I really should’ve built one over a year ago when I got my Delta contractor’s saw, but other projects took over. A piece of MDF on two sawhorses just wasn’t stable enough, or at the perfect height. At least I was able to reuse it as the bottom shelf.

This design is based on The Wood Whisperer’s outfeed table so thanks to Marc. The simple design let me put it together in half a day. I put a piece of hardboard on the top and waxed it. Instead of buying four leveling feet that costs $20+, I used four 3/8” bolts and T-nuts which cost only $5. I might end up staining it for fun and add slots for my cross cut sled.

I’m working on a couple of end tables, and I glued up the table tops (16” x 16”) a while ago. The tops started to move and warp a little and weren’t so flat anymore. I decided to build a router sled the other day to get them perfectly flat. The flattest reference surface I have in my shop is my table saw so I decided to utilize that. I glued up some 1/2” MDF strips for the rails since they are a pretty consistent width, and epoxied some rare earth magnets to keep them solid to the table saw top. For the sled I used hard maple to minimize any deflection. I applied wax to all the sliding parts to keep it moving smoothly.

Picture #1: The sled set up.
Picture #2: Rare earth magnets. They’re stuck to the table pretty good at 10 lbs holding power for each magnet. You can see I used blue tape and hot glue to keep the table top immobile.
Picture #3: I brought the 3/4” straight bit just barely below the surface
Picture #4: My whoopsie. I was pretty excited to use the jig that I didn’t bother putting stops on the end of the sled. Needless to say, it fell off and dug into the table top. Luckily it was only the bottom of the table top. :) I promptly glued some stops to the sled before jointing the top of it, but not before it fell off a 2nd time. :D
Picture #5: The end result. It left very tiny ridges at every pass but at least it was perfectly flat.
Picture #6: All it took was a quick sanding of 80 grit on my ROS and it came right off.

I flipped the board over and repeated it for the other side. My largest bit is a 3/4” straight bit so it took about 13 minutes to do one side. I might invest in a 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 straight bit if i end up using it a lot. Good thing about this design is that it takes up very little room in the shop since I use the table saw and not a large panel, and I built it all in an afternoon.

I took a pen turning class at a Woodcraft today, and it was my first time even touching a lathe. I think it turned out pretty good despite a couple of imperfections. Slimline pen made from bloodwood finished with friction polish. It was pretty fun so I think I’ll make a few more for Christmas at with the lathe at my local workshop. :) I don’t plan on buying a lathe…. yet…?

Made from American Cherry and Brazilian Cherry. It was inspired from the picture frame at The Wood Whisperer’s website, so thanks to Marc. One difference is that I used a lighter wood on the outside edges for accents, and a darker wood for the main part of the frame. I made a few whoopsies that an untried eye wouldn’t spot or would think nothing of. Uneven clamping caused gaps to show in the back, but at least the miters in the front are tight. A sloppy biscuit joiner job didn’t align the miters well enough, which meant I had to sand quite a bit away to smooth out in the end. This led to accidentally sanding through a tiny part of a biscuit in one corner. If you glance it over, you would think that it was part of the grain or something. ;) I wanted to make the mat border larger, but the frame itself was limited in size due to the amount of jatoba I had on hand. Finished in Sealcoat with a few drops of dark mission brown Transtint for a little darker hue, and a coat of Briwax to polish it up. My third picture frame should turn out perfect though. (crosses fingers)

Here’s my first picture frame. Made from solid cherry. Finished in 4 coats of garnet dewaxed shellac followed by Briwax. Sized for an 8×10 picture. Not sure what I’ll do with it. Maybe give it away. Just wanted to try out a miter sled I made for the table saw. Seemed to produce pretty tight joints. The band clamp from Bessey was indispensable for the glue-up. Highly recommended. You can see the rabbet turned out to be too deep so I had to glue on some tiny scrap wood when I tighten up the backer clips. I’m going to set it out in the sun to see if I can darken the cherry some more.

Price:
Leftover cherry: essentially free
Leftover 1/4” birch ply: essentially free
8×10 Lexan plexiglas: $3.75 (I’ll use the cheaper acrylic stuff that’s only $1.49 next time)
8×10 linen mat: $1.25 (using 50% off coupon) ;)
Hanger clips: $1
Backer clips: $1

Total cost: $7

I just got back from vacation a few days ago and I felt like messing around in the shop today. I decided to build a sandpaper organizer that I’ve been meaning to build for some time now. I started designing it in sketchup around noon today, and 10 hours later I have it completed. You can see what my pile of sandpaper looked like before. It took up tons of space under my workbench and I could never find the grit I needed.

The best part of this project was that I was able to use scrap materials that was just taking up space. I used 1/2” sandply for the basic structure and 1/8” hardboard for the pull out shelves. I used a series of rabbets and dadoes. First time I made rabbets. Everything was glued and screwed together. I also attached eight 3/8” diameter dowels on the sides to hold my random orbit discs. I hung it on the wall using a french cleat system for the first time too. Worked great!

I finally got around to building a crosscut sled for my table saw this weekend. It’s based on a Fine Woodworking article. I used quarter sawn (or close to it) red oak for the runners to minimize wood movement and attached them with 3/4” #6 wood screws. Base is approximately 24” x 20” 3/4” MDF. The rear fence is a beefy 2” thick, and 4” tall piece of poplar that was glued together (scrap piece I had laying around). It’s attached using three 5/16” diameter lag bolts fitted into T-nuts on the top. I chamfered the inside part keep a work piece seated properly with saw dust. The front fence was less important so i used a scrap piece of 2×4 attached with four screws. Waxed the bottom and runners and slides real well. The bolts made it easy to adjust it perfectly square to the blade. I might add a little block of wood on the rear part where the blade pops out so i don’t accidentally put my thumb there, but my fence is so tall and my thumb so short that it doesn’t reach there anyway.

Few things I learned:
It’s impossible for it to slide perfectly smooth after attaching the runners with screws even though they were milled perfectly. The screws makes the runners dift just enough to make it catch in the miter slot. I used to card scraper to remove the material that was catching. It leaves a dark streak that lets you know it’s catching in that particular spot. If I do it again, I might try using glue to attach the runners before using screws. Has anyone tried this method before?

And be sure to test your T-nuts before hammering them in! I used a badly threaded T-nut and stupidly forced the bolt in. Made it very difficult when I decided to replace it later.

Here are a few cutting boards I made for last Christmas. I originally planned on making them only out of purpleheart and maple, but I had some cherry scraps that I added in for a decorative touch. Finished with the classic thinned salad bowl finish and routed hand holds underneath.

This was a quick and dirty weekend project. I needed a tie rack so i looked online for some plans but didn’t find anything, so I had to improvise the design. I angled the bottom of it to mimic the shape of a tie to add at least some unique design feature. Made from red oak and dowels. To strengthen the grain around the hanger portion, I decided to laminate together thin oak strips in the cross grain direction (as shown in the 3rd pic). Because of the complicated shape, I just wanted a quick and easy finish since it won’t be getting much abuse anyway. I used some amber shellac that I don’t foresee using for any larger projects in the near future. The dowels were so tight that I didn’t bother gluing them except for a couple that were somewhat loose. At least the few ties I own aren’t sitting in a pile in my closet anymore.

Hello! This is my first real project after seriously diving into this new hobby late last summer (a lil late posting it). Made from cherry. It utilized my first mortises and tenons, with biscuits to attach the bottom shelf. I wanted my first project to be a piece of furniture that I can actually use for something. My home office had my electronics (cable modem, wireless router, telephone, voip router) just sitting on the floor so I figured I can make something for them to sit on instead! I added a 45 deg chamfer along the bottom of the top and tapered the legs to give it some design features and for personal practice.

Finished with a washcoat of amber shellac, followed by GF georgian cherry gel stain, followed by GF brown mahogany gel stain, followed by 5 coats of wipe on minwax wipe on poly, wet sanded smooth, and a coat of breewax wax paste. I only went with staining because I had a had a decent amount of sapwood exposed (before I learned what sapwood was, lol) and also learned it didn’t darken over time. I think I will go for a simpler finishing process for future cherry projects to keep the wood as natural as possible and letting it age by itself, while working around the sapwood in my rough boards. Great learning experience overall.