Yeah Spring!

It’s a picnic table.

Built from 2 by lumber. I did, however, take the time to joint and plane all the boards flat. No finish. But, I may add spar varnish in the next couple days – undecided.

Links to picnic table plans here

So, I made a Bass. How awesome is that.

I cut the circle for the soundboard with the new(used) bandsaw from 1/4” birch plywood. The soundhole was cut using a jigsaw with scroll blade. I colored the top with oil stain and Mixol tints to get a sunburst effect. Then finished with some Poly.

The neck is 2 pieces 4/4 hard maple glued up. Cutting this part was definately the meat of the project. I ended up making 3 of these. The first was too short and scrapped early in the process. The second was I think the best but due to some hardware concerns had to be remade. Third times the charm, I guess? (Important note: always have hardware in hand before starting to cut.) The neck was finished with hand rubbed Tung oil.

The nut and bridge are made from scrap oak I had in the shop. I also had to make the bridge 4 times. First shot was too small and made the bass hard to play. 2 and 3 broke while test fitting because I had the string way overtensioned. So, #4 got overengineered and is basically just a big wedge but it works fine. Finished with oil stain and Poly.

The strings I found on eBay. Steel strings are too tight. Gut strings are too expensive. These are called Weed Whacker Strings. I think they started out as just that, for trimming lawns. But, they work great for this.

I tried to use cheap guitar tuners at first and it caused problems because the strings are so thick. I ended up breaking one trying to get them to work. I ended up having to buy the real electric bass tuners and the drill them out a little for the lowest 2 strings.

The best part of this project is – it sounds great. I placed it in a local music shop asking $300. I hope it sells quick. So I can make a new one for myself.

I figure I could complete this project again in 10-12 hours. You can find the free plans and guides I used at http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/db.htm

So, this is the bedside table I just finished up. I made this base and a different top from scrap pine almost a year ago. I had no real use for the table, but had never made one. So, this seemed a good practice session for some left over materials.

At the time I was still working on my front porch (not enclosed). So, tooling and space was minimal. When I made the table top, I flattened it up with a belt sander and it looked pretty nice. Next day at the shop it had bent into a U shape. Lesson in wood movement I guess. So, like many of my projects where I run into some sort of snag, it got put on hold. And, it just sat until I realized it would fit perfect on the gap beside my bed.

I cut the mortise and tenon joints with my router in a jig that clamped to a sawhorse and would allow it to be used as a mini router table. (I hope to blog on some of my jigs later so maybe you’ll get to see it.)

The legs I tapered using a jointer. (You can see the method here. Although, I got the idea from a book by R. J. De Cristoforo and he made it much simpler.)

The drawer is just simple butt joints reinforced with nails and a false front made to overlap the carcass hole.

Being a little more experienced now, I decided to make the new top breadboard style out of poplar. So no glue on the end caps, just three small screws from the underside that go through slots in the tenon to allow for wood expansion. Nice and flat, since I now own planes and scrapers.

I finished with oil based stain and 2 coats of Polly for the top. And, some leftover paint on the base. Oh and a little store bought pull for the drawer.

This is a 6-panel door I made for to fit the existing pocket leading to my bathroom.

It is made from 8/4 poplar resawn to the needed 1 1/4” for the stiles and rails. The panels were resawn from the same 8/4 lumber into three 3/8” pieces. Which were then book matched to make each panel 24” wide with vertical grain.

The joinery is dowel joints again. I was planing on doing my first mortise and tenons in this piece. But, I accidentally figured the rails to short in my drawings to cut in the tenons. So solution was dowels. but this time I bought a doweling jig and some centers, so a pretty smooth operation.

I dry fit the door without the panels and used my router to cut a chamfer around where each panel would go. Then, used my chisel to square out the rounded corners.

I did add a metal mending plate on the forward top and bottom joints since all the force will be applied the bad way to that joint when opening and closing door.

Finish was 3 coats poly mixed with mixol pigment for color. Plus a final clear coat of the poly. I was not as happy with the mixol in poly as I was with it in shellac. It seemed to not mix as well. And with the poly being clearer to start with than the shellac it didn’t seem to build up color as quickly.

Hanging it was just the bear I thought it was going to be and I did scratch the finsh pretty bad and had to make some repairs. Sorry I didn’t take some photos before hanging but I was too excited about having a real door on my john. :)

Quick shelves to hold my surround speakers.

I used 4/4 “Tulip Wood” (aka: Poplar)

I used jigsaw for the first curved support. Then, used flush trim bit to copy for the second one.

A round over bit finished all the edges.

Dadoes didn’t come out as tight as I’d like and I was worried about the glue bond. So, I screwed from the top of the shelf into the support. They are going to be up high and no one will be able to see the actual shelf area.

Finished with 3 coats of 2 pound orange shellac. I used some mixol pigment stirred in for added color. I have used the mixol on 3 projects now and I really like it.

I wanted to use figure 8 fasteners to hang them. But when I asked for them at the store they looked at me like I was talking alien. So, I attached them to the wall with some brass corner brackets, again no one will be able to see. I think I’m just going to mail order my supplies from now on—done with the box store, unless I just can’t go without it today.

My workbench top was attached to a desk. It has been awful. Even when the second desk was backed up to it (Just recently removed it) It still wobbled fiercely, was too short, and blocked the full function of the face vice (I’ve been having to use 3/4” shims to hold thin pieces).

I built the base using the threaded rod method from the book “Making Workbenches” by Sam Allen. I’ve seen it several other places. But, I had the book checked out from the library (best resource EVER!) So, he gets credit.

I used scrap pine 2×4 glued and screwed to make 4×4 for the legs, and scrap 2×6 for end rails. Long front rails were fresh 2×6 from box store. I ended up using (6) 6’ threaded rods

I am happy with the result of this project because the workbench is now dead solid, and refuses to rack or wobble. I can clamp to all 4 sides of bench. (No lip on 2 sides of desk base.) Plus, a fully functional vice is awesome.

However, I’m not so pleased with the execution. I tried to get away with measuring the dowel locations on each piece and I did a pretty sloppy job of it. So, I had to trim the Dowels down heavily to correct their mislocations. And the Rails are kind of tilted, so some heavy planing to square up the rails to the top.

No finish no sanding. It’s a bench and the top is beat up. Next model will probably be solid hard Maple and kept nice. But, trust me this is a 100% improvement to my shop. All the tools in the photo are what used to be stored in the desk, I’ve got to find them new homes now.