Hobbyist or Pro: Pro

Project Name: Gas Line Wall Plaque

Wood Species: Unknown and Poplar

Finish Used: on poplar MinWax stain and poly then another coat of poly, on the Gas Line 3 coats of MinWax polyurethane

Project Description:
The plaque project itself is unimpressive, just a fast glue up of poplar cut into a circle and routed edge. But the interesting part is the wood piece mounted on the plaque. It is about a 1 1/2 inch thick cross section of a 100 year old Natural Gas Main Line. The pieces were found in a public works excavation. The Gas lines were made of tree trunks bored through the middle and treated with some sort of preservative. Sections were originally about 10 feet long and 10 inches in diameter. I made about 10 of these, as Awards for the organization my wife works for.

Website: Charles-Christian-LLC.com

Location: Fort Wayne, IN

Amateur or Pro: Pro

Project Name: Police Call Box (TARDIS)

Wood Species: Poplar and Maple

Finish Used: Bin primer custom color matched by hand, hand brushed applied then shot with top coat.

Project Description:
A client for my remodeling business asked if I could build a TARDIS model from the sci-fiction show “Dr. Who” I said first of all, “what is a Tardis?” and then decided to go for it. Found original prop dimensions from the show online and then scaled down 1/4. The outer posts are solid maple, the panels, rails and styles are poplar. The small trim around the windows and signs (Lexan sanded to diffuse light) are maple as well. There is a three light LED puck in the hip roof ceiling that back lights the interior. I matched the color with paint tint and brushed on the interior white and exterior blue and then applied urethane for durability. The top beacon light is actually a stainless steal drain pipe from a hardware store and there is a slot in the top to allow coinage to fall through. I have a hand cut dovetailed cherry box that I am going to give to the clients to collect the coins.

Website: nolemonsnomelon.wordpress.com

Location: Broken Arrow, OK

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Experience: 10+ yrs

Project Name: Orrery

Wood Species: Pine, Baltic Birch Ply

Finish Used: Spit coat of shellac followed by gloss Minwax wipe-on poly.

Project Description:
This may not qualify since I did some of it on a CNC router but it was certainly a fun project. I documented the build at my website.

This is called an orrery; it’s a mechanical model of the solar system. You turn the crank and the planets go around the sun realistically. That is, mercury goes around pretty fast, Saturn creeps along on the outside, etc. It’s really fun to turn the crank and watch everything work. It’s kind of mesmerizing. Each planet is attached to its gear below with a brass tube and these tubes are all concentric.

I made the gears using my friend’s CNC router. I had to design all the gears in CAD and then take them to his machine where we had to make a few more adjustments. These were made with a 1/8″ router bit. The machine itself is made by ShopBot and uses a Porter Cable variable speed router (I forget – the big one they sell). I did the largest gear by hand on the bandsaw just to convince myself that CNC was a smarter idea. It wasn’t faster though (although if I were to make a second one, it would go much faster.)

You can see a video of the Orrery in action!

Website: TheDawgHouseWoodworks.com

Location: Kailua, HI

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: Sanded using 180 grit. 1 coat of Tung Oil. 2 coats of clear satin, with a sanding in between. 2 coats of high gloss poly.

Wood Species: Walnut, Poplar, Mahogany, Cherry

Project Description:
This is my version of a P-3 Orion propeller. I am enlisted in the Navy and work on the P-3 and I have never come across anyone else who makes these. The propeller measures 3 foot from prop tip to prop tip. The blades are made from Walnut, Cherry, Poplar, and Mahogany. The blades are made from 8/4 stock and then cut down and sanded into final shape. The spinner is made of Walnut, and the dome is made of Poplar. The dome and spinner are both segmented pieces. It was built with bearings for the blades to turn but that didn’t turn out. It rotates by hand and can be completely disassembled.

From: Derek

Website: HandMadeWoodGifts

Location: Fraser, MI

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: 2 part epoxy to insure an water proof finish for all sorts of liquids

Wood Species: Zebrawood, Purple Heart, Canary Wood

Project Description:
I decided to make this Pimp Cup Goblet because my wife always talked about wanting a pimp cup. Now I couldn’t have her drinking from a cheap plastic bedazzled cup so I was trying to think of a way to accomplish that with wood.

Since I had never done one before, I was doing a web search for ideas and came across this style. When I saw the picture I knew exactly what woods to use, and of course, I had to super size the cup for effect. As you all know (I’m sure) your stereo-typical is usually adorned with leopard or zebra print and always something purple. So naturally the outside of the cup is zebra wood, and the stem is purple heart with a nice contrast of yellow canary wood. The tic-tac-toe layout of the purple heart and canary wood adds a unique looking weave that makes for a cool transition at the base and the top.

The final dimensions are about 9″ high, 3.5″ in diameter and it holds about 7-8 ounces of liquid… which will most likely contain alcohol. I used a 2 part epoxy for the finish provides a nice thick barrier to insure that wood won’t ever stain and that noting will contaminate the drink. I covered the whole project with it so that the finish would look consistent.

Knowing my wife, she is going to love it and be drinking from it all night! Hope you all enjoy it!

Location: Glendale AZ

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: The finish is standard wipe on/brush on finish from the big box store.

Wood Species: Knotty Pine

Project Description:
I wanted to build a classic design to match my classic truck. There is about 500 hours in this project.

I just finished this knife display case. I was commissioned to build it by a lady as an anniversary present for her husband. His collection of Harley Davidson pocket knives had been sitting in a box for years and she wanted for him to be able to display them. The case is built from Tiger Maple and African Mahogany. It was a fun project and there were many “firsts” for me. First time routing out pockets using a Daisy Pin Router, first time making inlaid half blind dovetail joints and first time making wooden hinges. I have written more about these techniques on my blog.

Dennis’ End Table

Here are some pics of my end table, First time for curved legs, a drawer of any type, breadboard ends and dovetails. Learned a ton! A quick run down. Walnut base – Birdseye Maple/Walnut top – Birch Drawer sides – Bookmatched QSWO drawer bottom (not thrilled with this choice I knew it when I was doing it to.. The species don’t gel well in my opinion) – African Blackwood plugs – Ebony handle

This is my own design, I am very new to woodworking. If I was doing it over again I would change a few things. What is unusual is the placement of the breadboard ends, the maple just did not look good laid out in the other orientation so I made the decision to put the breadboard ends on the front and back of the table. Which I will admit is “different” oh well :) I can always make another top and have thought of it. I really don’t like how the seams are prevalent in the Birdseye maple – its very obvious its a glue-up do to the difference in the pieces. Again thank you, what a fun project!

Chris’ Corner Cabinet

Thought I’d send a few pictures of a walnut corner cabinet I recently completed. It’s based on a design published by Gustav Stickley in his “Craftsman” magazine, with a few modifications. The front is made of solid walnut, with the carcass being pine. It’s all solid wood, and as such, the backs and shelves all utilize frame-and-panel construction to deal with expansion/contraction. All doors feature pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery, and the uppers have true divided lights (my first foray into making them). Overall, there are 44 mortise-and-tenon joints in the cabinet.

The kicker is that I built this entirely with hand tools. I’ll admit to doing a little power sanding on some of the squirrelly walnut, and drilling a few holes with a drill press, but everything else was done by hand, from dimensioning the lumber to all of the joinery. My workshop is way too small for power tools anyway, and I find the peace and quiet of hand tools very relaxing.

The finish is pretty simple: a coat of polymerized tung oil on the walnut, followed by blonde and then orange shellac. The pine is finished with tinted shellac to give it a nice warm amber color.

I turn wood cylinders known as reel seat inserts. These inserts are installed into nickel silver hardware and installed on fly fishing rods. The reel seat holds the fly reel on the base of the fly rod. I start with “blanks” that are ideally 7/8″ square by about five inches (as little as 3.5″ is acceptable, but after turning it helps if you can select the best grain for the exposed barrel). On the lathe I bore a 3/8″ hole lengthwise and mount the blank on a mandrel. The mandrel is locked into a four jaw chuck on the headstock, and the other end of the mandrel is mounted onto a 60 degree live center mounted into the tailstock. Conventional turning tools and sandpaper are used to turn the wood down to a specified diameter. A parting tool is used to make a square cut down to the #4 diameter.

Note that I didn’t mention the diameter the barrel is turned to. This is because I’ve been using techniques where I build up finish with successive coats of CA, moisture cure urethane (MCU), spar urethane, specific epoxy, etc. So I turn well beyond the #2 diameter, then wet sand and polish back down to #2 diameter.

Rod building component companies sell the nickel hardware in the photos. They also sell wooden inserts made from various woods. The standard wood inserts are around $8 and up. My problem with OEM inserts is that they’re sometimes bland, and their finishes mar easily when reels are put on and taken off of the reel seat, and they don’t repel water especially well. Thus the desire to make my own. Though there are quite a few people doing this, there doesn’t seem to be a “best” finish technique. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I seek a process that is attractive, and very durable. I want the rod to wear out before my woodworking does. And I want the finish to repel water very well.

Problems encountered:
With CA, any inadvertent introduction of moisture causes blushing. CA sands and polishes very nicely, but its hardness can be a problem. With moisture cure urethane (MCU), any failure to remove all bubbles results in tiny white craters when sanded, but MCU remains somewhat flexible.

Initially I made the #3 cut prior to doing any finishing. This worked fairly well, but getting a even finish buildup at the cut was difficult. Then I tried finishing the entire length of the turned piece, then cut the #3 cut. With softer finishes a clean #3 cut was difficult as the finish heated easily and sometimes separated from the exposed surface. Not desirable. Even making the final length cut with a parting tool left a bad edge. Ideally the finish would tolerate cutting the #3 edge after the finish is applied and finish sanded.

While I have some very acceptable inserts on my fly rods, I can’t say that I’ve developed what I feel is a foolproof, fairly easily repeatable finishing technique. My goal is a finish that doesn’t show grain dimples when I’m finished, has a nice square #3 shoulder cut, doesn’t scuff easily and won’t crack if the wood changes shape (as in adding or losing moisture). As you will see in the images, finishes continue (even CA) shrinking after final shaping even though I generally wait at least five days after finishes are applied.

So folks, what do you think? Any opinions to help Jeff find an option that will work for him?

I’m a South African living in Britain watching your American show – interesting how the world works huh? I’d like to enter a Viewer Project: my “ORIGINS” table. I really want to share this project with woodworkers because it has proven that I have to, like you say, think out of the box. Our schooling and everyday life causes the thought process to become rather closed and problem-oriented, rather than free-flowing and conceptual. It is like nothing I have tried before. Even after three months of making I still wonder how it all came to be.

It began about a year ago with an idea I had for a cabinet. My wife was pregnant and the whole process of birth become a fascination. The idea of male/female, yin-yang, parent and child etc, which I hope is evident in the design grew into the idea of using not only opposing woods, but opposing shapes, textures, types of board/timber. And then the cabinet wanted to become a table that supported a “child” if you will – the bowl in the middle.

Now what I have to keep reminding myself here is that I was trying my UTMOST best to NOT think about how I was going to make it. I’m sure us woodies are all cursed with this, but it has become so important (like with David Marks’ and furnitology’s) to concentrate on design and the “mindset” of the piece first, then problem-solve the issue of “how?” I made 2 HUGE mistakes and almost gave up but decided to go on. I was already on a tight budget for it (the veneers for the top alone cost something like $150!!) but I decided that once you pop, you can’t stop.

I found myself using tools I never had before: a round-bottomed spokeshave to finesse the curves, soil and dirt to tarnish the copper, sawdust and cyanoacrylate glue as wood-filler, a round-bottomed surform to finish the base. I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like, but it was make-it-up-as-you-go-along all the time and that was such a refreshing (though often frustrating) change. I strongly believe now that it’s not what you know, but rather what you want to learn that counts, and as long as woodworking is respective of the beauty that lies in wood, it will always be good :) It’s the ultimate material and unlike other things, it grows on trees!

Here are some construction details: “Female” consists of 27 layers of 19mm birch plywood – each piece individually routed round and then glued and pressed together. The final shape was eventually achieved after much use of a surform, belt sander, chisels and LOADS of 80 grit sandpaper wrapped around a 1.5 inch dowel.

Male consists of two halves. Each is two layers of 5mm bendyply veneered with walnut using contact adhesive (I was worried this would throw the shape out but the 2 layers of bendyply seemed to work well :) Making this was the most difficult part as the two halves had to be joined in a straight line, down a shape that curves in two directions and not only in the middle but where it joins the female too !! It took days of trial and error with a block plane to get that edge down the middle ! It’s still not perfect but hey we all have our limits :) I first made the structure then veneered one side at a time. The compound mitre on the base of the male proved to be challenging too since it does not lie flat on one surface but on an edge.

The cherry piece joining the two was made from a single length for continuity and just cut into smaller angled pieces to achieve the curve. The “foot” that joins the base of the male was done by hand with some chisels and a belt sander. The bowl also came to be using bendyply. Veneers are Maple, Walnut and I think Burr elm.

Once I got the male and female to join nicely with the cherry, and the bowl all fitted, I started on the top. I routed a 3foot diameter piece of 19mm ply and edged it with a 4mm cherry strip. I achieved this using strap-clamps and very straight-grained quarter sawn cherry to avoid it splitting/snapping (Yikes!). Initially it was to be more of a yin-yang shape on top but the waterdrop shape of the bowl called for a more refined curve. I first laid the burr walnut veneer, then the burr cluster maple (quite pink isn’t it?) then I routed the groove for the cherry inlay.

The cherry inlay isn’t conventionally liad. Rather than a thin slice of veneer it consists of about 10 layers of cherry veneer laid on edge within the groove! That proved to be a rather testing time :) After some hand-planing with a SHARP edge, it was flush to the veneer surfaces. I recessed the glass supports into the top and made the template for the glass by tracing on a piece of paper with a pencil (similar to the copper method). I sent it off to the glass-makers and they did a swell job. The glass lid is lifted out using the inch hole.

Now the copper came by accident due to the fact that I had to cover ugly screws sticking out of the female where I had screwed the ply pieces together. I tried to remove them neatly but it turned ugly after a while :) So I decided – as a friend once told me – rather make a display of your mistakes than try to hide them. I think I have realized now how helpful that can be. So I drilled the three 65mm holes 3mm deep around the screws, got hold of some 3mm copper plate and after making a rough paper template I ground them out and shaped them using a belt-sander on edge with 40 grit paper. I then tarnished them by leaving them outside on the lawn for a few nights and beat and scraped them in any way possible to create the aged look. I glued them in with PU glue and sanded them with 600 grit.

The finish: After much debate and much research (including the help of The Wood Whisperer) I finally came to a conclusion. Danish Oil is one of the easiest finishes you could ever apply (I hope Marc agrees here) I have done lots of spraying and used varnishes and oils of all shapes and sizes, but since I had been laid off at work, I had no access to the spray-shop and thus needed a really easy no fuss finish. And I must say – it does take a good 4 coats over 4 days to do the job but it is ever so easy to wipe on. A rub down with steel wool between coats and then some good-old-fashioned beeswax (2 coats) and some elbow-grease to bring out a bit of a shine and I am really very pleased with the finish. I did want to use a polyurethane spray but I think it actually worked out better this way since I can rest assured it is easily re-finished or restored.

Lastly I must say that it really has been an amazing learning experience and I would not have been able to do it without the advice and general positivity of online shows like TWW – so thanks Marc and friends!

So here it is, my first attempt at semi-fine wood-working… a dog feeding station. This is my first furniture project and first project using the Domino, which I bought after watching your Domino episode about 8 times. WHAT A MACHINE! (sorry, about the caps but I love it). I used the Domino to reinforce/align the glue joint for the “table” top and it worked like a charm – a perfectly aligned and reinforced glue up. I then used the Domino to join the table skirts to the legs, and for the first time in my short wood-working career, came out with a perfectly square, strong frame. Although the price tag is a little hefty, its the best money I ever spent (except for that course of antibiotics in college, just kidding). At the end of the day the most satisfying part was that I designed the project myself from some similar examples I’d seen in the Orvis catalog. I tend to like mine *a little bit more* especially since they get $49.00 for theirs and its made out of pine. As for materials, I made the whole project out of lacewood – a slight upgrade from the pine I’ve used for everything else. Three coats of tung oil later, I’m ready to pass the project onto my brother and his horse/golden lab.

Interestingly, I gave it to my brother about a month and a half ago after putting 3 coats of tung oil on it. I saw it over Thanksgiving and it just didn’t look right – the slobber/water and food took its toll. The grain was raised and the whole project just looked dull. So, I hijacked it from him, re-sanded it, and just finished putting 3 coats of Minwax Wipe-On Poly on it. It looks a whole lot better and more durable but only time will tell I guess.