Woodwork
Workbench drawers (February 2018)
Hard Maple finished with Watco Teak Oil. I've been meaning to do this for years. Good use for a lot of otherwise not gorgeous material that's taking up space.
The Credenza (July 2017)
Black Walnut, Stainless Steel, MDF, finished with GF Arm-r-seal. Only took 10 months to complete.
Matt Kenney's Boxes #1, 28, 31 (April, 2017)
I decided to make a few of Matt Kenney's boxes for a contest. Walnut, MDF, Aspen, Cherry, Butternut, Elm Burl, Shellac, GF High Performance, Milk Paint.
Evelyn's Bookshelf (March 2017)
Hard Maple, GF High Performance. A fully dovetailed bookshelf for a 2 year old, only delivered 9 months late.
School Box (Sept 2016)
Black Ash, Walnut, Brass. Finished with Shellac. This is based on the piece of the same name from The Joiner and the Cabinetmaker, but with a few personal modifications.
Wally's Payment Box (July 2016)
Rift-sawn White Oak, Walnut, and Wenge. Finished with Shellac. Wally is our dog. Every night before bed he gets a Dental Chew and a Bully Stick. We call it his payment. Since he receives his payment in our bedroom, I decided to get the nasty dog-treat packaging out of sight and make a nice box for it.
Guest Room Closet (June 2016)
Walnut, Walnut Ply, Hard Maple. Finished with WOCA Oil. A built-in cabinet, closet rods, and shelving for our guest room.
Skewback Saw Til (May 2016)
Cherry, Hard Maple, Walnut. Finished with WOCA oil. This was a lot of fun, and it keeps my saws in a safe/secure place and (more importantly at the moment) provides another conveniently placed small drawer near the bench.
Quarter-sawn Walnut + Birdseye Maple Box (March 2016)
Quarter-sawn Walnut and Birdseye Maple. Finished with Shellac and WOCA oil. Dovetails and breadboard ends. The Walnut is some of the offcuts from The Desk. A wedding gift.
The Pencil Box (January 2016)
Jarrah and Curly Red Maple. Finished with Shellac. Totally a rip-off of this box by Derek Cohen. I didn't document this one, and it was a kind of rough ride. I have enough material to make another, and I think I might.
Shop Tour, Volume II (December 2015)
Every year I do one of these. This was the second.
Milkman Workbench (December 2015)
Soft Maple and Walnut. Unfinished. Based on Chris Schwarz's plans in Popular Woodworking Magazine. I'm not too thrilled with this thing, both because I rushed while building it and because I don't totally love the design, but I learned a few things. Round two will be more interesting.
Rattles (December 2015)
Cherry, Curly Maple. Finished with Jojoba and Beeswax. Gifts for three infants in my life (I still have the other two). Mostly just fooling around, learning how to use a lathe.
Grasshopper Pull Toys (December 2015)
Ash, Walnut, Maple. Finished with Jojoba Oil and Beeswax. Gifts for three toddlers in my life. Based on Marc Spagnuolo's plans.
The Kitchen Helper (December 2015)
Cherry, finished with Tried+True varnish oil. This is another "The Wood Whisperer" project. It's really nice to just turn your brain off and follow directions once in a while. A Christmas gift for a 3.5 year old.
Half Blind Box (November 2015)
Jarrah and Curly Maple. Finished with Ultra-blonde Shellac. I designed this box many months ago, but didn't have the tooling to pull it off until now. Also my first time working with Jarrah. I like it. I bought more.
Display Boxes (November 2015)
Black Cherry, Birch Ply, "Milk Paint". Hanging display boxes for seashells. A birthday gift for my mother.
The Desk (October 2015)
Air-dried Black Walnut, American Ash, Curly European Ash Veneer, Wenge. Finished with Arm-r-seal and Ultra-blonde Shellac. A desk for my home office.
Outdoor Bench (August 2015)
Honduran Mahogany, finished with Watco Teak Oil. I needed a bench for Waldo's (the dog) play area, and Marc Spagnuolo had just released these plans. A great weekend project
Dovetailed Mahogany Box (June 2015)
Honduran Mahogany, finished with Tried and True Varnish Oil. A simple, traditional wooden box built almost completely with hand tools. I would have enjoyed an opportunity to experiment with stain on this one, but there were time constraints. A gift for my (late) grandfather.
Rift-sawn White Oak and Walnut Box (June 2015)
Air-Dried Walnut and Rift-sawn White Oak. Finished with Waterlox. Over the winter, I visited a Frank Lloyd Wright Home that was completely trimmed out in Rift White Oak. I've never been a big fan of White Oak, but he convinced me to give it a chance. I found some perfectly rift-sawn stock and got to work. Doing modern work with concealed joinery using hand tools feeld like the chisel olympics, but the result is well worth it.
Coopered Lid Box (April 2015)
Cherry. Finished with Tried and True Varnish Oil. This is made out of a couple of pieces of firewood that I found in my wood pile. The pull on the lid is cherry sapwood. Really fun project.
Valet Box (March 2015)
Cherry, Wenge, Baltic Birch, Hard Maple, Leather. Finished with Tried and True Varnish Oil. My first project using Hot Hide glue, and my first time incorporating any sort of upholstery. A birthday gift for my father.
Pencil Box (March 2015)
Kiln-Dried Walnut, Air-Dried Walnut, Brass. Finished with Waterlox, hand-rubbed. Hinges by Brusso. This is a small pencil box that celebrates the variety of color and grain patterns present in Black Walnut lumber.
Krenov Style Smoothing Plane (February 2015)
Ash and O1 Tool steel. Finished with Boiled Linseed Oil. Iron and chipbreaker by Ron Hock. This plane is based on Derek Cohen's instructions.
Tage Frid Stools (February 2015)
Air-dried Black Walnut and Hard Maple. Finished with Maloof's finish. These stools were designed by Tage Frid and are documented in his excellent textbook on Furnituremaking.
Plane Cabinet (January 2015)
Cherry and Soft Maple. Finished with Waterlox. Hand tools only for everything but basic milling/dimensioning. A skill-building project.
Sawbench (December 2014)
Eastern White Pine. Finished with Tung Oil. Based on This bench. Doubles as the only seat in my shop.
Shop Tour, Volume I (December 2014)
Every year I do one of these. This was the first.
Box for Veritas Small Plow Plane Accessories (December 2014)
Walnut, Ash. Finished with Tung Oil. After unpacking all of the plow plane stuff, I didn't know what to do with it. So many little pieces and edges that need protection. So I found a couple of free hours and made a box. Technically, I think this is my first box.
Cheese and Meat Platter (December 2014)
Hard maple, Walnut, Padauk. 27" x 9", finished with General Finishes "Salad Bowl Finish". For new years, we like to light a fire and wait for midnight with a spread of cheese, meat, and charcuterie. Usually we run out of room and end up overflowing onto plates. Not this year.
Hinged Center Finder/Marker (December 2014)
Padauk, brass, sharpened drill bit. I built this based on a photograph I saw on facebook. Neat little marking tool.
Crosscut Sled (December 2014)
Baltic Birch, Soft Maple, Hard Maple, Ash. This is not my first sled, but it is already my favorite. The sled is much smaller than my previous sleds, which is a better fit for my usage patterns. It also uses hardwood runners instead of metal, a first for me. I've been living without a sled for the past month or two since I installed the SawStop. It's nice to be back.
Cutting Boards (December 2014)
Black Walnut and Hard Maple. Finished with oil+wax. Making end grain boards isn't much fun, but they're marvelous to use. Three are gifts, and the the one in the upper left, which has a couple of voids, is staying with us.
Burr Puzzle (December 2014)
Poplar scraps. No finish. 100% hand tools on this project. I thought I'd build more, but the production aspect gets tedious, so maybe not.
I found the plans for this puzzle on woodgears.ca.
Boats! Boats! Boats! (December 2014)
Black Walnut, Hard Maple, Cherry, and Ash. Finished with oil+wax. I made three of these, for the three under-12mo children in my life. Mostly an exercise in production and using power tools efficiently, which is odd for me because most of my work is in one-offs and larger scale pieces, and I tend to lean heavily on hand tools.
A toolbox for a toddler (November 2014)
Black Walnut and Ash. Finished with oil+wax. A weekend project. This piece was an exercise in making things up as I went along and fixing mistakes when they happened.
Most toolboxes are ugly when viewed from certain angles. Many employ metal fasteners. Since this one is for a two-and-a-half year old, I wanted to avoid metal and sharp corners. This project leaned heavily on the rasps and the bandsaw. I was especially happy with how the bottom turned out. It's a separate board, but blends seamlessly into the rails on the sides. The bottom is locked in place via a sliding dovetail that wedges against the tapered sides of the box.
Turning Saw (November 2014)
Shagbark Hickory. Finished with Tung Oil. This turning saw was built using parts and plans from Gramercy tools. It's really nice to use.
Coffee table (November 2014)
Black Walnut and Hard Maple. Finished with Arm-r-seal. This piece utilizes a beautiful pair of bookmatched Black Walnut slabs that I acquired from a local sawyer. The cantelievered design celebrates asymmetry, avoids ninety degree angles, and seeks to emphasize negative space. The lone hand-cut butterfly joint provides some contrast, while also serving the practical purpose of stabilizing the unsupported ends of the table tops.
This table won the "Viewer's Choice" in the Cronkwright Woodshop Coffee Table Build-Off 2014.
Picture Frames (October 2014)
Soft Maple. Finished with General Finishes "Milk Paint" in Lamp Black. Made from workbench scraps. Test project for a miter shooting board.
End-grain cutting board (October 2014)
Soft Maple. Finished with General Finishes Salad Bowl Finish, thinned. A simple endgrain board built using scraps from the workbench. As pictured, it's about to be used for the first time. It's still my daily use cutting board. Never going back to plastic.
Workbench (July/August 2014)
Soft maple. Finished with Danish Oil. A Holtzapffel style workbench based on the plans in Christopher Schwarz's Workbench Design book. It weighs about 350 pounds and is a joy to work with.
Entry Bench (June 2014)
Black Walnut and Hard Maple. Finished with Arm-r-seal. Sharp angles and my first butterfly key repair. The Walnut is all from one tree, sourced from a local sawyer. If you look carefully, you'll see that the top of the bench is a sequence-match with the top sections of the coffee table, which also came from the same tree.
Napkin Holder (May 2014)
Zebrawood. Finished with Arm-r-seal. Quick project to make, but working out the design and proportions was fun. I really like how it turned out, though the unsupported thin Zebrawood stock has warped a little bit over time.
Hairpin Desk (May 2014)
Black Walnut. Finished with Arm-r-seal. The top is sort of bookmatched, but material was removed to the point where the effect is obscured. The desk is slightly undersized to fit in a specific corner of a room. The integrated cable management worked out really nicely--plenty of room underneath for a power strip and associated stuff
Shop Cabinets (April 2014)
Baltic Birch with Black Walnut or Cherry trim. Domino joinery. The top cabinet is finished with Danish Oil. The bottom cabinet is finished with Arm-r-seal (in the picture, it is unfinished).
Shaker Style Closet doors (March 2014)
Poplar frame with floating Baltic Birch panels. Finished with Benjamin Moore "Pale Straw" latex paint. My first millwork project. For the guest bedroom.
Waldo's Shelf (February 2014)
Black Walnut. Finished with Arm-r-seal. My first project: a simple wall shelf for my dog.