Made this to provide access to the loft above the kitchen I was remodeling, and incorporated it into an enclosure for the refrigerator with some additional storage. The rails are doubled thickness of 3/4” oak veneer plywood, with 1×2 oak facing to hide the raw edges. Treads are 3/4”x7” solid oak. Finished with 3 coats acrylic floor varnish.

My request concerns the stainless handrails I ordered from West Marine (4th pic.) I want to face mount them on the upper part of the outer rails. They have 2” of 1/4” threaded rod welded to each end; most boats have access behind or below to install nuts, but I don’t. My first thought was to drill 1” holes with a Forstner bit into the sides of the rails at a right angle to the 1/4” holes so I could spin on a nut, then plug the hole with a 1” oak dowel. But I’m afraid it would work loose over time, with no way to address it, plus the precise drilling required would be tricky with a handheld drill. Second idea was to drill mounting holes for the threaded rods, then redrill at a slightly up or down angle, so that the inner part of the hole had more volume, then fill the holes with fast setting epoxy and shove the rods in, holding in place while the epoxy sets up. In the building trades, anchor bolts are routinely installed in concrete using a similar method. Has anybody ever done this? Anyone got a better way?

I built this cart a couple of years ago, to give “Earthbox” gardening a try. I was too cheap to buy actual Earthboxes, so I made mine out of some PVC pipe and a couple of 37 gallon Rubbermaid bins I had, using the lids as the soil/water partition (more or less following the instructions at this link: http://http://www.josho.com/gardening.htm )The idea of the cart was so we could garden standing up. Also wanted the ability to move the bins into the garage in freezing weather, but the cart turns out to be pretty heavy when full of soil and water, so I siphon out the water to move it (also had to go with bigger tires—see last pic.) The method seems to work pretty well; no weeding, I fill up the water reservoir every 5 days or so, and fertilizer is only applied when you do the initial planting. Got good results the first year, didn’t plant last year, and got a late start this year. The frame is PT pine 1×6s and 2×4s, the slats are cut up 3/8” x 4” cypress fence pickets.

This design is easy to correct as you go if, like me, you don’t have a planer or drum sander. I was able to true up on the tablesaw with my crosscut sled at each stage of glueup. Very little belt sanding required at the end. White oak & cherry, with mineral oil finish.

This was a Christmas gift for my wife, who loves oriental architecture. The lid was made with a cove cut (3rd pic shows the tablesaw setup.) This is a nerve-wracking thing to do on a tablesaw, and generates an unbelievable amount of sawdust, but all went well. I’d made some molding once before with this trick, and learned the hard way to take small bites, raising the blade ever so slightly with each pass. I used Sketchup as usual, which was most helpful in determining the cove depth. Glueup was a bit tricky; lots of tape. Hopefully a dress rehearsal for a larger jewelry box. Cherry, with shellac finish.

I finished this a few months back, never got around to posting it. It was a commission from my cousin (thanks Kim!) for their pergola. Unlike the chairs, this one doesn’t fold. Cypress, left unfinished.

This is for my great niece. The body is cherry, glued up from 3/4 stock, and the drawer pulls are maple. Finished with several coats of shellac. The shape of the box is a stylized letter “S”, but it wasn’t all that obvious, so I made S-shaped drawer pulls also. My first bandsaw box. Lots of sanding.

With credit to Mary Anne and Spalm for inspiration & tutorials, I made 4 of these as gifts (the mate of the drunken board was already wrapped for shipment to my sister in Canada before I thought to take pictures.) I couldn’t get the radiused boards to match up the way Spalm described. My bandsaw is a 20-year-old 80” Sears model that I paid $50 for, and it wouldn’t cut the arcs consistently even with the jig, so I used the same trick as the drunken boards, taping a blank of cherry on top of a blank of oak—worked like a charm. Cherry and white oak, with sanding sealer and thinned wipe-on varnish. For feet, I found some silicon self stick bumpers at Lowe’s, but didn’t think they would stay put, so I drilled holes in them with a countersink bit and fastened them with 1/2” SS screws. There’s got to be a better way to put feet on these types of projects.

This was an anniversary gift for my daughter and son-in-law. It’s supposed to be a stylized version of the “Lucky Knot”, which was part of the theme of their wedding. Maple and cherry, finished with thinned wipe on varnish and mineral oil. I glued it up in stages: first 4 quadrants, then 2 quadrants each, then 2 halves. I learned a lot, like not to use a concrete brick as a substitute for cauls in a glue up (dumb, dumb, dumb—concrete is basically a hard sponge; the moisture ruined 2 quadrants.) Also found a new reason to like SketchUp. I designed the blocks to be 1” thick, but since I don’t have a jointer, I had the lumber milled at a cabinet shop, and it came out 15/16” thick. So, using the tape measure tool in SketchUp, I measured one of the blocks. SU displayed 1”; I typed in 15/16”; SU asked: ‘Do you want to resize the model?’ Yes! All dimensions of every component adjusted automatically. Finally gave up on the router burns at the ends of the finger recesses. Lots of hand sanding didn’t make much of a dent. I had made a very shallow final pass with the router, but the burns remained at the ends. Probably should have shimmed the stop blocks, then removed the shims for the final pass.

This is basically a “Super Sled” from Eagle Lake Woodworking, with a few modifications. I didn’t have any T-track, nor a slot cutting router bit, so I made my fence from 2 pieces of 1x white pine, cutting the slots on the table saw before glue-up. I clamped the fence halves to my 6 foot level to get them as straight as possible. I know most sleds have a hardwood fence, but I figured it was worth a try, since I didn’t have enough maple for a fence, and it’s hard to find in Florida. If it warps I can always replace it later. I used what maple I had for the flipstop, which is held together with a 6” piece of #8-32 threaded rod. I made the hold downs by gluing up thin strips of 1 ½” wide pine bent and clamped to a simple form. (I also use them on my drill press table.) The slots in the sled will also accommodate a future miter jig, and maybe a vertical panel or tenon jig (Eagle Lake has videos for both). I can post my Sketchup file if anyone wants it.

Here are a couple of chairs I made a while back. They’re made of cypress. I stole the idea for the folding mechanism from somewhere on the internet. My more recent attempts (not pictured) eliminate the pegs, which are a problem to make without a lathe (I made these from 2 different sizes of oak dowel glued together, but the glued surface is not big enough for the stress the pegs take, and once they get a little weather they can get stuck pretty good.) I’ll put up pics of the next gen once I get it working right. Also working on a (nonfolding) settee.