With a single coat of BLO, and a single coat of Poly Gloss Varnish. All wood used in this little desk was recycled barn wood. There is a store bought 1/4” plywood bottom to it, but all the rest is recycled Ash, and oak. Non moving part of the lid is QSWO from an old rafter. Screwed in place with counter-bored holes and screws. Maple plugs cover the screws. The divider on the inside is to keep supplies seperate from the papers. The square holes just came along for the ride, as they were existing. Dovetails in the front corners only, the back corners are tenon & dados. Maybe a week to build…

I found an old Mersman Coffee table sitting on a trash pile. Top was in layers, and bug-filled. Legs looked good, hardware was quite rusty. Two aprons were still in one piece. I used the aprons as patterns for new ones in Black Walnut. A new top was made up out of three walnut boards, cut from the same 90” long plank. Legs were reused, after I chopped mortises in them. Tenons on the new aprons. two coat of a BLO/Poly blend.

A router made the edge treatment of a simple cove. an old Sabresaw, B&D from the 70s, made the curved cuts in the aprons, and the top’s ends. Not too bad for a “Trashed Table”????

I had a couple trays. One was for the top of the stove when the stove was not in use. The other was just sitting around, un-used. Got a few scraps together, a few “Bridal Joints” cut, an angled half-lap joint cut and pared down to fit. Five screws to hold the base to the tray’s bottom. The handles make it so one could walk around with a Breakfast/Lunch on board. Now one can sit up in bed, eat a meal, or have a place for the remote, and a book. Base was made from Oak scarp wood.

@ 35” long, and 21” high, made to hold a 42” TV and cable boxes. Wood was reclaimed stuff sitting around the shop. Old beech/Sycamore 1×4s for aprons ( Resawn from a Rafter) Legs are 1-1/4” x 1-1/4” x 19” long, and are out of a nasty looking Oak 2×8 plank. Top came from a waterbed side frame. Mainly hand tools in the build, I don’t think this table ever saw a piece of sandpaper.

BLO and Poly Gloss for the finish. One coat of BLO, and then the two coats of poly, with a 0000 steel wool rub down.

A small table, made from reclaimed lumber. oak/ash for the base, and Pine for the top. Using mostly hand tools to build it. One coat of BLO is on it right now. Front legs have two sides tapered, using just hand planes. Stretcher in-between the front and back aprons, sit in hand cut dovetails, one per each end. Corner blocks serve to re-inforce the corners, and provide a way to fasten the top to the base.

Top USED to be an old waterbed side frame. Cut into 36” lengths. The rabbet joint was part of the way waterbed frames sat on their plywood bases. I merely cleaned it up, to make a better glue joint. Top has bevel edges, done with handplanes. Took maybe a week of here and there working on it. Trash bag is full of the shavings and such from the build.

Just bits and pieces of scrap plywood, some Oak from old pallets, a little plastic knob, and a pair of brass hinges. Ends are 3/4” plywood. Tray is from some Luann plywood from a crate. Lid is 3/4” Oak, from a pallet. Hand holes were made by squissing a roll of masking tape into a shape I lliked. Wife wanted a Sewing Box, back about 1985. That is when i made this.

for an old plane. Black Walnut for both the front knob, done on the lathe, and the rear tote. Tote was a mix of bandsawing to shape, and a drill press to drill a few holes, and shape the outside. Two coats of Boiled Linseed Oil for the finish. Tote is a little over-sized, and is design to fit my hands. Knob is an exact copy of the broken original knob, I used the old knob as a pattern.

While out at the woodshop working on some handplanes, both new handles and sharpening a few, decided to give them a workout. I used the jointer planes to get the boards ready to glue up a small top. Once it was it the clamps, started to taper four legs. I would “hog” most of the waste off with a bandsaw, staying away from the layout lines. Then it over to the “new” bench’s leg vise. I used a couple handplanes to smooth out the saw marks. Last pass was a Smooth plane:

After those legs were done, I laid a pair on the top, just to size the aprons. Cut to length on a miter saw. I then cut the 1/4” thick tenons on the tablesaw. Every tool in the shop got a workout today, it seems. Used a complete apron to lay out the mortises, grabbed a 1/4” FATMAX chisel, AND my 32oz Ball pean hammer, and got to chopping things out.

With the base done, I used a few more planes to smooth and flatten the table’s top. Made a mess on the floor, with all this handplane work…

Just some old barn wood beech for the top and aprons. The legs started out as a 2×10 someone had used as a concrete form. Ripped the blanks out, and threw away the “gray” wood. Just a nice afternoon in the woodshop…

What started out as a couple old barn beams of 4×6 Beech, slowly evolved their way into a nice little bench, with a “High Tech” leg vise thrown in. Top came from splitting one beam in two, adding some filler strips, and glueing the lot together. legs were left in the ‘rough’ state, at 4×6x31” Added the top by screwing aprons to the top, and the legs. Aprons came from an old waterbed frame, 2×10s. Tried some dovetails on the one end, but the other was just a glue&screw butt joint. That open area might become a toolwell, or just a wagon vise. leg vise is made up of a split (riven??) piece of another 4×6. Wound up with a 2×6. Added a pipe clamp I had in the shop, a couple screws to “fix’ the screw part of the pipe clamp to the 2×6 slab. Vise is shown holding a 2×10 scrap from the aprons. Total cost so far…...$0.00.

I kept the old “hutch’ from an older desk. The new one is from old barn wood i recycled. Seems to be a Beech, with some Oak as the bread board ends. Leg stock was full of old cut nails, hard on saw blades. The drawer fronts are more of that beech. Half-blind Dovetails for the fronts, dado for the backs of the drawers. Knobs were out of some Walnut scrap i had on hand. Aprons joined with mortise and tenon joints, i hand chopped the mortises, but tablesawed the tenons. letting the desk get used to being in a House, instead of a pole barn, then I’ll match the hutch’s finish. Desk top was NOT sanded, it was hand planed smooth…

I bought a $2 Rustie of a saw. checked the Medallion. Some company called WS & M Co. Hmmm, not a Disston. It had some of the biggest, non-pruning saw, teeth i have ever seen. I COULD refurbish it into a user of a rip saw, except for the old handle. In another time, someone had re-drilled the handle, cut the blade a might shorter, and other “sins” of the saw world. Well, I could use the old handle as a pattern, and cobble a new one, out of what was left of my 4/4 Sycamore. I could save the Medallion, and the single sawbolt, but I would need two new saw bolts. Laid out the pattern, sabresawed the blank out

Then a trip over to the router table, for a rounding over

Sanded things smooth and saw a kerf for the old blade to sit in. Blade had sat awhile, and got a little rusty, again. Laid out for the bolt locations, and drilled them out, using about five different sized bits. Even a forstner bit or two. I now had a hole for ONE bolt. Installed that one nice and tight. THEN I could drill the rest of the holes, without the blade moving around on me. Still to be done? Sharpen them BIG teeth, and apply a finish to the handle. I already added a light coat of oil, to keep the rust bunny at bay. Now, I have TWO Sycamore handled saws! Cost of these handles??? $0.00

Saw number 1: needed it’s handle refinished, including a round-over bit run all around the edges. New hardware as well.

Saw number 2: Old handle was a plywoodie type of junk. Completely new handle made from Sycamore.

Saw number 3: A Disston Panel saw from the late 50s, meets a STEIGO saw from China’s handle. Re-finished handle, some new, some old hardware. kept both medallions. Blade length is 20”. Steigo Handle was riveted on, now has regular saw bolts.

All three saws were from thrift stores. $2 saws. Saw number 1 was in bad shape, handlewise. Ran the router around all the edges, sanded the handle smooth, and refinish with Ipswich Pine stain + Poly. Steel hardware “loaned’ from other saws.

Plywoodie handle had started to de-laminate, and was torn up during the removal of the hardware. New saw handle from a blank of Sycamore. Shaped, sanded, and stained/varnished. Again, hardware from other saws.

The Hybrid Saw: Clunky/chunky handle was a bit too ugly. Replace with the “better’ looking Chineese handle. Kept BOTH medallions so to honor this saw’s “roots”. New bolts to replace the old rivets, sanded and stained/varnish. Sharpen all three saws on a homemade sawvise..

Three older backsaws, two with oak, and one with Black Walnut for handles. Thumbhole D8 was a repair job, bottom 1/2” was missing. lastly, a 8 point crosscut with a Sycamore ( I think it is) handle. There used to be a Plywoodie handle there instead. Blades have been cleaned up. 8 point was sharpened, as well.

Just some old boards, made into a Toy Box for a friend. Dark Walnut stain. 1/4” Oak Plywood for the panels.

An old plank of wood, a few extra bits and pieces, all from an old garage that fell down. Top is 12-1/2” wide, after being trimmed down to fit through my planer. It WAS 13-1/2”! One of four planks, all over 13” wide.

Made from old Oak rafters. Frame and panel style. Raised the panels ON the tablesaw. Plan was from Norm Abram’s book. A look at the plan:

bottom panel is a piece of OLD 1/2” plywood.

These sit on a stove top when the stove is not in use. This one is the first of three I have to make. This one has a field of a “red wood”(Cherry?) that came from a stash of barn wood. I resawed a 2×8 down to make a panel.

The “handles” are a white oak, also from that stash. These were from a rafter in the old barn. Had a few nails in it, but I can work around those. There is a lipped front edge from that red stuff, it is there to keep things from sliding off, when the tray gets moved. No finish as of yet, “war Dept.” call on that.

Resawn Chestnut barn rafter. Pine legs are tapered on two sides, and the outside corner has been rounded over, all with a handplane. Legs splay out at 5 degrees. Top has a curve cut in all four edges. Top of table is 18-3/8” high, top was 20”x 30” before the curves were cut. Table was leveled with handplanes.

Found an old barn rafter, and a couple 4×4 skid runners. Resawn into some boards I could use. Rafter turned out to be a Wormy Chestnut, one 4×4 was White Oak, the other was Poplar. Legs were also from that rafter. Legs are 1-1/2” square, by 25” long, and a taper starts about 5” from the top. Feet are 1” square doe to the tapers on two sides. White oak was used for the aprons, and the poplar for the corner blocks. Top is just over 20” square. About six hours of “playing” around in the shop. Still haven’t decided on a finish for this wormy stuff, any suggestions?

This is my FIRST try at handcut dovetails. Just some scrap Red Cedar leftover from another project. About 10” by 10” square. Lid was a glue-up of four boards. The groove for the bottom panel uses a stopped dado. I hogged out most of the stopped dados with a 1/4 ” Forstner bit, then cleaned up with a chisel. An old Stanley backsaw did most of the cutting of the pins. A bandsaw did the same for the tails. Both were cleaned up with a chisel.