Working on an Endtable

I built a little end table on Thursday and Friday. First I went through the pile of Mahogany and picked out several pieces that had a similar color and really nice grain. I then jointed and cut them down to the same thickness then glued them up for the table top.
I cut a taper on the legs and used the Domino to join the legs together.

Since the tabletop was larger than my planer, I had to handplane the top down. It took me about 30 minutes, but I got the top all nice and flat and removed the extra glue.
I had to make a little jig to cut a circle on the bandsaw. It works really well in theory but cutting a 18" circle on 1.5" thick Mahogany is not an easy task. This was by far the hardest part of the whole thing.
After some extensive sanding I put a coat of finish on the top and the base. I took this picture just as I poured some of the finish on the top, you can see the really nice grain show through immediately. I still need to get some finished pictures of the bench I helped Eric with and the finished little table. I think I'm going to make a couple more, so I will have some for sale if your interested.

Mahogany Bench

Well the garage is taking some serious shape. A little bit more cleaning and moving a few tools allowed me to make a bench with my neighbor Eric this past weekend. I can't give out to many specifics the bench is somewhat of a suprise to his wife and she reads the blog so I can't give out too many juicy photos. I got to try out my Festool Domino and I must say that thing works as good as advertised. Its going to take my woodworking to a whole new level.

Recent Aquisitions

I wish I could be posting some amazing progress on the bed. But it would be a lie, as most of you know I'm addicted to craigslist. I check it religiously and buy a lot more stuff then Jessica likes. Its how I've collected the majority of my tools, my lumber and just about everything else in my garage. I think last Friday I got the best value for my money. I responded at the right time to two post, and said I would buy immediately no questions asked. Craigslist if a funny animal I've dealt with a lot of shady and weird people, as well as some really nice honest ones as well. Luckily these sellers were honest, they took my word that I would show up over the weekend a rid them of their merchandise.

First up is a 8' long workbench. Its awesome really sturdy the drawers are all metal and made to take some abuse. The top has been a little abused but it looks to be solid maple. The seller was a great guy moving across the country and didn't have room for this behemoth.

The crown jewel on the bench is this awesome vise. I don't really need it for anything but when does that ever stop you. Its an Emmert Pattern Makers Vise, extremely old and extremely collectible. This thing is built like a tank back when they used hand tools for woodworking. It has a cult following and can easily fetch over $500 on Ebay. Whats so special you ask, well it functions as a normal vise but what you can't see is that the entire vise can be rotated 180 degrees and raised/lowered all while the piece is still clamped in place. I got bench and all for $125.

My other purchase was 8 of these really heavy duty clamps. They are really nice and heavy and after I googled the company that made them I noticed they went out of business in 1928 so these are at least that old and better than any clamp you can buy today. As I was leaving the guy who sold them asked if I would be interested in a Incra Ultra Jig. I said sure, the price was definitely right. So now I have some awesome capabilities with the router table and will be doing dovetails on the bed's nightstands drawers.

Sawdust

I've started the bed process. The design hasn't changed much I've changed a few little things here and there to make the construction more durable. I thought I would let you guys follow the process on the bed. First I took the rough stack of walnut I had and started planeing it down so that I could select the best stock for the bed. Seperating the good from the bad, and trying to pick pieces that look good together.

Next I jointed two edges to make the stock square and flat. Then it was back to the planer to thickness the lumber down to a uniform 3/4". So I'm now at the point where if I went out and bought the lumber from a hardwood lumber store like Schutte. So I spent about 15 hours processing the rough lumber down to smooth usable lumber. Its not glamourous work, and it doesn't make it feel like you achieved very much.

In that 15 hrs I produced 6 42 gal trash bags full of sawdust. I would typically use the sawdust as mulch but Walnut wood has something in it that makes it bad for plants.

I looked through a few of the comments from previous post. To answer a few of your questions Craig, whenever you want a dresser like Eric's let me know. I guess as a general note, If you see anything on the blog that I make and you like it, please let me know I would love to do some commissioned work for you. I think of myself as being reasonably priced, but I'm not Ikea. I will get finished pics of the record storage as soon as the client lets me know its ready. I'm as curious as you guys are.

Jessica and I have commissioned Cassie Lane to do a custom piece of art for our house. I found her through Etsy , believe it or not you can search for local artist. She has a blog and an etsy store. If you like her work and end up buying something please tell her I sent you, she might be a little more generous when she prices our custom piece.

It looks like our house is going to be a part of the KCModern home tour 2008. It looks like its going to be the first weekend in June, but nothing is set in stone yet. This is probably good news for blog readers because its going to force me to get a lot done between now and then. Nothing like a deadline to get an architect working.

Handplanes

Well I thought it was about time for a post. I've finished a custom teak bench for one of the jobs I helped design at work. So it looks like I've finally gotten all the projects out of my way and can finally start on some stuff for myself. I'll be starting the bed next, I think. I'm currently working on several designs to try and figure out exactly what I want. I do know it will be made out of Walnut since I have a lot of it to use. Here is a picture of whats known as a crotch slab, I have a matching pair that i'm planing down to possibly use as the headboard on the bed. I'm not completely certain yet, but I think it could be really cool. The slabs have some really amazing figure (grain) on them and are going to look really cool on whatever I use them on. As you can see the slabs are very large, and much to big for my planer. So I finally got to use some of the handplanes I've been slowly collecting over the past couple of months. I must say there is something about taking all that wood off by hand. You get to see the beauty of the wood slowly come into the picture. The best way I can describe it to some of you is that its like hand drawing a drawing as opposed to the doing it on the computer. There is a lot more satisfaction when you are done, but its a long and hard road. I 'll post some more pics as I progress further on the slabs.

I recently purchased a whole bunch of handplanes off of craigslist (sorry Jill) the majority of them are kind of cheap and crappy. But I really wanted one of these. Which is known as a Stanley #7 jointer. It basically takes the place of a power jointer, its very big, 22" long and weighs in at 9 lbs. Well I got together with another local woodworker who knows a lot more about handplanes than I do, and he said this one looks old and that I should try and figure out how old it is.
I started cleaning it up this last weekend to get it ready to use. I took it apart and found that it is in really good shape, just needs a little tlc. Well this morning I started trying to date this thing. These old Stanley planes have quite the following so there are several sights that show the exact signs to look for and to date the plane. I posted some pictures on a woodworking forum and the handtool experts quickly told me this is a Stanley type 5 #7. Which means that it was made between 1885-1888.

I had no idea its that old, and can't believe its in this good of shape. Crazy huh.

Storage Units in Transit

Here is a pic from last weekend. All but one of the record storage units are done(yes I screwed one of them up). Here is a shot of them in the trailor we used to move them. As soon as they get completely assembled and done I'll post some more pictures. Let me know what you all think.

Record Storage is almost done

Well its been a while since I posted. I havn't really been up to a whole lot. I got the record storage units built and Doug my painter sprayed them with lacquer this week. I must confess I did screw one of them up, so I have to make one more. Here are some pictures I took while I was cutting all the material, and glueing them up. I'll be selling my tablesaw soon I found a larger saw for myself so if anybody who reads this is interested just message me.

This is the various shapes all cut out ready for glue up.

Glue up was a real pain since the shapes are so complex. I think they turned out pretty cool, not as perfect as I imagined them but hey I'm still getting the hang of this. I have several other projects on the boards. My neighbor Eric and I are gettting ready to start a small desk for his house. I'm also getting ready to start on a Teak shower bench for a project I helped design at work. I possibly have a few more bookcases for another client and I'm also talking to someone about doing a small childrens bed. So as you can see the work is piling in but thats good I'm trying to save up to buy a truck to make things alot easier.

Dresser is Almost Completed

Eric's dresser is almost completed. These pics are from over a week ago, taken the night we mounted all of the drawer slides. We thought it looked pretty good in this form.

I can't wait till we get the Walnut and Paduak drawer fronts on this thing is going to be awesome. I think Eric is really pleased with the way everything turned out. He did the majority of the work, I supplied the tools, a little bit of knowledge, and a little bit of design.

We went with Walnut for the drawer bottoms to contrast nicely. The back panel is Walnut as well. I really like the color the Shellac gives the Walnut though Eric said it was a pain to put it on. As you can see we went with the full extension drawers, a lock rabbit on the drawers to hold up to some good use.

I'll try and get some pictures of it when its completed. If you like the dresser let me know, If you want one for yourself just email me that can be arranged. I should be finishing up the record storage by the first of the year at the latest, so I'll post some more pictures of that in the future.

Record Storage Update.

Well I thought I would post a little update picture of the record storage system I'm building for Rod. I've got two of them completed and set up to complete several more this week. I thought I would get a few more done this weekend but I got rearended in Jessica's car on saturday, so now its sitting in the garage.

Thanks to all of you who came through and voted on the contest. We ended up about 10 votes short according to their website, but who knows how accurate that is. Keep your fingers crossed for me, we will find out about the winners of the contest on Friday.

Ready for Production

Well I got the garage all cleaned up and ready to start making some furniture. In the past couple of weeks I've wired a subpanel, and added a few new circuits with new outlets so I have all the juice I need for some sawdust making. Here is a shot of the garage all cleaned up and ready to go. You can see the stack of plywood front and center, that should be enough to make all of the Record Storage Units.

The design has changed quite a bit since you guys saw it last. I may still build a unit or two of the other design, especially if any of you want to hire me to do it. The record storage is now going to occur in stacking pieces, just like the Tetris video game. It will be a much more flexible solution that will allow the unit to adapt with changes in location. So the image above shows two versions of the units with records and the image below shows the same units without records. I'm making it out of Baltic Birch plywood with an exposed edge and Walnut backing where needed. Let me know what you guys think.

I love Craigslist

Many of you know I have a little storage problem in the garage. Well its not really a problem in everyones eyes, for the past six months I've had about 1000 bd.ft. of Walnut sitting on the floor of my garage. Since I have this large woodworking project to complete (more on that in a few days) I figured I needed to get some lumber storage. So I spent last week scowering craigslist for my options, several phonecalls and a lot of internet research later here we go. The picture above was taken a week ago prior to me having any storage, that hunk of crap in the center is the pile of walnut with all kinds of stuff sitting on it.

This is a picture taken saturday afternoon. The shelving is partly up. You can barely see the Cypress siding I have left is on the top shelf.

The shelving fully installed and screwed to the wall.

I managed to get all of the walnut on the shelf. I think its around 2000lb's of wood and stuff on the shelf. I actually might be able to pull a car in the garage now. The best part about the shelves is I got all of it for $90, so if any of you want any its still on craigslist and the guy has a warehouse full.


If any of you havn't voted in the remodel blog competition please follow the link on the right that says vote for me. If you have voted pass the blog along to everyone you know. Please!

Workbench for under $200

Well I have the workbench nearly completed. I constructed the legs and got them clamped and glued together.

You attach the two sets of legs together with two plywood panels. I drilled pocket holes for screws to attach the top. It was the first time I had used a pocket hole jig and I have to say for a really simple operation it works really nice.

Here is a shot of the new bench sitting on the old bench. I must say those rubbermaid trashcans are quite sturdy. I would guess the bench is close to a hundred pounds.

I don't have the top screwed on yet but you get an idea of what this thing is going to look like. I have a vise on the way, so I should get that installed next week. Eventually I plan on making drawers to fill out the bottom of the bench. I highly recomend this workbench to anyone, its cheap, relatively easy to build, and extremely solid. I only have about 10 hours of work in it so far, 3 sheets of plywood, a quart of wood glue, and a box of screws.

First Commision; Record Storage

Well thank you all for voting as to what I should tackle next. The bed won hands down, so it looks like I will be starting it soon. I've already got a preliminary design but I'm not comfortable enough with it to put it up for critique. I kind of fell into my first possible furniture commision. While shopping for some furniture at Retro Inferno to use a Wedding gift card, I happen to talk to the owner Rod Parks. He just so happens to need some Vinyl Record storage for his house, we started by talking about trading some Crate and Barrell gift cards for in store credit. Then the more I thought about it I just offered to build them for him. Here are the preliminary designs for the storage units. He wanted something flexible enough so he could rearrange them as his furniture changes in his home (oh the joys of owning a furniture store).

This is the version I like the best. Walnut exterior with a white lacquered interior.

Similar to numero one, just not quite as nice.

He talked about an all white version so I had to show him how much better some Walnut would look.