I just cut the top off some boxes

and there was a prize in every box

I started these straight edge cases before the holidays and pulled some boards from the No-Kill Wood Shelter. The long one is a piece of macacauba and the short one leftover purpleheart from my bench build. After jointing/planing, both were a hair shy of my target thickness. Since it twas the season I decked the walls with boughs of holly (fa la la la la well la dee da). Then replaned that and routed out the center. Here’s one of my helpers inspecting the work so far

Then lined it with 1/4” self-stick wool felt.

Drillied 4 holes for 1/8” dowels as alignment pins for gluing the halves together. Then decided I sort of liked the look of that and put more 1/8” dowels in after glue-up. Then hand planed everything, rounded over the edges and stuck 3 coats of shellac on them.

Still need to square up the cap ends a skosh, put some 1/8” rare earth rod magnets in the cap and case, and attach a leather strap to keep the cap tethered to the case.

The roofers will be here next weekend but other than that Casa de Doggie is done. The inside dimensions are 24W x 39L x 30H.
The general geometry and recommended sizing were taken from this site:
http://tidewaterkc.org/projects/insulated_dog_house.htm

Walls, floor, and roof have 3/4” MDO on the outside, 2” styro, then 7/16” OSB on the inside with a torsion box of sorts internally with 3/4” MDO gridding and the styro packed into the grid spaces. Here’s some shots of the floor

On the front and rear walls the grid spacing was layed out to get the opening and rear window holes where I wanted them.
And no dog house would be complete without a couple hand cut dogtails.

8 pieces make up the house

and 32 screws later it looks like this

The back wall window is for air circulation during the summer if rain comes up. During cold weather it’s plugged up with the small square insert.

Multiple Choice Quiz (this will be on the Final Exam BTW):
The color scheme was inspired by:
A) Dunno? The builder is color blind
B) Nearby yard flowers of the same color
C) A recent spread in Better Bordellos and Gardens
D) Barney and SpongeBob were trying to break in, got attacked by the dog, and bled all over her house while fleeing the scene
E) All of the Above

Standard Legal Disclaimer: No tools were harmed during the making of this doghouse

A thread Sac started on inlaying resin prompted me to show a little project using Corian and Inlace resin. I did this a couple years ago for a jewelry box project that still hasn’t been completed (not really even started yet at this point). Got diverted with numerous other projects. But my sis lives in AZ and I thought it might be cool to inlay something from AZ on the box. I found this pic of an Arizona Swallowtail that is the AZ State Butterfly (didn’t even know states HAD state butterflies).

So I considered trying this with ebony and yellow/blue dyed woods but didn’t think I’d be able to do the ridiculously small detail pieces with wood. So I eneded up using black and yellow corian then black corian joint compound, yellow and blue Inlace. Most of the work was done with a Dremel (mounted in the drill press accessory), jewelers saws, needle files, engraving tools, and heavy magnification. The corian was resawn on the bandsaw from 1/2” x 4×4” sample pieces into thin veneers (< 1/16”) then drum-sanded.

Here’s the black corian with the recesses for the yellow and blue Inlace.

and another after the Inlace

I somehow missed (or lost) taking pics of the 4 big cutouts for the yellow corian that followed later. But this one shows the yellow corian with recesses for black corian joint compound. Each wing was done with 2 pieces of the yellow corian then set into the black corian using more of the black joint compound. The vein lines on the yellow corian was done by engraving (rather deeply) then filling with more joint compound.

The inlace is very easy to work but needs to be applied fairly quick as it will start to harden soon after mixing. The fumes are pretty bad too, so aiming a fan to blow the fumes away from you is recommended and a respirator couldn’t hurt either.

So the end result after quite a bit of sanding is this. I think it turned out pretty decent.

The whole thing if enclosed by a circle would probably be around 2-3/8” or so. The final outline will get cut with standard bevel cutting into a wood background then that inlaid onto the top of a jewelry box. I’ll probably use some silver wire for the antennae. But I’m holding off til the box ever gets done before deciding on what wood to use for the background.

Well like everything I start, this took 5 times longer than I estimated to complete but it’s finally done (well 99% anyway).

The construction is pretty much following Sam Blasco’s bench on this thread
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=22081
Things Sam forget to mention though:
1) I make this look easy
2) You’re an idiot if you try this without a honkin big vacuum press bag like I have
3) Having a big slider TS sure beats trying to trim that top with a circular saw.
4) I make this look easy

This ended up at 28×78. The thickness was originally meant to be 4”. The top is (from the bottom up) 2 horizontal layers of 1/2” ply, 1 layer of 1” vertically laminated ply, 1 horiz. layer of 1/2” ply, then 1-1/2” of vertically laminated ply. The bottom 2 layers and top 2 layers were glued up separately, run through a wide belt sander, then those 2 slabs were glued together. The LH 2/3rds of the top ended up with a crown in the middle so more flattening with a router sled on rails was needed. That and the wide belt sanding made for a final thickness of around 3-5/8”.

The vertically laminated layers were done using yellow glue to glue 5-6 layers of ply – the most I could do and be able to cut it on the TS. Then those were cut on the TS to form sub-sections of the 2 vert. layers. After those were all formed, epoxy was used to glue those together while also glueing them down to the horizontal layer(s) beneath.

The hardwood edging, and vise jaws are purpleheart. Not the funnest stuff to work with, but I wanted something darker to contrast with the ply. Of the locally available options in 8/4, the PH ended being one of the better prices. It’s glued to the ply core with epoxy. The area around the Tucker vise also has #14-4” screws through the PH as well. It seemed prudent for supporting the 50 Lb vise weight.

The rear rail underneath is a piece of Macacuaba I pulled from my No-Kill Wood Shelter.

Noden Adjust-A-Bench leg hardware underneath which I’m already enjoying. It made for much more comfortable working heights as I completed finessing and finishing the top. The caster set rolls extremely well too. Maybe I’ll mount some masts and sails in the dogholes and take the bench for a spin around the neighborhood this summer:-))

Bison leather jaw liners for the Twinscrew picked up on eBay around 1/4” thick.

I wanted to be able to keep longer work flush with the bench front which is why the Tucker vise is mounted in that setback. An LV Surface Clamp in the dogholes on the front edge works to hold the opposite end.

Still need to finish up a couple of things but probably wont get to them for a couple of weeks.
-Finish touchup in a couple spots
-Easing the dog hole edges
-Drilling dog holes in the Twinscrew jaw
-A tiny bit more shimming underneath for the UHMW rub strips

Howdy folks. New to this forum and already started posting comments before introducing myself, so thought I’d better make amends. I’m a weekend wood butcher in Waterford, MI. I’ve spent the last few years work on shop stuff and am a few weeks away from completing my first real workbench. But though I’d post some pics of some things.

Sorry in advance for the pic quality (I’m also a film/memory card butcher).

Here’s a half moon and square end table from cherry and corian.
The half moon was bent laminations on all the curved pieces.
The inlay and tenon pegs are paduak