After much inspiration from the Woodwhisperer site, I decided to build the Shaker table. I found an article in pop-woodworking by Chris Schwarz with the same table. The table is really only my second real piece of furniture, and my first attempt at half-blind dovetails. Solid cherry and finished with several coats of poly, waxed and buffed. Thanks for looking- Chris

After building my hanging wall tool cabinet and saw till, the only thing left to organize was my clamps. Previously they had been teetering on a 3/8 inch dowel which worked fine for awhile, until the weight started to load up and it sagged badly.
Anyways, here’s my simple solution to that problem. Made from scraps I had laying around, the slots were cut with my homemade bandsaw. thanks- Chris

Here’s a marking knife I made yesterday. After seeing all of the beautiful ones made for the marking tool swap, I had to have one for myself.
I started out with an old tablesaw blade, and after about 2 hours of sawing, filing, and polishing, I had a useable blade. I turned up a small handle out of some mahogany, and found a bit of copper pipe which I turned and polished in a drill chuck to use as a ferrule. Soon after, with a bit of crazy glue and a good honing the knife was ready to go. Thanks- Chris

I built this project out of one 12 inch, by 5 feet pine board I got for free. I built it entirely with hand tools- fitting for a hand saw till.

I had to plane off the old finish, then scrape everything clean. After that, I made a couple rip cuts, and finished it off with dovetails and rabbets. My dovetails turned out alright, I was mostly doing them for speed and strength, but they turned out pretty well anyways. More shop organization is nice to have.

thanks for reading— Chris

Like many other jocks, I found myself getting more and more into hand tools lately. After keeping my planes in their original boxes for months, I finally got sick of stepping around them and other tools and decided to build some permanent storage. I searched around and found some cabinets on LJ’s that I really liked and combined their aspects into what suited me.

This cabinet took me about a quarter sheet of 3/4 inch ply, and about two thirds of a sheet of half inch ply. I also used plenty of scrap wood for the holders, and two- 30 inch brass piano hinges. To finish the maple ply I used just tung oil, and the cabinet is hung using a french cleat. Case construction consists of rabbets reinforced with screws, and dadoes for the smaller compartments.

It is a really great space saver and organizer, it gave me a chance to take a huge board of ugly peg board off the wall, and it displays my small collection nicely. It should get plenty of use. Thanks for looking – Chris

When my brother moved off to college, he took his bed with him. So we were left with two choices- buy a new one, or have me make one- always looking for a project I chose the second option.

I looked around online for quite awhile, always returning to the design on woodgears.ca. After I made my homemade bandsaw, I figured the bed would be no problem.

Soon after I found myself in the lumberyard selecting the maple- about 150$ in materials. Most of it I had them leave rough sawn, then thicknessed and surfaced with my newly acquired no. 5, no. 6, and no. 4. I really had a good time surfacing all the lumber, as tiring as it was. I had a pile of shavings past my knees when I was done!

With all the parts the right thickness, I hand-ripped all laminations for the legs- about 8 ~30 inch rip cuts, what a pain. Glued and planed smooth, I turned the posts on a lathe borrowed from a friend, my first ever turnings. Their not perfect, but I’m plenty happy. After that I sawed out the head board, routed the groove and cut the panels. The joints are assembled with half inch dowels and plenty of glue. It was really a joy to use my new auger bits to drill the holes for the dowels, surprisingly accurate.

I finished the bed with 4 coats of ZAR oil based poly- followed up by steel wool and a bit of wet sanding followed by wax. Overall I was pretty happy with the project, it was my first real piece of furniture, and as a 16 year old kid, hopefully the first of many. Sorry for the huge text block- thanks for looking!

P.S. The bed is queen sized by the way, and quite comfy!

link to the woodgears article, and his free plans

I made this small box from oak over the last few days. It has pine splines, and a piece of maple in the lid aswell. Nice easy project and it turned out well. Now what to do with it…

I just used a bit of tung oil to finish it, and added brass hinges and a pull to jazz it up. Thanks for viewing.

Here is a pair of mallets I recently made. The first one is based off one made by Steve Ramsey, laminated from oak and maple, and through tenoned and double wedged with a walnut handle. It is really great for driving in dowels and persuading my joints.

The second is made from a shaft of maple, which I later glued some oak around. Simply turned on a friends lathe, it is a fantastic mallet for chopping dovetails, although mine could still use a lot of work ;). Both mallets are finished with tung oil, get daily use. Thanks to lumberjocks for inspiring me to make them after the mallet swap!

Thanks for looking – Chris

Well, after recently completing my homemade bandsaw, it only seemed right to build a bandsaw box. I laminated 2 pieces of soft maple, a piece of oak, and some mahogany into a small block. After pasting on the template I cut it out. After that it was just a lot of sanding, and then a smooth tung oil finish. I got the idea and the template from Steve Ramsey. Its a great project from the scrap bin.

Thanks for looking – Chris