Category Archive: Posts by Material

Mar 28 2012

My First Bowl

A few weeks ago, I turned my first bowl. I wanted to make something on my new mini-lathe, so I found a slab of walnut in my wood stash and decided to make a bowl. I did some things right, some things wrong, and learned a lot about turning in the process. …

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Mar 24 2012

My Daughter and I Built Another Birdhouse

I had some shop time alone with my daughter yesterday and she wanted to build something. I told her she could use any materials I had in my shop, not just the scrap pieces I usually let her use, if she drew up plans for what she wanted to build. She decided …

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Mar 22 2012

Fixing a Burgled Birdhouse

This last week, I finally got around to fixing the hole some critter (most likely a squirrel) ate into the birdhouse my daughter and I built a few years ago. I just got sick of looking at it sitting empty. Since I nailed and glued the front of the house in place, …

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Mar 20 2012

First Lathe Project: Toy Tree

My son’s wooden train set came with some lame 2-dimensional trees cut out of flat stock. I thought now that I have a lathe, I could make a much more aesthetic tree. I came up with the idea for the simple project after experimenting with the different tools on some scrap wood. …

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Mar 13 2012

Tablet Stand

I made a permanent mount in the kitchen for my Android tablet a few months ago, but most of the time the tablet doesn’t live there. I find myself using it a lot around the rest of the house, strangely enough even when I’m at the computer where desk space is at …

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Mar 08 2012

Magnetic Saw Guide

Last month, I watched an excellent video by David Barron called “Hand cut dovetails made easy.” His whole technique was excellent and it was easily the best demonstration for cutting dovetails I’ve seen yet — it made me feel like a hack for posting my dovetail …

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Mar 05 2012

Cherry Coat Rack

Click here if you don’t have flash Rather than put their coats away, my kids usually throw their coats on the floor. I suppose it’s not all their fault after all, since they really can’t reach the hangers in the closet. Getting sick of the mess, I decided to build a coat …

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Mar 02 2012

Issues with Clamping

When I was clamping my cherry coat rack together, I ran into a few problems with my clamps. Besides the old adage about never having enough clamps, I realized that my quick clamps just weren’t cutting it for this particular glue up. One of the boards was slightly warped, …

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Feb 26 2012

Resawing Safely on the Table Saw.

Resawing on my table saw has always been hit or miss, not to mention potentially dangerous. It’s almost impossible to hold the piece against the low fence while simultaneously keeping my fingers a safe distance from the saw blade. I’ve tried different combinations of axillary …

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Feb 09 2012

Get Woodworking! You Can Make Dovetails

Right after I finished cutting all the dovetails for my toolbox, I thought I should have documented that better. So tonight I while I had some time, I thought I’d throw together a picture tutorial on how to make dovetails with tools you probably already have:  a bevel gauge, chisel, …

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