A set of 20 card holders made per request for a friend out of walnut.

designed to have holding power up to 8.5”x11” card stock without looking bulky and appear to float on the surface of the table.

Finished with shellac with a rubbed wax top coat.

A quick to make Whistle or two. Made out of cherry cut off, and a maple insert (just whatever I found at hand that would fit together).

I made this in a couple of hours with my daughter (including waiting for the glue to dry). Was a fun project.

Finished with PPP and beeswax as top coat.

Could blog the making-off if anyone is interested.

Thanks for stopping by.
Peace

Added Blog here: http://lumberjocks.com/PurpLev/blog/30850

Custom made Frame saw from curly maple and mahogany which matches my workbench.

Custom Blade length = 19”

Frame is 1-1/2” wide and 1-1/4” thick, slightly narrowed down and rounded off for hand grips which also gives it a smaller look than it really is.

Blade is mounted on custom made stainless steel clips that are embedded in the mahogany handles.

Tension is applied via stainless steel wire between 2 threaded clips that thread into 2 studs and create tension.

Finish = BLO (my favorite tools/shop finish – easy to apply, gives nice depth, and doesn’t leave a shiny film)

This project was blogged here:
http://lumberjocks.com/PurpLev/blog/series/4433

Thanks for stopping by,
Peace!

Wanted to make me something for the office, and am a big fan of mechanical pencils (over pens). Made this one out of Rosewood using a slim-pencil kit.

finish is 6 coats of HUT crystal coat and 2 coats of bees wax.

I couldn’t resist. After getting the feel for it with the maple counterpart I just HAD to make one out of Purple Heart (PH).

I have had some trouble turning PH in previous project (the rings box) and did some research on it and I believe it was due to the turning tool angle of attack. after playing around with it and approaching the wood at a different angle, I was getting much better results, but there is still room for improvement on my part and I will have to make a better tool rest that will sit even closer and at a more convenient height to allow me to bring the tool to the wood properly.

This was made on a metal lathe which was a concern of mine (speeds and all) but now with this one finished, I’m pretty content with the results and am confident the lathe will not be an issue. I chucked the pen mandrel in a 3jaw chuck, and for a tool rest I used a 1/2” round bar seated in a boring-bar (metal) tool holder.

While this setup ‘works’ it presents a few issues:
1. large chuck = a lot of turning metal which is not meant to be turned this fast, and is a safety hazard to hands.
2. tool rest not at proper height and not close enough to work due to it’s being seated in a metal tool holder that by itself cannot get too close to the work.

I will be making a collet chuck for the lathe to take care of #1, and I’ll make a tool rest that will sit directly on the bed or on the cross slide and will be able to position it exactly where I want.

For now I’m very pleased with the capabilities and results.

Thanks for watching,
Peace!

I wanted to turn a pen for the longest time. Ended up doing this one at the Springfield, MA WW show.

Material is lightly figured maple, with a slim pen kit. I like how it came out to be.

A Birthday present for my wife. This is a Cocobolo and Brass ring. The cocobolo it a piece that I picked up at Rockler just because I found it to have very interesting grain flows and I think it really worked well for the ring.

The box is my official first time using Purple Heart. I wanted the box to match up the ring and provide with a close tight fitting to hold the ring when not in use. I considered making a 4 sides jointed box, but had this vision of the turned box which I then decided to go with. I must say turning wood is a messy messy business. I think I spent just as much time to clean around as it took me to turn it. I just rolled with this box but I did learn a lesson or 2 if I should ever have to make another box in a similar fashion (Or it might be easier to just go with a bandsaw box). The purple heart has a really nice defined brown color after freshly cut and finished, and now several days later it is starting to turn purplish, both are nice to look at.

Peace and Peas.

I guess now that it’s the 3rd year in the making it can be considered a tradition in the making. This time I decided to mix the elements and introduce a brass core to the rosewood and came up with this dreidel that you can see here.

Also made a mini top made of brass alone. keeping the body round and barrel like makes for an interesting phenomena – since the side is round and smooth it acts like a bearing surface and will keep on spinning on it’s side even after it loses its initial inertia and falls of it’s tip. it will keep turning on its side for another 20 or so seconds.

Happy Holidays to all, and a Happy New Year.

Peace!

This was a fun 1 day build following thewoodwhisperer.com charity build and was blogged here.

I made this with the help of my 4 yo daughter which only made this more fun than it would have otherwise. I let her cut out the paper templates, cut the handles, paint it and put it all together as well as test drive it and decorate it (as can be seen in the pictures) while I did the wood cuts and shaping.

Main tools used were a jigsaw and a router to duplicate parts and to chamfer all the edges.

Materials:
Pre-laminated pine panel (3/4”x24”x72”)
3/4” diameter oak dowel for the handles

Finish:
2 coats of dewaxed shellac

Fun build, fun ride, works real well.

A rolling toolcart that matches my previously made toolbox for metalwork toolings. Tried to keep the costs to a minimum, but still was more than I had originally expected. It is custom sized to fit my needs and works great. matches the toolbox great, moves easily around with the large wheels, and drawers operate smoothly. Very pleased with how this one came out, better then I expected.

Materials:
Mahogany plywood for carcass
Solid Mahogany for edging and drawer pulls
Oak for drawer boxes
Rock Maple for drawer fronts.
Full extension ball bearing slides
5” swivel double-locked wheels

The building process is blogged here

A Box over 2 years in the making. Started with a lot of good intents, but hit a few mental and confidence blocks which extended the build time for what seemed like forever. Finally it is off my workbench!

The box measures 10”w x 10”d x 12”h and is made of Mahogany and striped with Maple for accent which was then resawed to make the box parts. Drawers are Poplar with Oak fronts veneered with Curly Anigre. Knobs are shaped Mahogany cutoffs from the box.

The box is intended for bead jewelry making and will house beads, strings, and lower large drawer is set for tools (pliers/cutters) and may later on include a fitted insert.

Finish is 5 coats of dewaxed shellac mixed with mahogany sawdust to seal the wood followed by 3 coats of oil poly to protect the box as it will see constant use.

When I started the box I was very inspired by GaryK’s Box of Drawers, but it has since then took a life of it’s own according to my own capabilities and capacity.

I will still tweak it slightly as the knobs are extending about 1/32 too far out, and I would like add feet, and raise the lower tier of drawers off the front work surface, but all in all it’s done with and I consider it finished (literally)

A Custom sized machinist toolbox to house lathe tools including larger quick change tool holders, threading toolings, centers, chucks, and other gauges and machining tools.

I was not able to find any toolbox that would fit some of my tools so decided to make my own, while at it, why not use nicer woods than the more common Oak – so I used Mahogany for the majority of the box with Birdseye Maple for the drawer fronts, and Poplar for the drawers boxes. The pulls are made of Walnut to give it another brown tone contrasting the drawer fronts. Overall size is 18” wide x 10” deep x 14” tall (roughly – was not using a ruler on this project)

This type box is quite challenging as it presents joinery in different orientations to allow the opening on the front for the drawers as well as on top for the top compartment – it most definitely was a good learning experience, and a long project to bring to completion. While not doing woodworking for living, I was able to complete this box from the start to finish in about 3 weeks while working on it almost daily (2-6 hours a day depending on how much time I had to spare).

If you are interested, I blogged the progress here:
Mahogany Machinist Toolbox Blog

Thanks for watching.

In the spirit of the holidays, I made some svivonim (dreidels) last weekend for the family kids. unplanned for, but I ended up with 9 of them which seem to come together interestingly into different structures such as a hidden magen-david (start of david) in the first picture.

3 are made of cherry,

3 are made of applewood with 2 sides laminated with left over 1/8” mahogany veneer I cut a couple of years ago,

3 are made of mahogany with 1 side laminated with 1/64” veneer cutoff of applewood that was merely some slices off of the previous dreidels that I cleaned up.

I carved the appropriate hebrew letters on the sides and let my daughter paint them (will post pic of that later).

Happy Chanuka (starts tonight) and Happy Holidays to all.

Peace.

Edit: As requested, I’ll add this to the main post, and not only as a comment that could get lost, here is the story about the letters:

There are 4 sides on the dreidel, each gets a letter.

Now, actually there are 2 versions depending on where the dreidel is made whether it be IN Israel, or abroad. If the dreidel is made in Israel then the 4 letters are:

Nun (נ) for the word ‘Ness’ which translates to a ‘miracle’
Gimel (ג) for the word ‘Gadol’ which translates to ‘Big/Great’
Heh (ה) for the word ‘Haya’ which translates to ‘happened’
Peh (פ) for the word ‘Poh’ which translates to ‘here’

The phrase נס גדול היה פה ‘Nes Gadol Haya Poh’ (great miracle happened here) refers to the miracle of Chanuka and the oil pitcher. During the Roman empire, Jews were not allowed to practice their religion in Israel, and the Menorah with it’s 6+1 lights at the Temple in Jerusalem was not allowed to be lit. the romans confiscated all the oil that was used to light the menorah, and only 1 small pitcher was left unnoticeable. The miracle was that the small pitcher supposedly refilled itself with oil every day allowing the menorah to be lit for 8 days – hence the 8 days of the holiday, and hence the lighting of the Chanukia which is a 8+1 lights version of the menorah.

Now, if the dreidel was made outside of Israel, than the last letter is changed to a Shin (ש) for the word “Sham” which translates to ‘there’ as the miracle was ‘there’ in Jerusalem.

...And then there were 2.

This project started as a 3 board setup. 1 regular board, 1 bread cutting board with a drawer to collect crumbs, and one board with grooves that can be used as a trivet.

For loss of concentration the middle board with the drawer fell victim to a router climb cut yanking adventure, and now there are only 2 boards left unless I end up fixing the 2nd board.

made of bowling alley hard maple, and some applewood slices for accent. each board is 12”x12”x1.5” bottoms are chamfered, and handles are grooved ~3” into the boards for convenient holding.

finish is mineral oil.

My wife asked me to make her a ring holder in the shape of a pyramid or some sort to have a dedicated place for the rings as sometimes they need to be searched for 8o) .

At first I thought I’d rig my drill press to turn something, but thought it may be too much trouble at the moment while I’m still trying to organize the garage, plus I didn’t feel like messing around with jigs and fixtures – although in the future I may set something up. I ended up shaping this entirely with my block plane and a HD rasp. I kinda like how it came out.

Someone posted a while back how small a cutoff needs to be to be trashed. This ring holder was actually made of a cuttoff piece of curly maple that I used to make my #6 plane tote It’s made from the cutoff piece behind the tote where you can see the initial curve that I used as a base for this holder:

I chiseled the waste as close as I could to my planned shape, and rasped the rest while also rounding it all off. the bottom was then chamfered to give it a distinct looks like it’s a free standing piece.

Finish is 1 coat of BLO, and 2 coats of oil poly (minwax)

Pallet to Mallet,
a Mallet from a Pallet.

I needed one for a very long time as I always seemed to be using the closest available heavy block of wood for chisel work. I ended making this one from a single Oak pallet slat that had some nice figure to it.

head is 3”x5”x~2.5” – laminated 4 layers
handle is 1 1/4x~1 1/4”x as long as I could have it (for balance). It’s ~16” long (through the 3” head)-laminated 2 layers

The handle is not glued to the head, but is wedged in. the inner parts of the head are cut at 2° on each side, and a wedge with edges at 4° once pounded in (with glue) presses the handle tight into the head, while also keeps it from moving with the now wedged/slopped handle top – its basically locked in.

The head faces are both cut at 1° slope to follow the direction of the blow better.

finished with 2 coats of BLO.

After a long time of no shop time I finally was able to put together several short sessions to get this one made. I finally feel like a real LJ!

During school I always doodled, and esp. in math/physics classes I used to play along with the squares in the notebooks. In particular I used to draw this magen-david (star of david) a lot, and after seeing so many cutting boards on LJ, I always wanted to put this concept into a board.

This project didn’t work as easily as planned, and I faced the need to fix and alter the pieces on practically every step of the way, but I think it turned out well. if anyone is interested I can start a blog showing the progress of this board.

I’m glad how it came out, although the process was tedious working with so many small parts. definitely learned a lot of lessons for upcoming projects, and got good practice on each and every step.

The board is made of maple and cherry, both are food safe. Glue used was Gorilla Wood glue which is also FDA approved for food related items. The third pictures is shiny as it was taken just after applying mineral oil on.

For additional pictures of the before-during-after and the build process you can check out the build blog right here.

Thanks for watching,
Peace!

After having a too high bed (used with under-bed shelving for storage) which I didn’t like, I disassembled it and recycled the plywood for my router table (still in the words for lack of time), and instead, built this low platform bed.

This bed is made entirely using 3/4” chinese (I assume) cabinet grade birch plywood from HD (some $20+ a sheet), there are about 2 full sheets here including the platform under the mattress. the headboard is a gloat find of top veneer of figured birch. obviously I snagged it quickly, and found a good use for it.

the shelves are connected to the headboard using slots that they slide into, and provide enough support (as you can see, they are supporting hefty speakers, and can support a laptop easily or a bunch of heavy duty books).

the platform is a simple frame with 2 cross bars in the center holding the platform on which the mattress is resting on. the corners are miters for looks although at this height it’s hard to see. very simple, very useful.

Thanks for looking,
Peace.

Edit: Several people asked me about the design of the bed. it is just something that I came up with to save on labor, time, and materials. I’ve attached a basic render of my design (I actually did the model now, but the bed was made a year ago). the model does not show measurements as this is something that is related to the mattress you’ll be using. the mattress is overhanging the platform by 1/2” all around, the platform is overhanging the base by 5” all around.

After a long day of cleaning and reorganizing the work space, I was able to fit my tool cabinet above my workbench, and setup a decent work area. although this workbench is not 100% complete (some details that needs to be finalized), it is in functional state, and I consider it a finished project.

It all started here when I came upon an ad on craigslist of a bowling alley doing remodeling and replacing the rock-maple floors. they were giving away the floor slabs to any taker, this helped recycle the wood, and also they were able to avoid having to pay for it to be hauled away. After reading and seeing Karsons bench, and GaryKs bench, I was always keeping an eye open for bowling alleys with the desire to build a bench out of it, and so, when the opportunity knocked, it was very frustrating that I wasn’t able to actually go and pick it up, since it was way too big, and waaaaay too heavy… I decided to drop the idea and forget about it, when ryno101 contacted me and offered to join forces, and team up to get some bowling alley slabs – pointless to say – I jumped on the opportunity, which was too good to be true – get some bowling alley slabs, and hanging out with a fellow LJ. it was indeed good, but also true.

This workbench has been quite a bit of a project. more than I had expected, but all in a good way.

Working on a project of this magnitude sure does make any future projects seem more feasible. each mortise and each dovetail were huge and required a lot of work and a lot of clean overlap of cuts. I can’t wait to work on a smaller project where no such overlapping would be required.

there were almost every woodworking skill and technique that I ever did, or wanted to practice involved in this workbench, from mortise and tenons, dovetails, lamination, bent lamination, breadboard, and more.

This was a great project to work on, the benefits of the outcome are many. on top of getting a fantastic platform to do work on, I had a chance to practice different techniques, and get better at them. I cannot recommend enough to anyone that is thinking about it -to build your own bench, and to overbuild it as much as possible – challenge yourself! do more than you are comfortable doing! force yourself to learn new skills, or do the things you know – better! it’s a great opportunity to get better and rip the benefits immediately and throughout the project.

There are a few things that needs to be finalized on this bench such as the wagon vise, and a drawers cabinet underneath the bench, but those can be worked out as side projects while I focus some time on other projects for now. I do not use a tail/end/wagon vise much (until now) and mainly use a planing stop, so missing the wagon vise for the time being has no big impact, although it would be nice to have it.

I really like the leg vise (after I finessed it a bit), it moves real smooth, has a great capacity, does not rack at all (I was pleasantly surprised), and has a tremendous grab.

This project is blogged here and I will continue to update the blog as things gets added.

Dimensions:
32.5” benchtop height from floor
80” long
30” wide
5”x5” Legs

Materials:

Rock Maple for the top (bowling alley), and vises
Mahogany for Endcap, and trims
Hemlock FIR for the legs
Lee Valley tail vises for the vises screws

Finish on everything is 3 coats of Boiled Linseed Oil – first time I used this, and I really like it. it has a natural warm look, and since it’s penetrating oil, there is no hard layer on the wood, so you get the ‘wood feel’.

Thanks for reading,
Peace.

This is an old project, that I just ran across it’s photos, and thought I might as well post it here.

This was a storage cabinet for my NLE (Non Linear Editing) workstation (I used to do video editing, and computer animation). the cabinet was designed to be deep and high enough to completely fill the space under my desk to maximize storage space. it had 3 drawers (1 for paper files, 1 for DVD backups, and 1 for DV Media Backups, and raw footage). It also has a covered deep shelf for rulers, cutting boards, and other long/flat items that didn’t have a suitable place, and a top that was used as extra space to hold things when needed.

the cabinet is made entirely from 1/2” birch plywood, and was made with a cordless set of drill+circular saw (when I still had life in the batteries) and drywall screws… one of my first projects. the back is 1/2” birch plywood nailed in with pin nails and a hammer. then the entire thing was sanded and left unfinished.