central point with the table saw blade running and cut a circle. I’ve seen this technique used with bandsaws. Once I had the circles cut, then I had to figure out how to remove the wood from the interior. I decided to use my routers for this step.

Using a 1/2” mortising bit on my router table I positioned the fence 1/2” from the bit and put pins in the table to allow me to cut the interior circle – taking about 1/4” off each pass. To save time a ran all five through at 1/4”, then adjusted the bit height and repeated the process. Once the interior circles were cut, I then used my router planing sled to remove the remaining wood from the interior of the plate/bowls. I had a slip or three when routing that led my to doing some inlay on these pieces (creative design opportunities :-) ). One plate/bowl has no inlay, the other four have a different shape inlaid in ebony or cocobolo – trapezoid, circle, square and triangle.

I used scrapers for the smoothing on the inner surfaces and in doing so took out a few chucks by accident.

After some sanding and a bunch of mineral oil and rubbing and I had a set of plate/bowls for my sister and her family. As always comments and critiques are welcomed.

I made this as a wedding present for my cousin. Nothing tremendously fancy about, but I really like the way the hickory popped once the mineral oil soaked into it. The edges were rounded over with a 3/8” bit. Wodds used were: hickory, cherry, walnut and maple. Rubberized feet on the bottom. Finished with 3 applications of mineral oil and then two coats of mineral oil/beeswax. 9” x 12” with finger holds routed on all four sides.

As always the lightning and the use of flash or not makes a huge difference in the way in which the pictures turn out. The first picture was taken without flash and the remaining three with flash.

I found a plan available online in the Nov 1992 Popular mechanics issue for this coat tree. The wife has wanted one of these and this plan was her preferred design. The plan calls for using white oak, but I decided to use beech instead. I found out the Beech burns really easily with power towels so I spent a fair amount of time using my hanf planes to remove burn marks. At this point it is “naked” as my wife decided that she wanted to see how it fares without a poly coat. The plan called for staining the oak, but I like the look of beech and my wife agreed. The hardware is from one of the big box stores, but I wish I had waiting since Rockler has garment hooks on clearance right now (at about 25% of the big box price). I was going to put some walnut plugs in the screw holes, but my wife said that she is fine with the exposed holes for now. It can always add them later. The surfacing was all done with hand planes and scrapers.

I made this as a present for my dad. It’s a fairly simple box from purple heart and a wood that I am not sure of the type (black limba?). I like to buy boxes of random exotic cut-offs. Most of the time the vendor does not identify the woods in the box. Whatever the second wood is, it was difficult to work – horrible tearout even when planing with hand planes with the grain. I like the way it works with the purpleheart so I used it, despite the difficulty. The sides were both resawn using my table saw, so that they would be matched. I can’t remember the final dimensions of the box. The bottom is masonite. I was going to cover it with felt, but I thought that the color of the masonite worked better with the two woods than any of the felt colors I had available. The finish is Zinsser shellac – 5 coats.

As Christmas presents for my recently born twin niece and nephew, I decided to make a couple of similar, but not the same keepsake boxes. I obtained a bunch of 12×12 pieces of 3/4” maple-veneered ply from a friend at work who was going to throw them out (he works with them) and these were used as the sides and the base. Keyed miter joints were used for the corners. The keys on one are ebony and padauk – cocobolo on the other. The larger portion of the top is cherry on both with the smaller part walnut on one and hickory on the other. The edge-banding is yellow-heart veneer that was also going to be thrown out by my coworker. The molding is store-bought poplar. The finish is six coats of Zinsser shellac.

In a recent issue of Fine Woodworking, there was a short article on taking better pictures of your work. I employed some of the techniques discussed in that article and I think that the photos turned out quite well – better than some of my previous photographic efforts of my work.

I inherited some tools from my late father-in-law (router, squares, drill bits, coping saw) and then bought a cordless circular saw and drill. In an inspired moment, I decided to try and make all of the Christmas presents that I was going to give to people for Christmas 2006. I wandered into my local Woodcraft and after overcoming the shock and wonderment of all of the toys in the toystore (most of which I had no clue how to use at that point), I bought a box of random cut-offs and scraps. Contained in that box were pieces of mahogany and purpleheart that would eventually become this tie rack which I built for my brother-in-law. The dowels are birch and the caps are from a larger diameter cedar dowel. The finish is danish oil. I started off trying to hand sand this down to a smooth finish, but realized that purpleheart is very hard so I ended up buying a quarter sheet sander to use on the finishing. The hook is from the orange big box store. As far as I know, my brother-in-law likes this gift, but I have never asked whether or not he uses it. My knowledge of wood (and woodworking) was so limited when I started this project that I didn’t realize that the wood was mahogany until about 6 months after I had given the piece as a present (I also had not found this site, so my knowledge base for asking questions was limited). I learned that without a drill press it is very difficult to drill exactly perpendicular to the surface of the work piece with a hand drill. This resulted in not-quite-perpendicular holes for the dowels. In retrospect, given my tool limitations, this could have turned out much worse. It was definitely a learning experience and it enticed me enough that I decided to continue woodworking.