This was my father in law’s 80th birthday present. Big Al is a cigar affecionato, he just bought the family a vacation home in Virginia nad I though this would look nice in the new county digs.

This was a very challenging project for me; it had to be perfect. The case is made from recycled white oak taken from an old set of table I made about 10 years ago. I ruined one of the table tops when I was making them and held on to the mistake for years. It served well as a couple of shelves and then gathered dust in my shop.

The case is 5/8” white oak, lined inside with 3/8” spanish cedar. The top was inspied by Woodsmith issue 190. I used the quilt top star pattern in their online extras. Had to mess with the dimesions by cutting a thousand little squares from 1/4” plywood until I got the right fit. Made a shooting board to trim the edges just right; its made from Eastern black Walunt from my prized stash and yellow birch recycled from an old bookcase I build about 8 years ago.

Walnut dovetail keys reinforce the miters all around. I used SOSS siderail hinges and finished it off with 2 coats boiled linseed oil, 9 coats high gloss spray laquer, and finishing wax.

The inside has a hydrometer and humidifier set inside a spanish cedar frame under the lid. I also inlayed 2 1930 pennies to represent his birthyear under the lid.

Thanks for looking.

Michael

Commisioned by my 4 year old daughter, Corinne. One afternoon for the chair and one night for the stool. She loves them. Of course she wanted 2 different shades of pink and purple.

All scrap pine I had lying around. The chair seat is covered with some old foam and a purple t-shirt from WalMArt for 2 bucks.

I built this over the past summer as a side project. A side project is one that keeps me closer to home than in the shop. WIth the kids home out of school for the summer, I took a look at my old fence and said, “What the hell”.

Nothin special here, mostly an exersice in straightening crooked, and cupped souther yellow pine. I bought the cheapest stuff at HD. The pickets are 1/2” x 5 (I would call #99 common). My ols gate was much too heavy so I wanted one that was a bit more lightweight. I made my own tounge and groove which was fun. I actually got it to fit right with little gaps. The rails and stiles are all half lapped reinforced with dowel pins. Stainless steel hingers. I still don’t have a good latch, maybe I’ll make one one of these days.

The finish is semi transparent Olympic Deck and Fence penetrating stain.

Did the whole project for less than $150.00 bucks. Most of that was for SS hardware and a gallaon of stain.

Thanks for looking.

Michael

Nothing special. This was a test box for a humidor I recently built for my fater in law. I didn’t mess it up too much so I finished it up and used it to store my router bits and accessories.

Pine box about 14×11 x 8. I used this to practice dovetail keys, siderail hinges, and general dimensions for the humidor. It came out a bit shorter than the humidor since I needed several tries cutting the mortise for the side rail hinges. I hate hinges. I took them off for the humidor and installed cheap’o butt hinges using Doug Stowe’s “flipping” story stick technique. A steal screw in the door and rare earth magnet in the case keeps it closed. Lots of practice on this project.

The trays are just laminated blocks of MDF with holds drilled into them and a small birch drawer at the bottom for loose items.

Experimenting all the way to complete; finished with Olympic Deck and Fence semi transparrent (Walnut) stain mixed with boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits followed by finishing wax and a mild buffing.

Thanks for looking.

Michael

First off, I loved the tutorial. Thank you so much Andy. I followed it to the letter as best I could with the tooling I have. The best part of it was I now have a new sanding platform, medallion templates, lid templates, dead on miters now, a new router table in my saw extention, and a great way to secure the workpiece to my bench using strips of melamie. I guess a tutorial is about learning anyway.

I found the pine board wasting it’s life away as a shelf in a closet. It was the perect size. I laid out the sides and lid just like in the tutorial and now I find myself using this technique out of habit for all my boxes. The medallion is my attempt at resawing and bookmatching. A little sloppy but I got it to work. It was too thin when I finished so I had to laminate a piece of 1/4 plywood to it before I glued it in place. This gave me the thickness but I went a bit crazy with the sanding at the edge. Now I have a plywood ‘accent” in the lid. Keys are walnut and the handle is teak. I used a 3/16 dowel for the hinge pin.

Finish is about 7 coats of spray laquer buffed with finishing wax. Inside has adhesive backed felt. No dividers.

He is right, you can get carried away with the shaping, the back is paper thin. I also got sloppy fitting the lid as you can see.

It was going to go on my desk at work but when I brought it home to finish my wife fell in love with it. First thing she said was, “Wow, thats a beautiful box. Its like art, not the stuff you normally make.” It is now in my bedroomprotecting her cell phone and keys.

It not as nice as the master’s but I had lots of fun with this. Thanks again Andy. I have some nicer wood I’m going to experiment with next after.

Thanks for reading this.

Michael

These were fun and the kids had a blast. Practice boxes for Andy’s Art box. I was just practicing my miter technique.

Just scrap 1/2 birch plywood. Each box has a unique hardwood handle so the kids would know which was theirs.
Trever / Red Oak/ Lower Left
Corinne / Walnut / Upper Left
Christopher / Maple / Upper Right
Karma / Birch / Lower Right

I let them go to town that night with Minwax water based stain for easy cleanup. I got to play with it too since I never have before. Good excuse to blow 40 bucks on stain for boxes worth a nickle. I then sprayed them with laquer the next day.

The luggage locks I got from Target. Blue for the boys and pink for the girls.

Thanks for looking
Michael

This was a fun little project. I recently bought my son, Christopher a bow and arrow set. I have been trying to teach him to put things away when he is done playing with them. So, I couldn’t expect him to put his bow and arrows away if he had no where to put them.

All 1/2’ birch plywoood and 3/8” dowels, 2 coats Tung Oil Finish.

Enjoy

Michael

OK so here is my very first challenge entry. I thought the theme was very appropriate for the style of work I normally do. Which is solely making completly useless things out of garbage. For my friends and family who may read this, most won’t; this is the LumberJocks ””Nothing New But The Glue””:http://lumberjocks.com/msojka/blog/14995 challenge. Sponsored by Gorilla Glue.
I made these boxes from a pallet I pulled out of a dumpster back in early March. These were gifts for my friends – Steve, Brian, and Derek. Last weekend I was lucky enough to get a weekend off to hang out with them over on the Gulf Coast; and it was a blast. Thank you Suzanne, I love you.

I needed a box for the garage to keep some private material out of plain sight while on my workbench. So I decided to make some out of that nice pallet. I think the guys liked them and hope they put them to good use.

Lumberjocks read on, all others – Thanks for reading this and I will catch up with you on Facebook.

Thanks – I had to tell 2 stories. One for my friends and family who don’t care about my woodworking and those who do.

Pure dumpster dive, I have a trucking company in the same commercial complex as my shop. They transport cars for the snowbirds to Florida. They just chuck these beautiful pallets in the dumpster every day. I have an endless supply of nice clean pallet material walking distance. I usually go over there with the truck though.

The shop boxes are made from some kind of pine. The first photo is the entire pallet the night I got it. I’m so glad I snapped a picture before I cut the treads off. Each box is roughly 4”x 6” x 3 3/4”, but each one is unique. I fixed a finge that broke off of one wiht some walnut. One has a single peg in the lid. And one has the bottom lined with maple as well. Mine – You can’t see it in the pictures, but I got a kickback while ripping the walnut down for the lips. Sucker flew past my head and hit something behind me real hard. I eventually found the piece and it has a huge gash in it. I saved it for my box so I alway have a good reminder of how careful I need to be.

Each box is made from 2 of the treads. The sides are finger joints cut on the table saw with a standard 1/8” kerf. I like to call these finger joints, bigger than 1/8” I call them box joints. Yes, you counted right, I started with 5 boxes but I’m not that good, and one of them got away from me, turned into “test pieces”.

I used the gorilla glue on fingers and man does this stuff foam up. I’m sure I used too much, and the lable clearly states “DONT USE TOO MUCH”. But who listens to directions anyway. I also made some wood putty from the sawdust mixed with gorilla glue. I’ve done this with yellow glue before and this was a good opportunity to try it out with something else. I think it worked out OK, most of the gaps were filled and it dried dark like some of the grain.

The inside liner is recycled maple from my old bookcase I made a long time ago.

I used solid pallet material for the bottom so I made my own walnut pegs to join the bottom to the sides. The plugs at the top are purely decorative. The lid is made from the same material with a 3 sided lip of walnut. I like the lid because it doubles as a tray when removed from the box. Gives you a place to put things as you remove them from the box.

4 coats of Tung Oil Finish, buffed out with and old rag.

For me, the best thing about working with old pallets is the smell of fresh cut pine.

Thanks for reading – Michael

Slap some french cleats on it, hang it up on the wall, and HOLA !!! Instant miter saw workstation. These were supposed to be storage cubbies for the kids toys wit han integrated desktop spanning the 2 cabinets. I went overboard on the design, my wife simply wanted boxes. Oh well …..

All 1/2’ big box birch plywood. No finish yet. I put it to work immediatly. Plenty of storage for hand power tools and stuff. Maybe I’ll make some shallow drawers.

Needed one in the shop and garage. Pallet wood but I can’t remember which one. Lets just say “some kind of pine” 5/8” dowels still kickin from Suzanne’s old cd rack. I think it had about 2 dozen dowels on it. 2 coats of spray shellac.

bon appetite

I was wrong, the checkerboard project was freshman year in high school. My buddy Steve reminded me of that this past weekend.

Christopher came home one day from a birthday party and in his goodie bag was a little cardboard set of checkers and board. He wanted to play and simply loved it. As we fumbled around wit hthe cardboard checker set the light bulb went off !!! Let’s make a checkerboard. It has been that long, but I remembered most of the steps.

Recycled oak from my original table, that wound up in a shelf for a few years (I kept the screw hole in the checkerboard) and birch from the old built in bookcase my wife made me build, and tear down 6 years later. Checkers are slices of dowels that Christopher insisted on painting red and black. An my precious walnut as the miter keys. Same materials on the box.

3 coats tung oil.

Christopher sanding, and Corinne buffing it out.

Do these count ????

Ok a bit cheesy but I had the kids with me today in hte shop and they love to play with the scrap blocks from the scrap bin. They were pretending to race “cars” form little blocks of wood.

Now I’m trying to layout the cut lines on a plywood carcase for a storage / desk / cubby cabinet for the kids playroom. Took me about 3 minutes to make these “cars” from scrap and that bought me about 45 minutes of uninteruppted “daddy ? daddy? daddy? daddy? daddy?.....etc” so I could do my layout.

Pricesless. Now they want to make some more. I love woodworking wiht my kids so I thought these should count like everything else.

For the record:
Scap 3/4 birch plywood for car body, 5/15 oak dowels for the axels, amd 1 1/8 dowels for the wheels. No finish, sanded rough edges.

So as some of you may know I’m getting back into woodworking after a long layoff. Starting out with boxes so I made this one from ””Basic Box Making Doug Stowe

I started out with enough material for 4 boxes. Ended with one that kid of sucks. The miters are close but need to be better. I must have used the wrong blade for the miter keys; the kerf looks like a vampire bat, with the teeth comming down on both sides. I need a blade that will cut a flatter botton. I think I used an ATB blade but I need to check. Also messed up the fit on the top. I was sneaking up on the fit and after about 12 passes I got lazy and cranked up blade up too high. Oh well, I guess I need to show a bit more patience. It now resides as a tea box in my kitchen, until my wife sees it. Then its for sale !!!!

For the record – hardwood birch for the sides (from the old bookcase), found walnut for the top and mitel keys. That walnut is a blog post in itself. Maybe I’ll write it tonight.

I have been threatening for a while so here it is, my version of the Kids Toolbox. I wanted to learn box joints on my table saw. I had the kids help me with the final assembly.

These were made from an old bookcase I built out of birch plywood and hardwood birch. My wife made me tear it down when we remodeled a few years ago. Been holding on the the wood ever since.

That is my nephew Trever on my right, and my son Christoper on my left. Christopher obviously does not like to sand. The kids loved making hese boxes.

For the record, Birch plywood tung oil finish, 1 1/8 ” dowel.