Website: Midsouthbunkbeds.com

Location: Memphis, TN

Hobbyist or Pro: Pro

Experience: 0-2 yrs

Project Name: Staircase Storage for Bunk Beds

Wood Species: Birch, Southern Yellow Pine

Finish Used: Plane, Sanded with 150 grit random orbital, General Finish Antique Cherry, Spray on two coats of Minwax Polyacrylic semi-gloss, smoothed over with 320 and rubbed out with Johnson paste wax.

Project Description:
This is a staircase storage I make for my bunk bed business. It’s an innovative storage solution that’s a big hit with kids and parents. The kids love the staircase and the parents love the extra storage. There is nothing fancy with the joinery. It’s put together with butt-joints, glue and pocket screws.

Website: unbelievabowl.etsy.com

Location: IN

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Experience: 0-2 yrs

Project Name: Hexagon Wood Bowl

Wood Species: Walnut, Oak, Maple, Aspen

Finish Used: It has 5 coats of a salad bowl finish that is non-toxic made by General Finishes.

Project Description:
I saw a video on how to make a bowl with a router. A lot of wood was wasted. I decided to try making the same bowl out of 1 X 2 boards using corner halving joints routing out a lot less material. First I made a square bowl, then a rectangle, then the major challenge of the hexagon bowl. I bought a Powermatic band saw to cut the joints. This six sided wood bowl is made from Walnut, Oak, Maple and Aspen wood. On the six corners of the bowl you will see the beautiful end grain of each of these different woods. The top is Walnut. The rest is laid out in a pattern that climbs around the bowl. The bowl stands 3 1/2 inches high and 9 1/2 inches from point to point of the hexagon. Four different jigs where made to make this bowl. The most extensive jig is pictured. Each corner halving joint had to be cut perfectly and each board had to be the exact same depth to make this bowl fit together perfectly. I dry fitted the bowl together as seen in the jig numbering each board. I checked each joint for fit and made adjustments if needed. This is one of the many steps needed to make this bowl.

Location: Wakeman, OH

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Experience: 6-9 yrs

Project Name: Halloween Router Bowl & Cutting Board

Wood Species: Black Walnut from my in-law’s property

Finish Used: GF Butcher Block Oil

Project Description:
This is just a twist on the Halloween Router bowl. I was able to cut the cutting board out of the top layer of my glueup prior to the actual glueup. This was initially a time-saving technique, but I was able to turn it into 2 items for party use. Momma received two presents, with minimal effort, and it seemed as I planned it that way. As you can see, the glueup went pretty well, and there is little issue at the seams.

Thought this might be something others could benefit from, as I do weekly on Marc’s site.

Location: Wareham, MA

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Project Name: Chessboard

Wood Species: Bloodwood, Tiger Maple, Walnut, Yellowheart Inlay

Finish Used: 1 coat of Seal-A-Cell and then topped it with 3 coats of Arm-R-Seal Semi-Gloss on the body and 5 coats on the top. The inside and drawer were sealed with shellac before assembly to help the drawer glide smoothly.

Project Description:
My brother-in-law said he wanted to get a nice chessboard a while ago, but never did so I figured I had found my next project. This was my first attempt at building one so it was a little intimidating, but I had built a few cutting boards and some boxes so I guess I just had to put the two together. I built the top first out of Tiger Maple and Walnut that I milled down to roughly 1/4″. I went through the glue-up steps to get the pattern and luckily didn’t have too much to clean up. In order to somewhat combat expansion and give the top support, I glued the hole thing down to a 1/4″ piece of oak plywood. I built the frame out of Bloodwood that I cut a rabbet into for the board to sit in with enough room on all sides for the Yellowheart inlay. I glued everything up in one shot using a band clamp.

I tried a new technique of cutting coves using my table saw to give the base some visual appeal. The setup was a pain, but once that was done, I was surprised with how easy it was. The most time-intensive part of the whole project was sanding out the saw marks from the very dense Bloodwood. I cut a dado in the sides for the bottom piece of oak plywood to set in and give the drawer something to slide on. I had some issues with the fine dust from the Bloodwood staining the Maple, especially on the splines, but such is life. You can see some of the spots I couldn’t fix on the splines. The drawer was built out of poplar to keep the weight down and it cuts like butter. It’s held together with Walnut dowels because I thought it would look nice and the Walnut end grain looks like ebony when the finish hits it.

All-in-all I am very pleased with how it came out and my other brother-in-law said he would like one for his birthday. So hopefully I can learn from this first attempt and come up with something cool. The two of them played on it and they both said it was distracting because they kept looking at the board (for all the mistakes). Luckily neither of them are woodworkers, safe for now!

Website: PaulSebastianStudio.com

Location: Mesa, AZ

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: Shellac, Tung Oil, Brown Paste Wax

Wood Species: South American Mahogany, Rosewood, Pine

Project Description:
I took a photo at the Hancock Shaker Village this past summer when my dad and I went there. He loves the photo so I thought I would build a frame and print the photo for him for Christmas.

My Dad’s home back in Massachusetts is a timber frame, so thats where the inspiration for the frame came from. Joinery is through mortise and tenon pegged with 1/4″ rosewood. It has a 45 degree stopped chamfer on it (matching all the timbers in the house).

It was my first time using Mahogany. I really enjoyed its ease of machining. It was also my first time trying this joint. I love the look and I think it will fit in great with the house.

Also as a side note, I couldn’t bring myself to using plywood or any crappy metal fasteners so I made up some shiplap pine boards and made my own fasteners.

Website: BuiltWithaShopsmith.blogspot.com

Location: Pineville, LA

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: None. Allowed to naturally gray over time.

Wood Species: Unknown/various

Project Description:
I made this “Cowboy Cooler” for my sister and her husband last year. I only had a little tiny table saw at the time and my brother-in-law had a larger old table saw he never used. It needed some work, but he let me have it. When I picked it up, he jokingly said, “Build me something with it!” So it was restored to working condition, this was the first thing I built.

Except for the handles, it was built entirely from recovered pallet wood with some metal accents I picked up at a local fair. I didn’t follow any published plans. I just bought the cooler at a sporting goods store and built around it. The spigot on the side ties in to the drain on the cooler.

It was a surprising hit! Everybody that has seen it wants me to build one for them now, but I haven’t had time to build another one. The pictures were taken last year. It has since grayed a bit and the metal is starting to rust, but that has only added to the “rustic” look of the cooler. It’s not fine furniture, and it uses very simple joinery, but it’s still something I’m proud of!

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: Since this is a utilitarian piece that is going in a closet, I went ahead and used boiled linseed oil. Depending on the countertop wear, I may refinish with an oil/varnish mix. I have little experience with finishing and it is the step I dread the most. I have some picture frames lined up after I finish the new pergola in the backyard, so as I get better with finishing, I may revisit this piece.

Wood Species: Radiata Pine, Red Oak

Project Description:
I’m fairly new to start, your site being a great inspiration and educational tool. I wanted to share my latest project. Now that I have it finished, I am tempted to sell it and make another one for myself with some more complex joinery (other than straight oak dowels) that would reduce the overall weight, increase strength and up the challenge. Anyway, thank you for all of your insight through your videos, articles and podcasts (that I am still trying to get caught up on).

From: Chad Eichler

Location: Little Rock Arkansas

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: I followed the process outlined in the Simple Varnish DVD and chose to finish the easel with 3 full coats of Arm-R-Seal gloss, 1 full coat of Arm-R-Seal Satin, and one final coat of Satin thinned down with Naptha. Before finishing the birdseye maple, I first applied some shellac with a few drops of Brown Mahogany TransTint in an attempt to pop the grain a bit prior to applying the Arm-R-Seal.

Wood Species: Black Walnut, Birdeye Maple, Gaboon Ebony

Project Description:
This year I decided on building a large H-Frame painting easel as a surprise gift for my mom for Christmas. She is a wonderful artist who conducts art classes both at her home studio as well as on Mission trips to Hondurus. Lately she’s been working with large canvas paintings and I felt she needed something that would be much sturdier to work on than her existing easel collection. Plus it would give me a good excuse to tryout a handful of the techniques I’ve learned from the Wood Whisperer website. The main feature of the easel will include a sliding frame so she can move the canvas and taboret table up and down easily while it’s being supported by a counterweight system in the back.

After getting introduced to SketchUp from your videos, I downloaded it and incorporated an easel plan I found on the internet into a 3D model that I could modify and use for initial measurements. After playing around with the material selection in SketchUp and knowing I wanted to try to create some plugs to serve as screw-head covers, I decided on using Walnut for the main body and frame while dressing it up some with birdseye maple and gaboon ebony for the plugs and trim. I thought the ebony would help complement the black star adjustment knobs I was getting from Rockler. At least it looked good to me in SketchUp.

I actually started jointing and planing the wood this summer and soon realized this project was going to take a lot longer than originally thought. Six months later and about an 80 degree drop in temperature, I’ve finally put my last coat of finish on and took some initial photos of the easel last night. What I initially intended to serve as a workhorse easel for my mom’s everyday use, turned out to almost be a work of art itself. I really enjoyed the process of making the ebony plugs and think they turned out better than I originally thought. I can’t wait to try it again on a more G&G styled furniture piece.

We will be visiting my parents for Christmas and I can’t tell you how excited I am to wheel it out for my mom on Christmas morning. I’ve been able to keep it a secret from everyone except my wife whom I’d like to thank for letting me take over her parking spot during the build. Her projects are next on my list…promise.

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: The drummer who I made this for didn’t want any staining but wanted to keep the natural look of the maple to contrast with the dark wood of the drum body, so I simply finished it with a few coats of clear satin polyurethane wiped on with a clean cloth.

Wood Species: Maple

Project Description:
This is a low stand for a small taiko drum (Japanese drum) made for one of my friends who is just starting out opening her own studio. She had a drum that needed a custom stand, but this type of drum is unusual, so she contacted me to see if I could make one for her. This is my first stand and my first woodworking project in which I extensively used a router .

I made a mock-up out of pine for her to test out, and after we discussed the pros and cons, I cut the stand out of maple. It is 2′ tall and supports the drum via leather straps (hand-sewed) that connect through the rings on the sides of the drum. The curved pieces were cut out with a jigsaw and sanded using a mouse sander. Then I ran all of the pieces through the router using a round-over bit to round each side.

The legs fit into a rabbet on each side of the bottom supports and are reinforced with one screw each. The stand folds closed for storage. I also cut and fitted the brass pieces individually.

Although I made some small mistakes with this stand, I’m proud of it since it’s my first major project and I have to thank The Wood Whisperer for all your router tips and making me more confident to use my router and router table during the construction of this stand.

I’m from Quebec Canada (French part). I’m new to woodworking and I discovered your website more than a year ago and I would like to thank you because it’s a wonderful source of information. Here’s a few pics of a small project I did. It’s a prototype. I will do it again to make it better but I thought I would first share the idea. This was very inexpensive to make because it was made with what I had on hand at that time. Pieces of floating wood found on a river shore. A brass rod. 2 magnets. A piece of scrap cherry which I used to turn the pen. 3 layers of water based semi-gloss finish and that was it.

Like I said, this is a prototype but I thought I would share the idea and see if it would challenge the woodworkers and push them to make their own project which I am sure will be better than mine. Thanks again for the information shared on your site and keep up the good work!