I made this Shoe Shine Box a little while ago. I am very proud of it compared to some of what I like to call the “junk pieces”. This Box is made of Oak, I originally got the idea from my Uncle. He saw one made of pine and wanted it in oak. I started to make it and then my dad liked it so much he wanted it. So he got it in the end. It is finished with polyurethane FOREVER. Simple aresol spray can worked well for this. Two Coats and it covered really nicely. I also used a Golden Oak finish I got for about 1$ at Ace Hardware :). This box was very hard to make with the box joints on the edge. It took to make the box joints. Trust me my Sears bench top saw was not designed to do this kind of work. I had to make a jig and take my time. Even then I had to clean up some of them with a chisel and a file. Turned out really nice too. the platform on the top is to rest your shoe on while you shine it, but we are just using it as a decorative piece. My dad actually has all of his shoe polish stuff in it though. It has a cool latch, you swing it down and then a piece swivels to lock the latch down.

This is a picture frame that I made a while back. I got the 8th Grade Tech Arts award. I don’t actually know what kind of wood it is, just something that my grandpa got from the cabinet shop near his house. It took he a while to finish it because I never really got time to make it. It was a simple frame and I didn’t even bother with splines. I figured it was small enough to not need them. I had to cut the glass inside because it was a non standard size. That was a adventure!!! The glass cutter that I used was kind of old and it didn’t work to great, but it got done.

This sign was something I have been needing for a long time and it is really just great. I was going to get one of those sign making kits and still probably eventually will but I decided that I would fist give freehand a shot. I used Cherry I think, some wood that my grandma found at her local cabinet shop. I used a router to cut out the letters and then painted them black, after that I cleaned everything up and sprayed Poly on the whole thing. You can see how I made it in my “Making a Sign” blog.

Heres a little birdhouse I made for my grandmother. She actually helped me make some of it!! It consists of a Cedar everything. Most of the wider pieces were edge joined. I used Tight bond III to make this birdhouse indestructible to the weather, we painted it with I believe hunter green. Most of the larger pieces were nailed together and the smaller pieces were glued together. This is a fun little project for a weekend but let me tell you, cutting out all the little pieces for the Tudor Style is a pain, there is a ton of them. The bottom also separates from the top to clean it out. You can also put a galvanized pipe flange on the bottom and attach a pipe to that to stick it into the ground. This is what we did later. My grandma put it up in her garden and said there was a bird moving in the first day she put it there. The plan was in WOOD Magazine and is relatively easy to make.

Well, I have taken a liking to making frames because of the fact that they are relatively inexpensive, and they are fast and easy to make. I decided to make one for my mom and one for my dad at their offices. This one is my dads. It features a padauk frame, with Brazilian cherry splines. It also has two joined pieces of 1/8th inch maple that I resawed to make the back and picture stand. I then put a ribbon attaching the back panel and the frame stand to keep it from opening out all the way. The frame has a chamfered edge. I then put a finish of indoor/outdoor Minwax spar Urethane. It looks amazing and just has an unbelievable able sheen. It goes down so effortlessly and gives you a great finish with no orange peel ore uneven areas. I definitely recommend this finish. It brought out the beauty of this exotic wood and made it one of my favorite projects.

Well, after about a week of thinking, and about three tries at making a zero clearance throat plate, I finally got one to work. See one of the problems with all bench top, and contractor table saws are that the throat plate is always just a little piece of sheet metal that always is impossible to make a zero clearance throat plate for because of a few reasons:

1. The wood of the plate would have to be really thin, which is always a pain in the buttocks
2. The screws that attach the metal throat plate are a countersunk screw and the thin wood has nothing for the screw to grab onto.
3. It’s hard to get it stabilized when it is so little.

So to fix all of these problems I realized that my table saw had these little wholes for a small rubber spacer that would keep the metal throat plate from vibrating and the screw that holds the plate down goes in between the spacer. After realizing this I thought that I could put dowels into the holes which would make the throat plate stay in place and it would give me the extra material for a countersunk hole. It took me about two hours on and off, because I had to make all the parts then when I put it together and glued it I realized that the dowels were in the wrong place and had to redo them about 3 times. They also would crack off, so I made the dowels a bit smaller so that they would just slip in and wouldn’t be so had to get out. Overall I think this was a great addition to my table saw and anyone with a contractor style saw should make one to get better cutting results. Thanks, Tyler.

Here is a really, really simple, yet effective thing that anyone can make. I decided to make some dovetail joints, or at least atempt :), but without proper tools that will be difficult so I decided to get some tools (I’m still working on geting those) But I didn’t want to buy a scribe since it is so easy to make, I simply cut about an 8 inch peice of dowel, drilled a hole that’s 1/16 inch in the end, and pushed a needle in tight. Then I cut a oval-ish shape on the bandsaw, and kinda sanded it. Then I cut a 5/8 inch hole which happend to be really tight on the dowl, so no screw stop was needed, it is simply friction held in. It is all made of poplar (I don’t know if I spelled that right) Olapsed time: 5min :)

Overall this is a really simple and fast solution to makeing a scribe, instead of buying one.

This is the picture frame I made for the autograph of David Marks. It is a small fun project that will let you use a cool “spline Jig”. I had to make one of these before I could make the frame. This frame was a blast to make and was very easy. I got the glass from an old picture frame I picked up at Goodwill. :). A very cheap way to get a nice peice of glass (only $.99 for the whole frame and glass). I used a board of leftover purplehart and cut it into peices of about an inch wide. Then I rabbited the inside to house the glass, picture, and cardboard backing. Then I mitered them to match the glass size. With all of that done, I glued the mitered frame together. Then I took the frame and droped it into my newly made spline jig, it cut some splines perfectly and I put in maple inserts to give the peice a nice contrast. To put the back in place I put glasure points in, they hold the back in by diging into the side of the frame and holding the cardboard back in place, they are traditionaly used for windows but they make great picture frame hold downs. I finished the peice with tung oil although it is not pure tung oil it is actually a mixture of tung oil and varnish made by Formby’s. I don’t have a clue why they did this. I would have been happy with jsut tung oil. It turned out pretty nicely. It is a piece that will not only catch your eye for the beauty of the frame but also for the picture that is in it. This is a great project for anyone that wants to do something simple and elegent. Please send me a message if you would like the demensions or for the “plans” so to speak, although they arn’t really plans just some toughts on how to do this project.

Here is the stool I made. This is before the stain. I kind of ruined the stain as I stated in my blog. Here is what the actual stool looks like though. I don’t have pictures of the stained peice so here is the unstained peice. I am going to be making a new one that doesn’t have stain because the stain was too old and it didn’t work to well. It was also a muddy looking stain that I should have never put on it to begin with. Here it is though. I have a video on how to make it if anyones interested. If you want a measurments I would be glad to give them to you. Thanks.

Tyler

This is a fun little project. I made it about a month ago in two days. I made it for a school project. It was actually all made of 2X4’s and a few dowel rods. I had to cut around all the knots in the 2X4 and if you look, there is absolutely no knots in the front car. There was a knot in the second car but I hid it right behind the wheel. My bandsaw came in handy for these tiny cuts. I went off of a picture I saw, and modified it a little and I made the smoke stack in a very interesting way. I don’t have a lathe, so that was out of the question, and I didn’t buy it, I actually took a peice of 1 5/8 inch dowel rod and I drilled a hole in the center. Then I put a bolt through it with a nut on the end. After this I mounted it in my drill press. I then clamped a peice of scrap to the side, kind of like a tool rest, and used a chisle to shape it. It was pretty cool. I did the same method for the rounding of the wheel exept with sandpaper instead of a chisle. I wish I had a lathe because I want to start turning bowls and pens for the most part and I have a really cool plan for a orniment in my WOOD magazine. I was going to paint this train, but I figured that It was a school project, plus then I would have to prime it, and I was to lazy to do all of that work so I just left it the way it is. I also didn’t want to stain or finish it because I have tried staining part of a 2X4 and it doens’t look that great so. I think it came out well even though it has no color.