This is a simple classic airplane I built by researching several photos on the internet and deciding what lines look great, what design is mostly basic and straight forward, and what parts should be left off because of possible smaller part breaks with heavy children’s play. The CLASSIC is what I came up with. The first model is the simple light colored pine plane. I mortised the wings and tail and joined them with two small screws and one fit peg reinforced with wood glue.

I worked more on the proportions of the second model which has a very defined darker wood grain. The mortises are basically the same however, I went with a more traditional joinery approach; 100% mortised and pegged with all wooden joinery and zero screws or other materials.

Durability was the question as I am intending these to be given to children at the “plane fascination age” who will not doubt toss these across the yard, dig with them in the dirt, and who knows what else. Durability was my number one goal. Looks and aesthetics were second.

THE TEST: Well, I took one to my son’s 6th Birthday party at our local park. Several of the kids “flew” the plane across the park and into the ground for a long time for a game of catch which was fine of course. The like it. (a free focus group) To my surprise, “no breaks” Knock on wood. So, I am going with this design for now until I have a report or customer service concern with breaks or cracks under normal use…whatever that means for a 6 year old. Hee hee. Im making many and providing replacements upon breaks under “normal” conditions. I’m sure they would not make good car jacks or door stops but, you know people. LOL

I left off many detailed parts such as landing gear, because the plane is meant to be played with and ultimately provoke imagination and pretend play, plus the smaller parts tend to break off first. Kids are busy, they have to have all their play time to play, not to have dad fix broken landing gear. If I see or think of a strong way to include more detailed parts that will actually look good and hold up long term, I’ll go for it, but until then, here it is; the CLASSIC. A plane jane plane…for true kids play!

CONSTRUCTION: The fun part, seriously, was hand fitting the mortise and/or dadoes of the wings, tail, and fuselage, and laying it all out for a tight fit and flush edges at the joints. Most of it is hand sanded on the final sanding and smoothing. Smoothing out the finished surface and rounding the majority of the hard edges really made a difference in the feel and look of the basic outline. It is a great hold to the hand for “flying it around”
Plus, I got to build it on my newer dead flat top workbench with 5×5 beam legs.

PS As I child of the 80’s I could not resist throwing in the “Ray-Bans” with one of the planes for photos. Oops on the rough photography if you look close.

Let me know what you think guys and how it could be better. It’s a start.

I milled down some beams to create some beefy legs for my new workbench.
Well, I had several cut offs that were headed to the burn pile.
So I salvaged a couple end pieces and begin to finally make my first mallet.

I am honestly not sure of the wood type I made the mallet head from except
that is is extremely hard and does not dent. It has worked great with my
trusty old blue marbles chisels. I finally got tired of digging the handles with my hammer
and the thong of the rubber mallet every time I used the for dovetails.

So I used a piece of reclaimed solid maple for the handle and some purple heart
for the wedge in the top. It is not “perfect” as far as gaps etc go, however,
It has served it’s purpose well as I have begun making hand joined heirloom toy airplanes.
Choping the mortises and rabbets for those have gotten the mallet some good use.

I also made my son a smaller mallet which he loves. Hey, he gets to smash things
with it and not get in trouble, what could be more fun than a five year old smashing away…
Except for the occasional back swing to the forehead…!

Hope you enjoy the pic. For my first shot at a homemade mallet, I’ll take it.
If I get fancy later, I’ll buy the sweet one from Blue Spruce (wow).
For now I am only investing in marking and measuring tools that are dead on.

If you haven’t yet, make a mallet for your shop, it’s not as bad as it seems.
If you have made tons of them…

Share your images and pics here, I love to see new styles and influences.

Keep on smashing….away at woodworking, what a way to relax and get lost in work and art!

Dovetailed School Box

I built this box using the plans for the 1839 School Box from The Joiner and The Cabinet Maker. I took some liberties in the lid and trim scale on the bottom. I still may add a few pieces of trim to the top edge after I determine the fit and finish of the top on the overall box.

I made this school or keepsake box from a few pieces of maple I salvaged out of a remodel job on a museum type room from the Mississippi Petrified Forest and it’s old cases which were being removed in order to make room for larger display cases for more artifacts.

Picture 1: This shows the original condition of the maple boards when I pulled the old cabinets apart several months ago. There was some white paint in some spots and some old glue residue here and there. Getting the boards into shape was a lot of fun. It gave me an excuse to use all my Stanley hand planes I had reconditioned and sharpened a while back.

Picture 2: This shows a freshly hand planed and smoothed panel ready to be cut to size for the school box. The maple looked amazing after hand planing especially after taking the No. 4 smoother plane to it. It was not a huge board so that kept it from totally exhausting me as was the case with hand planning the panels for the 6 board chest (see my projects for that one). I placed one of my chisels in the picture to help with scale. Wow, maple looks great all dressed up and smoothed down, without finish especially, in the natural.

Picture 3: Now this lid was a booger for sure. I made a frame and panel lid with more of the maple. It took a long time to get the grooves and mortise and tenons right. I built it without a plan and went by trial and error. I still have plenty to learn and get better at. If you look close you can see some of my joints are off and out of square. It was still fun and looks good overall for a personal box. This box is currently serving as my Bible and journal box.

Picture 4: This is just an overall shot of the maple boards finally dovetailed and joined without a top or bottom. I placed my tape measure and sliding bevel in the photo for scale and I thought it kinda added to the character of the picture. I am passing all this stuff to my son, one day after I’m gone hence the dovetails. I thought the angle of the picture was good also to show an overall photo of the box.

Picture 5: This picture really shows the black hardware handle and the trim (by this time I had run out of maple). The bottom trim pieces are cut from solid pine. I got the handles for about $3.00 each at our local big box home center. I tried to go rugged and old school, a black iron kind of look.

Picture 6: This picture shows the Finished Dovetailed School Box with the Custom Frame and Panel Lid. I feel the lid is somewhat out of scale for the box. That is why I cut the bottom trim pieces thicker than the usual plan sized pieces to balance out the lid and overall look of the project. I have a separate temporary lid on it for now until I decide for sure if I want to stay with the lid in the above picture or not. I have to buy some new hinges to attach the frame and panel lid properly.

SUMMARY:
The project was great. I would encourage anyone to tackle it and build as much of it as possible by hand based on your time available. I built this over a period of 3 to 4 weeks on weekends and some of the Christmas break. I hand cut the dovetails and hand planed all the maple on the box. However, I did run the lid panel through my delta planer as I was running out of time before my “real job” started back on Friday. I basically made the frame and panel lid because I did not want to glue up two pieces of maple for the top as I did not have a remaining solid piece of maple to span the width of the top. The frame and panel lid actually took just a bit longer than all the dovetail work. The project was very enjoyable and “therapeutic” I did most of it in my garage workshop area (you may view workshop on my workshop page of my lumberjocks site). It was great to use a lot less power tools and my son spent lots of time with me in the workshop. He’s 5. When I use power tools, he usually avoids the noise during my build time. Give the school box a try if you have not, The Joiner and Cabinet Maker book has great plans for it:

The modified 1839 Dovetailed School Box.

I wil be building one of these projects next in the near future:
I will post it when it’s completed…Now to get more wood…..(gasp)
A) Large Trestle Style Table Desk with a bank of small drawers on top
B) The secretary/slant top desk with book case from book Furniture in the Souther Style (I recommend this book highly).
C) Building a maple or cherry customized closet

Here are some Great Books If You Love To Build Furniture:

The Joiner and The Cabinet Maker (Red Cover)
Furniture in the Southern Style (by Robert W. Lang and Glen D. Huey)
The Shaker Legacy (By Christian Becksvoort)
How To Build Shaker Furniture (by Thomas Moser)

lienielsen.com
Lostartpress.com
toolsforwoodworking.com…there is a preview of the book at this link
http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/prodimg/aq/pdf/AQ-1135.pdf
Feel free to share any comments especially if you have built this or something like it.

Awesome Fine Furniture Maker Website is http://www.chbecksvoort.com/

BLANKET CHEST …......... FROM SCRATCH

So, I saw a 6 board chest done by Christopher Schwarz painted in blue with great trim work.
I had to try it out and put my own twist on it…as much as possible!
There is a free download plan for a 6 Board Chest available on Popular Woodworking. That is the
basic plan and pointers I used to get started. The base and leg pattern I got from a base piece off
of a buffet restoration I recently completed. It turned out better than I thought it would. The final project pic
will be posted this weekend after the nails and some paint. This piece will be raffled off to raise money for our school honor roll field trips. I have to say this has been a very rewarding and satisfying project. I just cannot put my finder on why…maybe it’s the antique Shaker issue at work. I must have looked at 25 6 board chests google images before starting.

I realized I had not added the picture sense I painted this 6 board chest. It is satin black with three crosses in white and robin eggs blue on the lid. It is what paint I had at the time. So life goes. I am probably going to repaint it or strip it down and stain it a darker brown like chestnut etc.

It is working great for storage and organization.
So the pictures show the following,

JOINTING THE EDGES

THE GLUE UP

PLANING THE PANELS

CUTTING THE BASE AND LEG DETAILS

This project is helping me hone in on better planing technique and smoothing process. It is very rewarding and produces more sweat for me then a jog around the block…which I used to do a couple years ago…
The parts are shaping up very nicely. I have dadoed the sides for a good joining with nails and some glue.

If you have never built a 6 board chest, I would say take it on….It’s straightforward and very practical to use around the house or for a nice gift for the Mrs.

Have fun building something…Life is tool short!

Sturdy Stool

The story…or “Stool Manifesto”
I had no idea this would end up this long when I started typing…enjoy…or not. It’s your time right :)

So I was helping my Uncle, a great professional woodworker, remodel museum display cases and a museum room at the Mississippi Petrified Forest in Flora, Mississippi. We tore out about three old walls before framing up new ones. He said feel free to keep any of the old framing lumber you want. Well, of course I kept the 2×4s that were not split. Yes, they were covered in paneling nails from top to bottom, but that’s what claws on hammers are for. I got the lumber home, cleaned it up, (speed trials of course), and started “head scratchin” to see what we needed around the house that I could build out of this free wood. The best kind sometimes.

I was trying to help my 5 year old with something the other day and sat down on his “step stool” AKA pee pee potty with closeable llid. Well, of course the next thing I hear was a pop, snap, and crack. Ya the Pee Pee potty/stool was about give way. Hence, it was time for a “real” stool that any of us could use anytime around the house and not have to worry about crashing to the floor. So I surfed the internet for a great stool. In the end I opted for the “trestle style” design. I trimmed the boards down with the table saw. Then I planed them a bit for smoothness and appearance. The coolest part was finding the right angle to make sure the two legs came out much wider at the bottom for good support against wobbling. I am very clumsy. The result is the stool in the picture. I call it the Hercules Household Stool because the main feature i aimed for in its construction was stability. Obviously, you can tell a fine finish was not in mind…yet.

So after construction, I brought it in and me and my son gave it the “trampoline test.” You guessed it; we both got on it at the same time and jumped up and down in front of the bathroom mirror (silliness is relaxing, try it sometime) I was relieved that it never wobbled or flipped over or made so much as a peep under the weight. Just some 2×4s, a couple screws, wood glue, and a little joinery. The two legs are joined into dados cut in the glued up top. I block planed all the edges and ends to get rid of the sharp corners. It is very easy to customize and can be painted any color or stained. Carvings are also quite possible.

So far I have used it for sitting on to read bedtime Bible stories to my son; place towels and clothes on for showers etc in the bathroom, retrieved items on top of tall cabinets, brushed teeth and combed hair on it (my son), used it as a step for our dog to get up on the bed, and a couple other things. It’s simple and kinda ugly. Above all else, it’s useful. I’m not a professional furniture maker, maybe one day. But, I would call it “Furniture of Necessity.” I say this because I am looking forward to getting Christopher Schwarz’ book titled Furniture of Necessity. Many of his books, articles, and pieces have inspired and influenced my woodworking ideas. This stool actually has gotten the most buzz on my FaceBook Business Page Dunlap Woodworking. It’s more of a blog, so don’t expect an amazing professional marketing page if you check it out. It’s kind of a “WannaBeWoodworker) page. Hey we do this because we love it, right. Cannot wait to build my next piece of useful furniture. Keep reading the woodworking magazines and books of your choice and make some more shavings or saw dust or both. At last a shameless plug…Check out the Dunlap Woodworking Facebook Page…If you like it….”like it” If not, that’s ok, It’s kinda in the rough anyway, but hey…life happens right.

Travis
TDog

PS I found a ton of free furniture plans on Popular Woodworking and Fine Woodworking online. Check them out before you purchase any plans or books for projects. I know many of you don’t need plans, but they are there if needed.

Dunlap Woodworking Facebook Page
The Hercules Household Stool
Simple Sturdy and most of all free to build! :)

Here is an arts and crafts shelf I built this year initially for books in my office as my other shelves are overflowing.
It started out good. The rails and stiles are all hand chiseled mortise and tenon with a couple helpful strokes on the table saw to get things started. It was a good learning process as squareness of so many mortise and tenon joints competing with the correctly cut length shelf boards is quite the tug of war to put it mildly. Well in the end the shelves turned out OK. But, OK is not good enough to go into the house yet. The plan came from Arts and Crafts Furniture, a book published by Popular Woodworking with contributions from very talented professional woodworkers and writers. The plans were great. I was where the problem was on this one (hurrying it).I work a regular 40-50 hour week job in addition to the hobby/startup business of furniture building. This project is built from Recycled Barn Timbers from the same huge barn roof I built the coffee table which is also shown in my project section on LumberJocks.

We get lots of use from it to stay organized and not lose our little guy’s or our big guy’s (me) shoes. The lady of the house rarely loses anythings as she has the amazing talent of focus and organization that skipped myself and my son so far at least a little. We put shoes and flip flogs and other items on it. I will try again with yellow pine or cherry in the future when I can make more time for it during the summer and actually put that one in home office, maybe after biting the bullet to buy that nice Powermatic bench top mortising machine…Ooh La La. So, here are some pics. Feel free to comment and check out Dunlap Woodworking on Facebook for more blog posts and furniture pictures.

God Bless and have a great day…
PS Save the economy buy American Products, Use American Materials . Anyway have a good one.

I built this Shaker Style wall shelf from article plans from a while back in one of the Woodworking magazines in regular circulation. It looked a lot more country in the original article and was made out of pine. I built this one from mostly oak I had left over after building a 6 foot bookshelf from my home office which has been overflowing with books for the last two years…see below signature for explanation, anyway. Well, this piece actually turned out quite nice looking and of course practical in my eyes. It has a more pronounced design and stronger lines all the way around. I had to improvise the way I mounted it on the wall as I have somewhat of a “failaphobia” with wall mounted objects as in I do not want anything falling of the wall and crashing down on my 5 year old boy who loves to hang on things with now idea what is waiting to crack his head from up above when wood, glued, nails, and screws do actually give way. Plus, I admit I test a piece of furniture over time by default by cramming so much onto it in a pinch. It is constructed of 3/4 oak plywood and solid oak boards for mostly trim. There may be some pine in it but I think not. I built it years ago. I just now cleaned it off for pictures today.

It is built with brass screw construction and some dados and rabbets. I used what was I had on hand at the time. Even the Coat pegs are currently long brass screws. Hey, they haven’t failed in over say three years. It has held coats, swim bags, pet trimming supplies, charcoal and grilling tools and lighter fluid bottles, hence the height. Several knifes, hammers, nail boxes, matches, anything unfortunately except what the nice home and garden type magazines show: the couple figurines and and some fake flowers. No paint yet, probably coastal blue or milk paint dark green if that’s possible. Hey, it was fun to build, and we actually use it every day. Many nice heavy coats have yet to walk off from this shelf and pegs (screw system) as I always know where they are during rain, storms, snow now and then, and 20 degree weather once in a while down here. Easy access is the best. Well that’s it. A regular but original furniture piece to store things from an everyday life.

Check out Dunlap Woodworking on FACEBOOK.

All comments and suggestions are welcome as I love woodworking and thank God in Heaven seriously for the continued use of my arms, legs, and fingers and such. Things can always be worse…

DISCLAIMER: Pardon the grainy photos if you zoom the pictures…my poor excuse…you guessed it…a down economy…LOL

Travis

Ok,

So I built this tool chest some time ago. It appears in my projects gallery with only one picture of the finished stained Tool Chest on an earlier project post. Well, today I spent sometime on a working-class man’s photography journey out in the garage. I made due…don’t laugh, OK laugh, Im good with that. I made due with a Maroon blanket for the backdrop and my trusty iPhone for the photography par non excellence. (LOL) But, I do feel the pictures turned out better than the originals even though they are not ready for Christi’s Antique Auction or winning the Photo journalism award at the local craft show. But, it was Fun! which is more than I can say for my other job, that 40 hour a week one. It’s still a blessing though in this economy.

Check out the new photo techniques (Poor Man’s Photo Shop) and let me know what you think.
Maroon Blanket in the Garage technique…By the way, the wife was quite Irate as some of the shavings wrapped themselves quite tightly in the blanket even after a strong run through the washing machine.
My words, Honey don’t worry I’ll pick out each little piece for you.
Her words, It’s ok, I have had my eye on a new heavy blanket anyway down at “such and such ” store…
Boy, did I mess that one up…there went that new Blue Spruce Marking Knife I was saving for…LOL

Dovetail Tool Tray

I built this dovetail tool tray mostly by hand except for using the table saw to cut the plywood to go on the bottom. It is made from Southern yellow pine. The sides are dovetailed and the bottom is nailed flush. The dovetails are becoming more enjoyable as I just keep cutting them and watching more videos and reading up. I built this tool tray to go in the tool chest (also posted in my projects). The larger tray in the pictures just uses flush nailed joints for the sides. I built it quickly to get most of my hand tools off the workbench. I plan on replacing it with another dovetail tool tray soon. The 1/2 inch yellow pine finishes up and sands to look nice as the end result. The sanding really softened the edges and gave it a nice look. I may work that look into the tool chest later thiis week or next. It is great to be a part of Lumberjocks where people “get it”...this wild passion to create objects by woodworking. Ya’ll have fun…

Tool Till

It is made from Southern Yellow Pine. I built this tool till after watching a Christopher Schwarz trailer for his Anarchist’s Tool Chest DVD on youtube. He took his main hand tools out of the chest and slid them into some type of till or hanging system on his bench. I figured this would also keep me from reaching in and out of my tool chest thousands of times during a work session in the garage. The till currently rests on the back of my workbench out of the main work area but within arms reach. I could not resist adding my Stanley Smoothing Plane and a guage into the shot for a full picture.

I also added a photo of the main books I have received many ideas for modification from and plenty of great reading time over the last several months. From left to right they are the following:

The Anarchist’s Tool Chest (Black Cover) Great for hand tools and tool chest ideas plus much more
The Joiner and the Cabinet Maker (Red Cover) a great read and early look into hand tool work trades
The Essential Woodworker (Dark Maroon Cover) the technical parts and images of joinery

In the Till

5 Marples Blue Chip Chisels (Made in Sheffield England) passed down from my Grandfather
1 Lie Nielsen Dove Tail Saw
1 Stanley wooden and steel square
1 Off Brand Panel Saw

Mount it or make it modular as you choose.

Icheck out a few videos, books, or images and go for it.
It seems to be an easy or at least straight forward build. I had a blast

Bamboo Tool Shelf

This was a tool shelf I built with a drawer to put my main hand tools close within reach. The main reason I built it was to stop misplacing tools in the middle of working on a project between processes and tools. It really helped…use the square…hang the square on the pegs…etc…etc. I kept chisels and nail pullers and other tools in the drawer. I installed a mix of hardware before finally learning the wooden round pulls actually worked most effectively. I will now install the shelf in another place in my garage for tool storage in the future.

The only problem basically that happened with the tool shelf and drawer was I ran out of room for needed tools My tools also constantly stayed covered in dust due to power tool use (and I did not add doors). This would lead to me building the Heirloom Tool Chest which is another project I recently posted. It was a great shelf though to place many main tools on for easy access.

Now I will use the tool chest and take the main hand tools out during work time and place them in the new till I recently built to be stored on the back of the workbench in some particular fashion…such as the one featured on the French workbench and other variations. Check it out on my projects page.

This is the second coffee table I built from old barn wood from a barn that was blown down by a tornado in our area a couple years ago. A day with a crow bar and a trailer turned out to provide a pretty large supply of free wood. I was able to recycle several huge nails used to build the barn which I used on the construction of the table. I think the toughest part was preparing and gluing up the right pieces for a uniform thickness as many of the boards were a true 2 or 3 inch thickness with many cupped and crooked from natural weathering. But, hey, it was free wood and nails. One of my friends bought the table for his wife. That was icing on the cake for sure.

“So many projects…so little time…”

Psalm 23

This is my first mostly hand crafted project; an heirloom tool chest based on a FWW plan. One picture shows the finished chest with stain applied. Another picture shows the top view without stain highlighting the frame and panel lid. One of the pictures shows the glued up panels stacked up after I final hand cut the dovetails with much fun and frustration. Another picture shows how the frame and panel life actually fits together with some mallet taps to say the least. Finally, one of the pictures shows the unstained chest with finished tool trays and particular tools in place. I finally stained it In the first of July of 2012. It took a while to settle on a style and color of finish. I am very satisfied. MinWax brand stain with a pre-conditioner used. It is a color a bit darker then “Early American.” The chest is made mostly of Southern Yellow Pine from a home center in our area. I have divided the inside at the bottom for hand planes and added a sliding tray up top for smaller hand tools. It is a smaller scale tool chest as opposed to C. Schwarz’ Anarchist Tool Chest design.

I cleaned out my previous open cabinet and single drawer for this storage method after plenty of dust covered my hand tools because of some machine work earlier on other projects. Learning more about cutting dovetails and mortise and tenons has been plenty of fun. That is also my first shot at hand cutting a mortise and tenon joint for the frame and panel lid. Obviously I still have lots to learn. But, it is plenty of fun and relieves lots of stress getting lost in the handwork per say.

I did use the table saw quite a bit for ripping the parts and some crosscutting of parts. The glue ups at different times was extremely challenging using mostly pipe clamps, glue, and a dead blow mallet. I am still debating on paint or a natural stain or finish for it to show the joinery. However, after seeing more professional work, I may opt to paint this chest anyway. But then again, I am in it because I love working wood. No matter how out of center or imperfect the end result may be. The pursuit of great work is a reward in itself.

Brass handles for carrying and the prep and finish are almost all that’s left. And, man…does this little chest hold lots of hand tools. It’s made much more space available on the old workbench and saw horses…

Tools mostly used…
Marples chisels, LN Dovetail saw, stanley square, smaller hammer, stanley bevel, titebond II, pipe clamps, self centering ruler, irwin clamps, Elmer’s wood glue, Dunlap Block Plane, Stanley Jack and Smoothing Plans, Lowe’s pine lumber, sander, and a few other tools, can’t wait to build another project in the months to come…I will post a barn wood coffee table I built a little later.

God Bless,

TDog
Psalm 121