I made these a while back and just realized the only picture I’d posted was when I tried cutting my finger off a Trepanning (circle cutting) bit.
Made from scraps of dunnage left from squaring stock on the tablesaw.
Each hole is cut to fit the coin.
But in requiem, the wood is so thin, (about 5/16” thick) and so figured that two of them moved so much they cracked too much to repair so they ended up in the fireplace.
The next iteration will be from thicker wood.
Sanded to 320 grit.
One coat of 2# shellac rubbed off while still wet then polished on the Beall system.

We picked up a wire-framed candle holder a couple months ago.
It held 3 floating candle holders.
Then we got a couple of pieces of color laminated plywood.
So I thought I’d make a holder.
Sanded to 320 grit.
2# shellac buffed off while wet.
Buffed on the Beall System.

The wife and I go to the thrift stores looking for things I can incorporate into my woodworking.
We picked up the glass cylinder for a couple of bucks.
I used a pre-made bowl blank to make the base.
In use the candle sits on a glass plate.
Base is about 8 inches in diameter.
Base and cylinder are about 14 inches tall.

Wood is dunnage shipped from India, possibly Sapele (African Mahogany).
Sanded to 320 grit.
Finished with 2# shellac buffed off while still wet.

I had a contract to build a shipping crate for the Long Range Lineup System off the USS Enterprise (CVN-65).
When I arrived on site I found that part of the system had already been shipped so they didn’t need as large a crate as originally requested. So I did a quick (about 10 minute) SketchUp redesign. Included in the redesign was a shift to do a zero-loss build. Zero-loss is using as much of the lumber as possible so there is a little cut-off as possible. In this case it was easy as the crate went from 8 feet long to 4 feet. So I raised the sides from 40 to 48 inches. I ended up with not enough scrap to fill the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket.

The crate is nailed together except for the top and front which are screwed together with square-drive screws.
I put the top and front on with just a few screws, mark the edges where the remaining screws should go, and put the remaining screws in a ziploc fastened to the inside frame.

On site time was 0705.
Off site at 1250.
Actual build time for the crate was 87 minutes including the time to redesign, cut, and assemble.
Part of the extra time was measuring for an additional 9 crates, and waiting for the rain to stop so I could reload the truck.
9 – #2 SYP 2×4s 8 feet long
3 – #2 SYP 4×4s 8 feet long
2 1/2 sheets 1/2 inch CDX plywood.

I was hoping to give the new sawhorses a workout, but did very little work on them, mostly just cutting the plywood.

I got a contract for 26 shipping skids to carry Launching Engine Cylinder Covers for the USS Enterprise (CVN 65)) as part of her decommissioning.

Each Cylinder Cover assembly is 12 feet long, 15 inches wide, 5 inches tall and weighs about 900 pounds.
The skids are designed to carry 2 covers nested between 4×6 runners.
The runners and stringers are assembled with 1/2 by 10 inch galvanized hex bolts with the heads countersunk into the bottom of the stringers.
Average assembly time was 30 minutes including moving material, cutting, drilling, and assembly.

From the profits on this I get a MIG welder and a cutting torch setup….MORE TOYS!!!

More details in the blog section.

I made some sample handles a few weeks ago for a gentleman who sells walking sticks.
He called and asked for more so I turned these.
Average time on the lathe from square blank to 320 grit sanded was 10 minutes.
Some pieces were Curly Movingui or Curly Morare.
I don’t know the species of the lighter colored wood, but it has a VERY irritating odor.

I made a 16 minute video of the process…

This is another baluster I got for repair/replacement a LONG time ago.
I decided to repair vice replace because I’m terrible at freehand copying/production turning.
The spindle had about 6 coats of paint on it so I first scraped the paint off the top and bottom square portions to get a smooth and true surface.
Next I sanded the broken ends to square them up as much as possible without affecting the overall length.
I planned on drilling both sections and them gluing them back together with a dowel in the middle.
I drilled the shorter section on my floor model drill press, but the longer section was too long to fit so I broke out the 1947 Shopsmith and set up for horizontal boring.
I used 5 minute epoxy to set the dowel and then clamped the pieces to a bar clamp to keep them aligned while the epoxy cured. Since it was about 45 degrees in the shop I pointed a thrift store heat gun (hair dryer) at the glue joint to speed up the cure.
After about 30 minutes I checked the cure and popped the clamps…perfectly aligned (whew.)
I decided to scrape the rest of the old paint off on the lathe.
I used a couple of scrapers with no toolrest, just hooking my thumb over the spindle while running the lathe as slow as possible. The first few layers had not adhered well so they chipped off quickly.
After I got as much paint off as I felt I could without endangering the wood I switched to 120 and 180 grit sandpaper.
Since the piece was to be painted I didn’t remove all the old paint, just enough to smooth things out.
I put a coat of 2# shellac on the turned portion, wiped off while wet with an old t-shirt.
Then to the belt sander to take the paint off the square ends, followed by 2# shellac.
Then out to the yard for a primer coat of Kilz.

Total time was about 5 hours, but much time lost to playing with the Shopsmith, lunch, and side projects.

Glad to finish this looong overdue work…which the customer will get for free.

I got this Harley Davidson gas cap cover about 18 months ago to make a paperweight to sell at a Harley festival.
I didn’t get it done before the show, so It’s been riding around in my craft show box.
I dug it out this afternoon and made this using a bowl blank I made up before Christmas.

Just a simple curve with a slight recess for the cover so it’s flush with the wood.

4 1/4 inches wide, 2 inches tall.

Indian dontknow wood (dunnage).
Sanded to 320, then 1 coat of 2# shellac immediately rubbed off with an old t-shirt, then polished with the Beall system.

Not counting the time to make the blank…from chucking on the lathe to taking it in the house was about 20 minutes.

I had some scraps of wood left over and was trying to figure out what do make with them.
The wife said she was going to go buy some business card holders for her cards at the craft shows we go to.
BINGO!!!
I made a few and they worked great…one more thing in the repertoire.
We sold some so I made more. Then we realized a smartphone would sit in them as well.
No change in design or construction, just an added application.

I cut each piece to 3 1/2 inches, then bandsaw at a freehand angle into two pieces.
The grooves are cut to 3/4 inch on a RAS that’s semi-permanently set up with a 3/4 in dado blade.

Then I sand them to 220 on a disk/belt sander trying to vary the shape of each one just a little.

Finish is 2# shellac rubbed off while wet, and some are the polished with the Beall system.

I’ve run out of scraps, so now they are a production item.

A former boss asked me to fix/replace a baluster/bannister/spindle from his house.
I guess it was a year ago, maybe longer.
I finally got around to making him a couple.
The first one was a practice piece. It had a knot hole that was half the thickness of the spindle.
I turned it with the piece missing, but the practice piece turned out well enough I filled the gap with wood shavings from the turning and sawdust from by belt sander with superglue to fix it (lots of superglue). The 6th picture shows the filled in hole before painting.
I must admit, I’m becoming a fan of superglue.
The original baluster was broken in half where the second bead at the top joined the long taper.
I drilled holes in both pieces, then epoxied a dowel to hold it together. I didn’t watch my alignment while the epoxy set, so the piece is off by about 3 degrees. The original is the one on the far right in the 4th picture.

Pine, sanded to 220, one coat of 2# shellac rubbed off with an old t-shirt while still wet, then a few coats of Kilz white primer.

Powermatic 3520b

As I posted in a blog article a small bowl I was experimenting with flew apart at 1300 RPM.
No injuries, minimal damage, lesson learned.
Not to be intimidated, I glued the pieces back together and finished the bowl.
This is one of the few pieces of dunnage I feel comfortable naming the species.
In this case I believe this is curly movingui based on images I’ve been able to surf up.

curly movingui dunnage

5 1/2 inch diameter
5/15 inch tall
3/32 inch thick

sanded to 320 grit
1 coat of 2# shellac immediately buffed dry with an old t-shirt
polished with the Beall system.

I do some subcontracting for the US Navy building shipping crates.
These were for the Improved Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (IFLOS) for an aircraft carrier. IFLOS is part of the equipment Navy pilots use to land their aircraft on aircraft carriers.

This contract was to crate up one system, I ended up building 4 crate covers for existing pallets.
22 sheets of 3/4 CDX plywood, 16 4×4s, 22 2×4s, and about 500 nails and 200 screws.

This helps pay for my tools and truck so I can do the decorative woodworking that I like.

I made these one afternoon.
I make handles for several things, so I have lots of blanks cut and ready to turn. The one with the pointed handle is an off axis turning. I made the scoop end on axis, then shifted about 1/4 inch in one direction, then 1/4 inch in the other. But I didn’t turn the off axes the same amount so the handle is more flat on one side than the other. As a result is fits very nicely in your palm and give a better grip for twisting the scoop through hard ice cream.
As a side note, there is only one scoop, I keep the handles separate until a customer picks the one they like, then I glue them on with 5 minute epoxy…it keeps the costs down.
The wood is all Indian dontknow, sanded to 320 grit, with at least 2 coats of CA, then buffed with the first stage of the Beall system.

More stuff visible at…
Pinterest
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and Facebook

I must have missed the email about the great mallet exchange.
But I have to show my dual purpose mallet.
I turned it as a practice for making some oak table legs for a customer.
The wood is more of the Indian dontknow I use for most of my work.
This particular piece is incredibly dense, close-grained, and hard.
The grain is so fine it is barely visible.
It is much harder than oak as well, so hard in fact that after I rip about 50 feet of it (2 inches thick) I have to take the 60-tooth carbide blade to the sharpener.
The reddish color is the actual color of the wood.
And the cracks seem to be a characteristic of the wood as well.
I made a document display out of the wood and like the way it looks.
I turned this last April and started beating things with it soon after.
Works like a champ, and no visible dings or dents yet.

I made a couple of scoops for Christmas presents and posted them to Pinterest
To my (pleasant) surprise it generated a request for more.
I have the process down to 30 minutes from grabbing a handle blank to ready to glue the scoop on.

Pinterest a pretty nice site, it lets you price items, share items, and link to facebook.

If you have any questions, just drop me a line.
Enjoy,

Trying to kill off the bowl blanks from Christmas…Deb was throwing away some old Yankee candles…
They’re all the same diameter jar so as I was taking them to the shop (for the wax of course) I thought….why not.

More dunnage (Indian dontknow) sanded to 320 with a single coat of 2# shellac buffed off while it was still wet.

I may shine it up on the Beall, or not.

Enjoy

Yep, yet another bowl design from the dunnage pile.
I made a lager “inverted” bowl a couple weeks before Christmas and thought I’d try it out on a smaller scale.
Indian dontknow wood, sanded to 320 grit, one coat of 2# shellac buffed off while wet, then about 3 or 4 applications of superglue on the outside for that shiny finish.

Gotta figure out how to get the superglue to dry smoother….got some ridges on it.

I was in the shop yesterday trying to figure out how to fit 1000 square feet of shop equipment into a 750 square foot shop.
I needed a brain break and decided to relax and play around on the lathe.
I have a bunch of bowl blanks I made for the Christmas show season but didn’t get turned, so I thought I’d try carrying the mushroom bowl concept a little further.
After an hour I’d turned this little trivet.

It’s 7 inches in diameter, about 1 inch tall, and varies from a little over 1/8 inch thick to paper thin (which was a mistake.)

Wood is Indian dontknow dunnage (almost all I use.)

Sanded to 320 grit, with a liberal coating of Teak oil left to set for 15 minutes, then buffed with an old t-shirt.

A couple days before Christmas Deb stopped by woodcraft to pick something up for me.
She also brought back an ice cream scoop kit (very nice stainless kit.)
She suggested I make a handle for it from dunnage to give to our daughter in law (that gets the dunnage for me.)
So I grabbed a pre-cut blank for a cane handle and made the one on the bottom.

She like it so much I decided to make one for her.
I had a couple of pieces of laminated colored plywood and decided to make her handle out of that.

Scoops glued to handles with 5 minute epoxy.

Both were sanded to 320 grit and finished with several coats of superglue…my first attempt at using CA for finishing. I LIKE IT!!!

We buy the glass tops to lamps and candles at the second hand stores for me to make bases.
This is my first attempt at a “Hurricane” Candle Holder.
I think the top is actually from a Kerosene Lantern, but it worked great for this.
The wood is more Indian dontknow dunnage.
This particular piece has a distinctly pinkish hue to it.
The base is about 7 inches in diameter and about 2 inches tall.
The top is hollowed out about 1 1/2 inches for the bottom of the chimney to set in, but the entire top is sloped inward slightly to let the chimney set flush with the wood.
Sanded to 320 grit, then one coat of 2 pound shellac immediately buffed with an old t-shirt while the shellac was still drying.