Here is a recent example of a bird house that I make that’s nearly 100% recycled. I pick up the 24 oz. aluminum cans when I’m out riding my bicycle, the rest as you can see is just leftovers from around the shop. Enjoy.

Here’s a photo of a picnic table I designed a while back. It’s a bar stool/ bar height one piece four seat picnic table. Made from western red cedar left over from a deck and a timber roof frame job that I did. Some of my friends refer to it as a biker picnic table because it used to sit at Bubba’s Big Deck in Gruene, Tx. and it reminded them of sitting on their hog/piglet with forward controls. Thanks for taking a look.

Here are photos of my newest mirror frame. It’s one of those “I wanna make something but not sure what to make” projects. A friend gave me a mirror and realizing that I don’t have a good place to store glass I decided to go ahead and make a frame for it. It’s around 54 1/2” x 19 1/2” in size. It’s made from four species of wood. Starting from the center of the frame is yellow pine, redwood, and then red oak with a strip of ipe inlayed down the center.

From a design perspective I generally like the less is more approach. But….did you ever just want to play with your cutters and tools and just pyle on the elements a little because you wanted to see what would happen? Well that’s what happened to me here. Besides, I don’t have to worry about selling the piece, my daughter has already seen it and told me where in her room I’m to hang it. Thanks for taking a look.

Here is a table that my cousin ask me to build her for her sewing hobby. She wanted the table to be 39” tall with a 48” x 96” top. This was a budget build so not a lot of time and effort went into this table. I used a sheet of 3/4” red oak for the top and solid oak for the bullnose,aprons and braces. My uncle has a saw mill so the oak came from him but he hasn’t cut any 4xs so we went with some doug fir for the legs. I made it has basic a design as I could imagine, it’s entirerly put together with the kreg jig & a few dowels. I had a good time building it, hope y’all enjoy. Thanks

I finally had some time for a personal wood working project so I made my mother a new potato storage bin. It’s made mostly from scrap, the only “new wood” was the pine 1×6 I recently acquired for some door jambs yet to be built. There were size limitations so I had to keep it as small as possible. The dimensions are H 36”, W 21 1/2”, D 13 1/4”.

As you scroll trough the photos you may notice a slight difference between the naked, unfinished photo and the photos showing the bin completed. The second photo shows the bin ready to paint, missing the ipe nosing at the top. I had planned on a small piece of ipe at the top / cove molding connection. But when I set the cabinet outside the shop on my portable table saw to paint, a gust of wind blew the cabinet over crashing to the concrete. Last photo. Oh, that’ll take the wind out of your sails. So I removed the top and cove molding proceeding to plan “B”, trimming the top back some and fashioning a new profile for the ipe.

In the end my mother was happy to have a new way to store her ‘taters, onions and garlic. Ma likes sweet potatoes. The reason that the tater bin has four baskets, she buys ‘em in +25lb boxes.

Here is my birdhouse contest entry. Having spent most of the month on the road and away from home base I had to resort to something that was quick and easy. It’s made from ipe, cedar and some spruce pine & 24 oz. tea cans.

I have a customer that ask me to make him a couple bluebird houses. I banged these out this afternoon. Nothing fancy, I used some old 6” cedar fence pickets and a 2×6 back. I made the do-dad on top out of leftover redwood. I was trying to keep the water off the endgrain and from leaking between the top and back too. They are about 13” tall and the front can be opened without tools for cleaning.

Birdhouse update: After the veterinarians comment #2 about the woodpeckers I went back to the shop today and made some sacrificial holes out of ipe, the hardest wood I have. So after the woodpeckers start working them over they can be replaced. I noticed the more expensive ones on the net had another replaceable hole made on top of the first hole but didn’t realize why. After more looking around the net I found out that they are to keep the predators from getting to the bluebirds. Thanks Doc for telling me about your woodpeckers and how they miss up the house for the bluebirds.

Birdhouse update II: The fellow that wanted a couple of the first batch bought all of them. So I made a second batch, they’re ‘bout gone too. I changed this batch and used a gable to have a different look. I didn’t have enough cedar for the roofs so I used plywood with FRP ( fire retardant panel ) panels on top. I left 5 of them white because of the Texas sun and painted 2 of them gray. The other 2 are going to Tennessee to a shady spot.

This is a porch swing that I made for my mother. I used reclaimed redwood decking from a customer’s deck that I replaced a couple years ago. So it does have some blemishes, but Ma is happy beyond belief and that’s what really matters.

I have made porch swings in the past so I went with what I know and made a few design changes for this one. The first one was I wanted to have real arms on the swing. None of that chain attached to the swing that renders the arms useless. A closer look will reveal some wooden “caps” made from ipe that slip over the ends of the boards that I attached the eye bolts to. I did this has an attempt to eliminate the possibility of the board splitting because the eye-bolt had to be so near the end of the board.

I also raised the height of the back so one can rest their head against it and because my stepfather is on the tall side. I originally wanted the top board to be cut in an arch of some kind but decided to go with straight and simple. I felt like it would be more comfortable that way. A radius would have meant you had to sit in the middle all the time to have a comfortable place to rest your head. I always use the horizontal slats for the back because I believe that it is stronger that vertical and it’s easier to have some kind of contour for comfort.

This is also the heaviest porch swing that I ever made, it’s all 2×2s, 2×4s, 2×6, except for the 4xs at the arms. I generally use a 2×2 frame work and 1×2 slats and a 1×4 front with a hidden piece of hardwood behind it for strength. I did use ipe the beef up the 2xs that make up the bottom of the seat. I did this so I could use 2 1/2”screws at the lap joint connection holding the lower frame to the back. I wanted to have blind screwed slats but things got a little too busy with the framing connections at the front and I didn’t want to do mortise and tenon connections.
The dimensions are 6”0” overall with the seat 5’0”x 2’6”. The finish is wipe on poly.

This is a birdfeeder I recently completed. It belongs to a customer that has bought feeders

from me in the past. Picture #4 shows the carcase that I satarted with. I followed the existing roof line and

made it look like a barn. The feeder is refilled at the roof top by removing the cupola. The materials used were

all reclaimed with the exception of the cowbell which I

purchased at a hobby store. The demensions are 18”L x 13 1/2”W x 13 1/2”H.

This is a Cross that I made for my daughter this Easter. It’s made out of ipe over red oak with black walnut stain applied to the ipe. I chamfered the edges after applying the stain to give it a little more color. I finished it with poly and brass brads. Size is appox 18” x 10”
BTW, I used the mitersaw jig that I posted a few days ago to make this.
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/26417

The cross in picture #3 is an extra one that I made. It’s post oak on top of ipe with a poly finish. I would like some feed back about post oak. Is it also called “white oak” ? Post oak is what my Garandpa called the other kind of oak that we used to cut on his place. We cut red oak & post oak. Post oak seemed to be very durable stuff. He would use it for exterior type applications. Trailer floors, barn doors, etc… I got this post oak from a pallet out by the dumpster at my shop.

I want to wish all a Happy Easter to all of you Lumberjocks celebrating the holiday this weekend.

I got an inquiry a while ago from a fellow woodworker about this bench that I was ask to make. I got a photo of it in the mail this past week so I looked around and found some other photos and thought that I should go ahead and post it.

It’s a bench made to honor John Perry from some of his golfing /drinking buddies at Boomers in Oak Hill, Texas. We took the bench to a little golf coarse in Austin,Texas near the intersection of Lamar & Barton Springs. We set it up on top of the hill under the pecan trees overlooking the golf coarse. I’m sure that JP would love for any woodworkers /golfers in the area playing golf to have a seat on his bench in the shade and enjoy the view and some of what’s good about Austin.

I made the bench out of redwood and used linseed oil to finish it. There is a caretaker still applying linseed oil to it from time to time. I used 4×4 post bases with large washers set in concrete to hold the legs out of the dirt to make it last.

Here’s an oddball project for y’all. It all started the other day when I cut my mother’s grass. Afterwards she wanted to rake up the clippings. The next day I find out she had to go see the Doctor for a sore rotator cuff in her shoulder. She told me that the Doctor has suggested that she get a stand for her blow dryer. Well, I looked on the internet and found a chrome plated one with a flexible cobra style holder for $40.00
No way I said, I told Ma I’d make her one out of wood.
Well here’s my concoction. It’s made from bits and pieces that I had laying around the shop. It folds flat so she can hang it on the wall when she’s not using it. And sits on the counter when she wants to use it.
I haven’t made any projects worth posting lately so I thought I’d throw this out there and see if anybody else has ever made anything of this sort.

This is another one of my folkart pictures. I sketch these pictures on a sheet of paper pretty much the same has I would if I were doing a watercolor. Then I cut pieces of wood to the proper size and glue it to a piece of plastic laminate. The cedar post are made from cedar, the pecan tree is really a piece of a pecan tree with redwood shavings from the planer. The mailbox is ipe and so is part of the barn. Gates and round haybales are pine.
I ran out of the proper size guitar strings on the fence, but hey it’s “folkart”. Guess that’s ok, I’ll know if nobody buys it. It’s fun to make anyway.
I made the picture frame too. The pencil drawing is signed, dated and mounted behind the displayed picture. Hope y’all like it and thanks for all the kind comments on the other pictures that I’ve posted.

Here is a table that I made for a friends wedding gift. He just built a new deck addition so I made this for his deck. It was suppose to be a three color table but I ended up with four. The older growth redwood got mixed in with some of the newer stuff I got last year for a bench I made. The tiles are glued to a marine plywood substrate with ipe grout joints and finished with wipe on poly. It is put together with Kreg fasteners.

Here are a few more tea can birdhouses. A couple of churches, flight school, a general store and a livery.

This is a project for my fellow Texans. It’s apiece of 2×12 white cedar planed, then cutout the shape of Texas, routed at the edge, scribed, and then painted with watercolors. Rout with keyhole bit on the back to hang on the wall and smile. I like to use the white part of the western red cedar because it takes the color better than the heart part of the tree.

This is a star made from longleaf pine with a dado cut down the center and filled with a piece of redwood. I then planed the redwood flush and cut the miters on my mitersaw. I then glued up and pinned with my 23ga. nailer and finished with wipe on poly. The size is appox. 14” tall. While this project does reqiure the use of a shopmade jig at the mitersaw it is still considered this a simple project.

Here’s another simple project. The pictureframe is made from scrap molding mounted on a 1×6 piece of longleaf pine. I used dowels for the keychain pegs. And put a little cedar shelf across the top supported by korbels cut from a piece of cedar with a routed edge. And I used a keyhole router bit on the backside for mounting to the wall.

Here’s a project that is easy, inexspensive, and simple to make. I made this entirely from scrap laying around the shop in one afternoon. It is mostly made from Spruce Pine Fir, a piece of Oak plywood, some MDF, and 1/4” plywood. I used my Kreg jig to assemble the carcase and drawer. Used dado joints to make the drawer and stained the shelf with a black walnut color stain. The shelves are adjustable. I made it for my daughter, who wanted a shelf on top of her chest-of-drawers. I also used a keyhole router bit so that it could be hung on the wall if she prefered. I believe this design is called a “whalebone shelf”, I saw it in a magazine best I can recall. Would like it if somebody could comfirm or correct me about that thanks.

I recently took these photos of a picnic table that I made for a friend. The picture isn’t all that great. And the table has taken a beating in the hot Texas summer where it sat out on a deck completly exposed for 10 months. In the photos it has been moved to where it’s now under roof.

I’m posting it because I’d like some feedback about the Kreg jig. I attached a board across the end to keep the top striaight so I could move the legs closer to the center.

I wanted to make a traditional looking picnic that you wouldn’t have to straddle the legs to sit at the end of the bench. You can sit comfortably outside of the legs. I did include pressure blocking from the end of the bench back to the strecher holding up the seat.

The table is 6’ 9” long and without anything on the top, two 180lb. people can sit outside of the legs at the same end and the legs on the other end stay on the ground.

Anybody that’s used the Kreg jig this way please let me know how it’s holding up.

p.s. I also used the Kreg jig to fasten the seat to the strechers so no fasteners are showing anywhere except for the lag screws at the leg connection.