Location: Missouri

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: As requested by the customer, I sanded to 220 grit followed by 3 coats of minwax satin polyurethane. Smooth and rustic end result.

Wood Species: Red Oak

Project Description:
A former high school classmate contacted me after seeing some projects I posted online. She requested to have a coffee table made for her father out of an old front door from his childhood home. She asked to maintain as much of, if not the entire art work and scroll work on the door. She also asked to have the door cut down so that the two remaining halves could be created into two separate tables. I cut the door down to size as requested, but due to dry rot and the age of the door, it began to separate at its joints. I had to repair these first. I then created two “shadow” boxes that would wrap completely around the two doors halves in order to protect them from any further damage and to create a beautiful inlay. I finished the tops with 1/4” beveled/polished glass recessed into a 1/4” by 3/8” groove. Now came the challenging part. I debated how to complete the bottom of the biggest table which would eventually be the blanket chest/coffee table. I decided to make 6 panels from 1×4 stock boards with the biscuit jointer to join the pieces. Thanks to you, Marc, I tried my best to match pieces appropriately, but there are a few sections of panels that didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted. But I am learning. After the glue up was complete, I turned my attention to the legs that were receiving the panels. I created 3×4” dados into the legs. I then took my time to create the “tenons” on the panels in order to get a good tight but not too tight joint. Since I live in the St. Louis area, I thought what is more fitting than an arched bottom on all 4 sides of the box. So with thin strips of wood, I made an arch on a scrap piece of wood. Then I used a flush trim bit to actually create the arch on the finished lumber. The arches are quite subtle but turned out great. Lastly, for the blanket chest, I decided a cedar bottom would not only look great but it would be functional as well. No bugs here! After much staining and finishing, the lid was attached with a 42” brass piano hinge. The second, smaller table was completed with a weave pattern second shelf. This was created from 5x1x2” boards running each direction and 50 dados equally spaced in order to create the look. This part of the project was an 8 hour setup and completion. But it was worth it in the end. The table was finished the same as the blanket chest and they matched perfectly. This project was certainly challenging and difficult, but it was a great project with a great ending. The customers were extremely happy with the finished product.

As for the joinery on this project, I have already mentioned dados on some parts. There are also many biscuits throughout the project as well as pocket holes. The pocket holes were completed with plugs and stain so as to almost completely blend in with little distraction. Oh yeah, did I mention a lot of glue in strategic places? Enjoy!

I started getting into woodworking about 6 months ago. I have really enjoyed the information on your site. I am an art director/designer/photographer here in Phoenix as my day job. I am really enjoying this new outlet for creativity and something more hands on. My dad has always been in love with Shaker furniture so I thought it would be appropriate to build one as my first attempt at woodworking. It has been quite a learning process and look forward to improving.

Built traditionally with mortise and tenon, pegged. Hand cut dovetails. Turned the legs and knob. Hand cut dovetails on quilted maple. Didn’t realize pine is usually used :) but glad I went for it. I like the Cherry and Quilted Maple Finished with tung oil. Drawer interior was finished with shellac and wax. Here are a few photos I took. Finally finished!

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 purchased a large screen TV that sat on our hearth for quite a long time. I gave the design much thought and did a mock layout using Adobe Illustrator. It is all red oak plywood carcass, with solid trim pieces. There were several issues to consider. It couldn’t be taller than 27″ and no longer than 52″. Half of the case had to sit on the fireplace hearth. Each end bay had to be able to hold a 17″ device. It had to hold a lot of DVDs, VHS tapes, and video games. It is also notched on the sides to fit on the hearth, with the front sitting on the floor. After pondering for days over how I wanted the face to look. I finally came up with the idea of 2 drawers in each bay, where one sits above the other, and the bottom has the full frame attached to it. The drawer faces are built with the stiles sitting horizontal. When closed, the grain runs across the top and bottom. I used a standard joint, with a 1/2 plywood insert. The insert has 1/4″ dados on the back to bring the insert flush with the frame. This was glued and screwed to the drawers. The handles are from Rockler.

The design took on a life of it own. I usually change designs in my mind several times before I come up with the final one. I did have a moment of panic. I had placed the vertical pieces to cover the dividers and the ends. The next day I woke up panicked. I had forgotten that I needed at least 17″ space to allow for equipment. I had left 19″, which was great, but forgot that I still needed the clearance. I got up and went out immediately to my shop and measured it. The space was 17 1/2″, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

There are 2 VHS recorders, a DVD player, the cable box, a mac-mini, audio receiver, iPod, UPS, and storage for all the DVDs and tapes. I still need to wire in my Playstation2. I will save that for another day, because I am running out of audio ports on the receiver.

Joe’s Cherry End Table

Thank you for the advice you gave me along the way as I built this project (via your podcast, live chat and emails). This was my first “Real Furniture Project”…. so your podcasts videos help push me to try new joinery and your answers to my email questions concerning finishing cherry were right on the mark. The Bulls Eye Seal-a-coat and Arm-R-Seal worked great.

Another unique part of this project was how it morphed from a simple “arts/craft” style end table (no drawer) I prototyped in sketch-up, to its final design with a drawer and turned legs. A picture is worth 1000 words so I attached 5 pictures: 1) The original sketchup picture; 2) My Cherry End Table view 1; 3) My Cherry End Table view 2; and 4) My Cherry End Table view 3.

Cory’s Cutting Board

Here are some pictures of my completed Tucson Mesquite cutting board made from some logs I pulled out of the fire wood stack. This was my first attempt at a cutting board and although I did not follow Marc’s design exactly since I was not using contrasting wood colors, I was pretty happy with the results. Anyway, I also attached a picture of what I felt was a more efficient design for finger holds, enabling either side of the board to be used without loss of workspace. Also a picture of the simple setup I used to make the finger holds. I look forward to making some more for friends. Thanks for the site, I really enjoy it.

Joe’s Cash Drawer

Well I thought you might enjoy seeing my version of a Wooden Cash Drawer. I built this wooden cash drawer for a very good friend who helps out with collecting the admission fees for girls basketball games at our local High School.

This project was a bit of a challenge for me since I usually follow plans or a picture to build projects, but since I could not find any plans or designs for a cash drawer…I simply improvised. I’m quite proud of how well it a came out. It was built using more common wood from the local Lowe’s, I used red oak for frame, top and the bottom. The dividers are birch plywood and the coin scoops are poplar ( I already had the 2×2 poplar at home). Each divider is inserted into mortises and interconnect. The top slides on via a mortise as well. The frame corners are mitered. I need to work on miters a bit :-) The bottom is set in a rabbet on the bottom of the frame. The coin scoops were a real challenge, I ended up slicing a 2×2 diagonally and then sanding out the curve on a stationary belt sander. As for the finish, I simply wiped on 3 coats of Formby’s Traditional Tung Oil Finish. I have had good luck with this finish in the past.

The inspiration for this project came from two sources; my wife who loves Asian style furniture, artifacts and art, and a picture of a similar but taller plant stand done by Yeung Chan whom I met at a woodworking show. I had no plans, so, a la David Marks I built about 5 or 6 prototypes out of MDF until I got the proportions right. Believe it or not the hardest part was cutting the moulding around the top on my router table. I probably violated every safety rule in the book! The afzelia wanted to bow so the legs are all laminations of the solid wood. The top is plywood with radial veneer out of the afzelia which I said I cut under the tutelage of David. The legs are joined to the top with Domino loose tenons. The bottom stretchers are a tri lap which I had to teach myself how to do by reading Chan’s book over and over and then execute from poplar with my dado blade over and over until I got it right. They are joined to the legs with Dominoes also. Needless to say, I made a lot of jigs to get the Domino mortises in exactly the right places in the top and legs. The finish is good old Deft from a bunch of spray cans after sanding to 320 grit. I neglected to mention that the moulding miters are held tight by mini splines at the bottom.

This is my most ambitious furniture project to date and one I am verrry happy to be finished with. Needless to say, my wife is happy also. She wanted two new end tables to replace the nice, but 30 year old ones we had in our living room. I began working on design ideas over a year ago passing ideas by the “customer” and after getting approval of preliminary design concepts, began some serious layout and prototyping. I constructed a full-scale prototype of the base with a piece of plywood for the top, for the purpose of determining suitable scale, proportions and some style ideas, like the coves on the aprons. The basic lines of the frame are very close to a couple of hall tables I built for my wife and for my daughter-in-law. Jane wanted it to be dark but not too reddish, and I wanted to see nice grain pattern so I chose walnut.

But rapid completion was not to be. Other high priority projects took precedent and extended the completion to the point of ridiculousness. And working intermittently kinda hurts my head trying to get back into it. Ever have that feeling? Then there are the cold winters in Virginia that make it tough to work in the garage. A few shop/tool improvements over the last 6 months of ’08 helped make things go much better. Specifically, I bought a used Grizzly 6″ jointer, a new Steel City table saw, a new Triton router with above table height adjustments, built a router table and fence, and a band saw fence.

Pictures 1 through 3 are different perspectives of one of the tables showing the tapered legs, and the coves. Everything but the shelf platforms are solid walnut. The shelf was an “oh, yeah, we need a shelf” idea which wasn’t part of the original design plan. Since I had already built the bases, the shelves turned out to be quite a challenge to come up with a way to mount them. The shelf fits in a dado in the shelf support aprons. I mounted the aprons, both for the tops and for the shelves, with pocket screws.

My wife found the baskets at Michael’s on sale for $10 each. I made a simple walnut plywood lid with finger holes that sit snugly in the top of the basket to hide the junk. The final touch, shown in picture 4, is the ebony inlay. I thought it would add a lot to the top but had never done anything like it before. With much trepidation, but bolstered by Marc’s advice on more than one occasion, it actually worked out pretty decent.

The finish was as follows:

* Wiped on TransTint Dark Walnut in distilled water, applied twice, then very lightly knocked down the grain with 400 grit.
* Wiped on SealCoat (dewaxed shellac) to seal the water-based dye.
* Brushed on 3 coats of General Finishes Water-Based Polyacrylic Semi-Gloss.
* Sprayed on 2 coats GF WB Poly Satin.

The WB Poly was something else I had never tried before but once again Marc’s advice got me going. I owe a big thanks to Marc for his advice, and my wife for her patience and design ideas.

I am sending you some photos of one of my latest projects for the project of the week. It is inspired by your End Table project but with a twist. First a little background. The wood working club I belong to. The Ottawa Woodworking Association (OWA) last year had our first 2X4 competition. The basic idea is to take one standard construction grade pine 2X4X8’ long and let your imagination go wild to see what you can make with it. There can be no other wood added to the project. It is challenging and lots of fun. This year one of our local wood suppliers wanted to be involved so The Wood Source donated one 1”X12”X6’ long clear pine board to those who wanted to participate. When all projects are done they will then be given to The Wood Source where they will be displayed in there shop and auctioned off. The money is then given to a charity. Again there can be no other wood added. Once I received my pine board, it was then time to start thinking. I am new to your pod cast and have been going through your past episodes. As I was watching the End Table series I thought this would be great for the 1X12 competition.

I decided originally to do a four legged table but after cutting out all the legs and leaving enough wood for the top I changed the design and decided to make it three legged for no other reason than something different. So I now have an extra leg,for what? I don’t know. As I don’t have a band saw all the curves for the legs, stretchers and the table top had to be cut out using my scroll saw (photo # 3 & 4). Once all legs and stretchers where cut out the sliding dove tales made, glued up and attached to the hub, again using sliding dove tales I then used chisels and sanding to further shape and refine the legs and hub (photo #5 & 6). Once everything was sanded down to 220 girt I then did the finishing. I am very happy with the end result (photo #7 & 8). When it was all done and I stood back looking at it and trying to think of what I would name it. I came up with “Guitar Pick table” as the top reminds me of a guitar pick.

A few challenges came up. The first is using pine. Being a soft wood and only having it be one inch thick and not having enough wood to make the legs thicker they are a bit on the fragile side, yes I knocked one on the floor while sanding it and had to glue it back together. Also I had to be extremely careful when doing the sliding dove tales, again for the same reason of the pine being soft and not very thick. The other challenge with pine is getting a good solid colour. Most of the work I do I don’t stain the wood. I like to let the natural beauty of the wood speak for itself. In this case I decided to use Varathane Light Cherry Stain. Unfortunately, as a pre stain I used Shellac, but did not realise it was not dewaxed, so off it all came and on went Minwax Pre Stain Wood Conditioner I had in the shop. Then several coats of the cherry stain. As a top coat I put on three to four coats of Varathane Clear Finish.

This kind of project is a good design exercise with the limitations of quantity and type of wood that can be used. I am very happy with the way it turned out and even though I knew all along that I would not be able to keep it, it will be hard to let it go. Some changes I will make when I do one for our house is, using different woods and making the legs stretchers and hub a little thicker.

Keep up the great web site and pod casts.

P.S. The OWA had our December meeting last night where the projects where on display and the members voted on the top three. I am very happy to say that this table gathered the most votes. Thank you to all the OWA members.

“My brother and I made a coffee table and a side table out of Oak for his wife’s birthday.
It’s our first project in Oak, before we only used MDF. We’re really proud of it and its thanks to your show that we could do it. We’re definitely going to do some more “real” woodworking :o) Well my sister-in-law loves these tables. Many thanks and we love the show!!!”

“This is my first piece of “fine” furniture, which has helped to develop my passion for woodworking. I built this piece as part of a Furniture Design class in the architecture school during my undergrad, even though I was a finance major. The piece is made of red oak and walnut and the table tops stand at 12″ and 24″ respectively. I started out with all rough lumber, 5/4 red oak, and 8/4 walnut. I milled the oak with the thickness planer down to 1″ thick by 3″ wide for the larger side, and 1″ thick by 2″ wide for the smaller side. Once I had these measurements, I used the table saw to cut all of my angles for both the longer pieces and smaller head and foot pieces. At this point I had cut all of my oak pieces and it was time for glue up. I did this in sections. First I glued up the 3″ section by combining two long pieces with the appropriate head and foot pieces. Once all of these smaller sections were done, I glued them together until I eventually had one long row of alternating blank sections and long sections 17″ wide. I then built a jig to hold this entire piece at the appropriate angle in order to route out the section for the walnut/glass, which took a nice long 2″ router bit a while to hog out. Once this step was done, I was able to put the last two outside boards to make the ends look more finished. I cut the walnut to size, drilled the holes for the dowels, cut the angle on the walnut and glued it into place, along with the red oak dowels. I used a piece of wood as a spacer for the glass. I did the a similar process for the 2″ smaller side, except I didn’t glue the alternating boards on the bottom section until after I meshed the two together. Once together, I glued in the missing pieces, securing the two sections forever. The last step was inserting the 17″ W x 23″ L x 1/2″ D glass into the top section and the 17″ W x 11″ L x 1/2″ D glass into the bottom section.”

“It is finished with about 3 coats of Danish Oil sanded down to about 400 grit and has a poly spray topcoat. Overall this is a very strong piece, and has no problem holding the glass, even with me leaning on it, as the table will tip over before the joint would ever fail. There are definitely things I would consider doing different though, but that’s the challenge for my next piece. Enjoy my cantilevered end table and thanks for all of the inspiration. As always, I look forward to the next video!

I started out with rough Walnut that I picked up over the course of about six months. One board was 8/4 and three boards were 5/4. The boards were about 6 ft long and 5 in. wide. I dimensioned it with my Jet 6″ deluxe jointer, DeWalt 13″ planer and my SawStop. Legs ended up 2″ x 2 1/8″ x 23 1/4″, rails 4″ x 14″ (including tenon length) x 9/16″ and the top 18 1/2″ x 18 1/2″ x 3/4″. After cutting the pieces to size, I used my Powermatic hollow-chisel mortiser to cut mortises into the legs. The legs were not exact squares so I paired them up (e.g. Mortise for back left leg connects with mortise for back right leg, mortise for back right leg connects with front right leg, …) so the relative distance from the outside surface of the leg to the rail was the same on each leg. I decided to use the 3/8″ hollow chisel.

I planned for a 1/2″ shoulder on the top and bottom of the tenons which started the mortise 1/2″ from the top. After cutting the mortises, I laid out the legs with the rails to decide which board looked best with between certain legs and to mark my cuts. I ended up cutting a 1″ tenon on each end of the rails. I made a cut-off sled so I could be as accurate as possible when cutting the tenons. I cut the shoulder on all four sides up against a stop block clamped to the sled. I just nibbled away the material checking the fit until I liked it.

Since I had the mortise pretty well centered on the legs I cut the end of each tenon to 45 degrees so the two tenons coming into a leg would not hit each other. I glued up two legs with a rail and then the other two legs with another rail. After these were clamped I added the other two rails and used enough clamps to ensure adequate pressure to close up each joint. Checking that all four legs were level and all joints were nice and tight, I left it to cook. The top is a glue up of 4 pieces of walnut that looked “right” together. I didn’t use biscuits or dowels in this glue up since the top is pretty small. I used yellow glue for all gluing processes.

The 4 pieces of walnut were jointed and planed on the top and bottom surface before glue up. The inside edges didn’t touch the jointer or planer. I ripped the boards on my SawStop and the pieces matched up exactly. I scraped the partially cooked glue to minimize the work after the clamps came off. I knocked off the hard edges from the legs and rails with a little oval sanding pad. One pad has something like 60 micron/30 micron and the other has 15 micron/5 micron. I worked down from 60 to 5 and it is really nice to the touch. I sanded and scraped after the base and top came out of the clamps. I used a block plane to put a small chamfer on the bottom of each leg (all four sides).

After this I was ready to start finishing. I love Tung Oil as it seems to bring out the wood. I gave both the base and the top 2 coats of tung oil with a bit of touch up hand sanding. Just enough to remove the nibs. I attached the top to the base with figure eight fasteners. After it was together, I applied some good furniture paste wax and buffed it out. This is what you see in the pictures of the final table. Go have fun making saw dust.