This is a little project I made from an old pine packing crate. The project came from a book by Michael Dunbar and was a quick build. Finish is Lexington Green milk paint, oil/varnish, and wax. I really liked the flat look of the paint before the oil/varnish but was worried it would stain too easily for a child so decided to add a little more protection. I like the look of the milk paint and think the project will age beautifully. The pins were carved by hand from white oak since I don’t have a lathe (yet).

This is a project my daughter asked to do after looking through Michael Dunbar’s Country Woodworking book. She helped all through the project on the things she is big enough to do like drilling holes with an egg beater or brace, catching the offcuts when handsawing, pounding nails, rasping, card scraping, sanding and painting. Her little brother pitched in a bit too.

The finish was some acrylic paint (one coat) which was rubbed with wax and 0000 steel wool. This gave it a nice distressed finish where the wood shows through on the highspots of the grain and the edges.

This is my first attempt at carving a spoon. It came out ok but I really need to work on symetry. I made it from the green limb of someting I found in the woods. I think it is a birch but not certain. Thanks for looking.

After watching a recently uploaded episode of The Woodwrights Workshop I decided I wanted to try my hand at spoon carving. Being unable to find a decent hood knife locally I searched the internet. There are some nice knives out there but the ones I wanted would take at least a couple weeks to receive. My impatients led me to making my own. I forged the blade from 5/16th O1 drill rod bent it and sharpened it (on sandpaper and stones which took forever). The asymentical handle was split out of some walnut scrap I had. While it looks a little odd the shape actually fits my hand well for carving in the Swedish style. Between this and a Sloyd knife I have had for years I started my first spoon. Its still a work in progress but is almost ready to sit out and dry so I can get a cleaner finish on it.

Here is another breadboard I made as a Christmas present. The square pegs are made from purple heart and drawbored to hold it all together. The middlle peg is fit tight but the two sides were slotted to allow for some wood movement and hopefully not crack the project when it gets humid out again. the slash knot in the main board gave some interesting character so I kept it and shapped the end to match the profile. It was a fun project but the softness of the pine makes it difficult compared to the hardwood versions. Finish is varnish with a handrubbed wax.

This is the first thing I have ever made on a lathe. I have been interested in doing something for awhile but don’t want to invest in a lathe until I know morea about it. I found a class on turning a bowl and went to it Saturday. The class was great and I went home with this figured maple bowl that will be a Christmas present for my wife who has been asking for one for some time now.

This is a Christmas present for my wife’s grandmother. Her husband was a woodworker and passed away about 6 years ago. She asked me to go through his lumber and take anything I could use. I found a nice piece of maple with some brown flecks in it. They were the color of walnut so I paired it with this walnut that had some very nice figure. The hole in the handle is for both hanging the board and to house an oil bowl.

Here is a little bread/cheese board I made as a gift for Christmas. It was pretty quick to knock out with just some scraps and a pint of scotch ale. I have a few more to put together but probably won’t repeat they through tenons as they are kind of a pain. Thanks for looking.

This is my first serious attempt at handcut dovetails and it is much more difficult in hardwood than pine but by the end they were looking pretty decent. The box is Cherry with a poplar bottom. The poplar was a nice piece with greens and purples in it. Finish is oil/varnish and wax on the outside and untreated on the inside. This project took a lot more time than I expected but I learned a lot from it and had fun.

I was really sick of not having a proper chisel mallet for my work and decided it was time to pick through the scrap bin and come up with something. I put this together from some 5/4 white oak, 4/4 red oak and hard maple for the handle. It is simple construction and quick to build. I finished with shellac and paste wax. It at least looks better than its predessor!

With the trellis and strawberry towers complete I now have my raised garden finished (for this year). There are seven beds in there, two towers and two trellises. It is growing great mostly because the beds kept my plants from getting soaked by the wet spring.

Here are a few strawberry towers I built for our garden. One was done in time to get some plants into this year. The other one came later and only has a watermellon in it for now. I drilled holes down the sides for the strawberries to spread into on the first tower. On the second tower I burned my cheap harbor frieght drill out when the spade bit caught. I’m looking for some auger bits and then a brace to finish these holes, to heck with electric drills!

I just finished the second and last trellis for the garden last night. The constuction is mortise and tennon for the rails and the top rail is half lapped (I think). The legs are also half lapped. the leaves an inch of room for me to drive stakes between the legs and the raised beds that the trellis goes over. This was a fun project from construction lumber. It gave me some good practice at M&T construction and the family and neighbors are really impressed with how it looks in the garden.

I have been working with hand tools nearly exclusively for the past two years but have really struggled with some of my sawing operations. I lack a proper workbench and workholding. While that is on my list to build I decided to start with the basics and built this sawbench after a Christopher Scwarz article. I modified the bench using a 2×10 instead of a 2×6 which resulted in a wider top and a longer bench overall. I really liked using the cut nails in the project which went together very quickly. Drilling the pilot holes for the cut nails was the only powertool I used in this project (I need to get an eggbeater drill and a brace). I haven’t taken it for a test drive yet but will soon.

I finished up this baby cradle about six months ago but just realized I never added it to my projects. The cradle is for my son who is now too old to sleep in it. He loves playing in it though and my wife and I hope to have another child soon that will get the chance to use it as well. I blogged about the construction on the site if you are interested in reading more. I got the plans from Jordan boat works and the construction is from white cedar and QSWO. Almost all of the work was done by hand although I did cheat a little and use a friends planner for the cedar; the oak was hand planed.

This is my first Cigar Box Guitar and I just finished it up today. I had a little while to play it and tune it. It is going to be a gift for my father in laws birthday at his party today so not much time to play it. Wish I had more but I will make myself another one soon. As with most of my projects this was made with hand tools. Finish is oil/varnish and wax.

I made this try squre from an article and plan I purchased from Popular Woodworking Magazine. It was a pretty easy project and made completely with handtools. The wood is cherry with birch dowels and finished with oil/varnish and wax. The overall size is about 15” by 10”.

This little box is something I made for my daughter inspired by Andy’s palm boxes. I enjoy hand tools so it is a little different in the details but the idea came from Andy. The hinge is a brass rod and construction is hard maple and purpleheart. The box is 6” deep, 3 3/4” high and about 9 3/4” long. The edges are mostly chamfered and the verticle chamfers are stopped with a lamb’s tongue detail that I really enjoyed making. The box was burnished on the outside and untreated on the inside. Hopefully the purple color will stay for a while as that is her favorite color.

This is a mirror I made a few months back and blogged about the process. It’s made from Borg red oak and I cursed some of the grain when I was trying to plane it and fighting tear out. In the end some of the worst of that came out to be one of my favorite parts of the piece. This was my first time cutting mortise and tenon joints and it was all done by hand and then drawbore pinned together. Thanks for looking.