Here is my almost completed new work bench (74”L x 26”D x 36”H), still need to throw on some oil and wax on the top and drill dog holes. I had been using two plastic saw horses and a single layer of mdf, in as few words as possible, it sucked. So I had originally purchased 135 BDF of some maple from a local lumber guy to build myself a real work bench. After letting the wood sit for about a year I decided that I would begin my build, but then I had a realization, my current bench wasnt going to work to build it and I wanted to practice some joinery and building before diving into my dream bench. What came out of that is what you see here, its what I call my trial run work bench. The base is made up of Fir and maple. I purchased some 4×4 fir, the best pieces I could find at Orange and then grabbed one of the many boards of maple that I had in my garage. The legs and feet are fir and all the stretchers are maple. I drawboned the stretchers to the legs with thick mortise and tenon. This is definatly the way Ill make my base again, with the drawbone it is solid. The pegs were 3/8 oak. The top is a plywood and MDF sandwhich, bottom and top are 3/4” maple ply and two layers of 3/4 MDF glued and screwed together, very heavy. The apron is maple. For the vise I had a piece of 10/4 cherry in my junk bin, had some checking and holes, but made a great chop. The tool chest below is made from oak ply (which I got for free) and some oak boards I had laying around for the drawers. I laminated some oak and maple and turned the knobs for the drawers. It holds a lot of stuff. This was a great learning project and I feel confident now that my real bench will turn out great. This was also a budget build using stuff I had on hand. Minus the vise and the drawer slides I have about $100 into this build, with the hardware (which I will reuse on my next bench so I look at it as a mute) I have $160, so a total cost of about $260 Im very happy. I tried to move this thing last night to clean and I couldnt budge it. Luckily everything comes apart so when I have to move it becomes manageable, somewhat. Once I move to my new place with more space Ill start the new bench but until then this will work perfect for my uses.

A friend of mine is getting into leather work and wanted a holder for his tools. He showed me some ones on ebay and I decided to make him one that was slightly nicer than what was found on the bay. I went to my scrap bin to look for pieces and this is what I came up with. It has maple front and back, cherry sides that are rabetted and dowelled with walnut dowels and walnut handles that are also dowelled with walnut dowels. The lid was a piece of maple that had a knot in the end which I used to keep it semi rustic looking. After cleaning up the maple on top from its rough state it had some great figure, a little curly a little ambrosia and a little tiger stripe. My cell phone doesnt do it justice, nor the lighting. It was almost too nice to use as a piece of shop furniture. I decided to use it though as I try to incorporate nice pieces in my shop as inspiration, figured Id carry that through to this shop piece. I hope it brings him many years of service and a little inspiration. This was in exchange for some scraps of leather for my mallet, a leather strope and when he gets a big enough piece, leather for my vise.

This is my second cutting board. The first was a gift, this ones for me. It was made with Cherry, Maple and Bloodwood. It’s about 12×16x1.25, has a nice weight to it. I added little rubber feet to it to stop it from sliding around. I have found that the cutting boards slide too much on granite without the feet. Hand eased all the edges with my trusty block plane and hand scraped the flat surfaces for a nice smooth finish. Used a mineral oil, beeswax and carnauba wax butcher block finish. Still needs one or two more coatings but ill let the first few soak in overnight. Overall happy with the way it turned out.

I got a lathe for Christmas and this is my first functional project. This is a mortar and pestle for combining spices and such. The pestle is made from walnut and the mortar is from the same piece of walnut and a piece of maple I glued on to it for depth. It’s finished in butcher block oil.

Made this box for a christmas gift. I had a great piece of figured walnut that I re-sawed for the top, the sides are maple with walnut splines, walnut trim piece on the bottom and a solid walnut panel for the bottom of the box. I used SOSS Barrel hinges they make for a nice clean look I think. I finished it with tung oil and poly then used a nice coating of paste wax.

This is a cutting board I made for a christmas gift. Its made with cherry, walnut, bloodwood and some stripped maple, all from the scap bin except the maple, that I had in my lumber pile. Finished with Howards Butcher Block conditioner, did 5 coats. Its my first cutting board, fun to make, next one up is an end grain instead of edge grain. Just need to get a drum sander, hopefully one will be under the tree this year.

I decided to make a small box for my moms desk for mothers day. I wanted to use a simple design with some unique woods to set the piece. I went to a local hardwood dealer and gleaned through his cut off stocks. I picked up a bunch of bloodwood and on the way to check out found a nice piece of cocobolo. The box is about 9 inches long, 3.5 inches wide and 3 inches tall, well a little over three with the top on. The top is a solid piece that was dado to fit into the box. The top was then hand chamfered with a block plane to create a subtle curve to the top. The bloodwood box was splined with cocobolo. The bottom is a small piece of cherry I had laying around that had darkened from age. I used tung oil on the box, 3 coats and then two coats of polly finished with paste wax and buffed with a wheel. For the top I used acetone to remove the oils and then poly wax and buffed.

This is my first time working with both bloodwood and cocobolo. Learned a lot and did my homework on the negative effects of the dust so I made sure to have my respirator on when cutting. I tried to use hand tools when possible, so very little sanding, finished with scrappers instead where I could, used block plane to ease edge etc. I really enjoyed working with it and trying some more exotic type of wood.

I made this for my boss who is having a baby. This is my second box (not including my bandsaw box) that I’ve made and the first to use hinges. Learned a lot on this one, made a few mistakes but was able to recover from them. The top piece is curly cherry with about 2 coats of tung oil and 7 coats of gloss wipe on poly, tried to make it shine more than the rest of the box. The rest of the top is picture framed in walnut then dado into the sides which are made of sapele (sp). The bottom is a single piece of 1/4” walnut I left room for expansion, hoping it doesnt bust the box apart. The splines are walnut and maple. The rest of the box is done in two coats of tung oil and 2-3 coats of wipe on poly, then the whole box was waxed and polished. I used Soss barrel hinges which work well but they dont make the lid feel as solid as I’d liked, theres a little play in the hinge itself, maybe I should have went up one size, I dont know. I dont know if the next size up, bh104 would have been too big, my sides are about 5/8. Overall I am happy with it, she was exstatic about it, which is whats important.

Anyone think that the bottom piece will be an issue? I also left room on the cherry, a little too much room, had to make little walnut inserts for the inside of the lid to hide a gap in it, oops.

This is my first band saw box (and first project posted on LJ). I recently purchased a new Rikon 14 deluxe band saw and this was the first thing I made with it as soon as the saw was ready to go. The wood was some small pieces I had laying around. Its made of walnut on the front and back with cherry in the middle. The pull on the front is mahagony. Its finished with Minwax tung oil, about 4 coats, then some rub on gloss poly with a light wet sand of 2000 grit with mineral spirits then wax. This is my first project with my new shop that wasnt for the shop. It came out decent enough and I hope to improve more once I get some more projects under my belt. Thanks for looking.