This last weekend I took a class from Darrell Peart, a fellow LumberJock. We made some samples of Greene and Greene details, he uses in his furniture designs. It was a fun weekend. I’m planning to take his Details I class this December. It should be another fun weekend. You can read a little more about the weekend over at my blog.

I’m working a small table that has tapered legs and I needed a good way to make the tapers. When I was working on the mock-up of the table, I made quick one time use jig, to taper the legs. The jig worked ok but gave some inconsistent results. When it came time to make the final version of the table, I wanted a better way to taper the legs. I researched several different methods and alternative jigs.

I came across this jig over at Fine Woodworking, made by Richard W. Beebe. There is a great video that goes with article, you should check it out. The jig is a little more complex than some, but it addressed 4-way tapered legs the best. It didn’t take that long to build and the results were excellent.

I also wrote about building it in a little more detail over on my blog if you want to read more about it. It should be a jig I use over and over.

This is the latest addition to my shop. It’s a small bench that sits on top of your main bench. I’ve been doing a lot of hand cut dovetail lately, and all of the bending over was tiring out my back. I saw the idea for a small bench in Fine Woodworking awhile back, and decide to build one for myself. My design is a little different, but the idea is the same.

I chronicled the building of the bench over on by blog, if you what to see how it came together. it was quite the adventure!

Over the week before July 4th my company shuts down, so I had a good part of the week in the shop. I decided I needed to organize my shop. I have been acquiring more and more hand tools lately and really didn’t have a way to store them. I’ve been keep them in their boxes or just stacked on my bench. I finally got tired of moving them around when I was working something.

I thought about making a cool tool cabinet with doors that had more storage when opened. I just couldn’t decide on a design. I also wasn’t sure what other tools I was going to be buying. I had plenty of wall space, so I just went “flat”. Once I get closer to acquiring “most” of my tools, I may look at a tool cabinet. Do ask me when that might be!

I put up a sheet of 3/4” plywood on the wall and started to make brackets and shelves for the tools I had. For the planes I just went with horizontal shelves. They were easy to make, and they lets me reorganize my planes as needed. I traced the inside of the handles of my saws, and made cutouts that just fit inside. All of the brackets and shelves are attached with screws. That way I can take them down and move things around as needed.

It is so nice to have a place for everything. It makes going into the shop all that much better.

This is a Silverware Tray that I made while at the handsawing class taught by Christopher Schwarz. This was the second project we worked on during the week long class. The wood is Cherry. The wood was surfaced and rough cut to length and width for us, but once we were given the wood nothing but hand tools were used to construct it.

The boards were cleaned up with hand planes. Then the boards were cut length and the ends were shot on a shooting board. The dovetails were cut with my Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw, that I’m really loving. The handles were bored out using a brace and bit, then cleaned up with a chisel and rasp. I almost completed it at the class, but I need to do some final planing and install the bottom. I then applied a few coats of Tung Oil for the finish. The dovetail came out pretty well. There are some small gaps, but this is really the first complete project I’ve done with hand-cut dovetails. I think my wife already has a place for it :).

Last week I attended a week long handsawing class, taught by Christopher Schwarz at the Northwest Woodworking Studio in Portland, OR. It was one of the best weeks I’ve spent woodworking. One of the projects we walked away with was a Sawbench. Everyone of the cuts and joints were cut using handsaws. The bench is made from Southern Yellow Pine and I have to say it was quite the challenge to work with, using hand tools. Southern Yellow Pine has soft early-wood and pretty hard late-wood. This makes it a course wood to work with. So some of the joints aren’t as smooth as I would have liked. Although, most of what you see in the pictures are pretty tight :). I’m very please with how it came out. This was the first project we worked on. Some of the first cuts weren’t my best, but I was able to clean them up with hand planes and chisels.

You will notice a holdfast on the top of the bench. These benches were also used to chop mortises. The holdfast is set up to hold your workpiece over one of the legs, as your are chopping the mortise. Chopping over a leg give you a lot of support, during the chopping. Also, if you spin the holdfast around and knock it down onto the top, it turns into a handle.

We also made a Silverware Tray with hand-cut dovetails. I still have a few things to finish up on that project. I’ll post it after it is finished.

This is a planer sled, which is used with a thickness planer. It allows you to take a board that is to wide for your jointer and flatten one side. Then that flat side can be used without the sled to flatten the other side, with your thickness planer I based this sled on one Keith Rust did for Fine Woodworking. You can see how I made the sled over at a blog I did. I’ve used it a couple times now and it works really well. It’s also very easy to build.

Here’s my entry for the Wood Joinery Challenge.

My wife asked for a foot rest to go under her desk, around the time the Summer Challenge was announced. I thought I could come up with a design that didn’t need: glue, nails, screws or mechanical fasteners. It took a little more time, but was a lot fun. It also sparked a lot of other ideas. I have several other bigger projects that I may try, with the same guidelines.

The foot rest is made from Peruvian Walnut with Maple pegs. I used through mortise and tenon joints and pegged them with Maple pegs. My first plan was to use wedge tenons, but my test joints kept breaking. This is the first time I’ve worked with Peruvian Walnut, and it seems very brittle and chips easily. So I went with plan B and pegged them instead. I let tenons on the stretchers run long (leftover because I didn’t use wedges), and liked the look it gave the foot rest. A Mission or Craftsman accent. The biggest challenge was marking out and cutting the through mortises on the top. I just took it slow and did a lot of test fits. Any gaps here wouldn’t look good! I have to say the “dry” fit was really tight and snug. I might not have needed as many pegs, but I liked the look. I also used the drawbore technique on the joints, and it really snugged up the joints even more.

Ok, here’s my first project post.

This is a small side table I just finished for our patio. It’s made of Honduras Mahogany, and goes with a lager table I made a couple years ago. The larger table has been out in the weather for a couple years and the top needs some refinishing. I’ll post pictures of the larger table when I have the top cleaned up.

I have a good friend who refurbishes old wood boats and he recommended that I use a product called Deks Olje for the finish (marine finish). I used it on the larger table and it did really well, although this last winter we had a lot of rain and snow. The table stayed pretty wet most of the winter, even with a cover on it. This next winter I will turn the table on its side so no water can sit on the surface.