Project Description:
This simple desk was a present for my mom. I don’t normally work in softwoods, preferring locally sourced English Hardwoods, but she wanted something that was made out of old wood. The wood is old scaffolding boards, resawn beams and pallet wood!

Not too complicated joinery really.just some biscuits, dowels and rebates. The main problem turned out to be keeping the wood flat due to it mostly being 10″+ wide and flat sawn. Cupped like crazy!

A nice little project and I got a lot out of it. Mainly that pallets are a good source of softwood in an crisis.

Location: Idaho Falls, ID

Hobbyist or Pro: Hobbyist

Wood Species: Pine

Finish Used: Stain and Polyurethane

Project Description:
I am a physician who grew up with a wonderful father, bless his heart, who had a great fear of tools. Therefore, I didn’t understand the curiosity I felt toward tools. I had always wanted to work with wood but career pursuits prevented that early on. After settling into a new community after residency, I started to acquire some tools (made the mistake of getting “starter tools”) that I outgrew very quickly. I have also always wanted a pool table which we got and one cannot have a pool table without a good pub table.

I collect chess sets and love to play, so I thought I would try my hand at building a pub table with an inlaid chessboard cut from stone. Lofty first project attempted with inadequate tools but I got it done and learned some valuable principles, largely what the heck is a “jig,” and patience is an invaluable attribute in woodworking.

The top is a round disk purchased from home depot which I hollowed out by hand with chisels (I remind my patients that I am a Doctor, but I never claimed to be smart). The top is supported by crossing profiled supports which are tenoned into the base. The base is a cedar post, wrapped in pine. Why?, not quite sure! The legs are corbels. There is actually no hardware, it is surprisingly light and very sturdy. I tiled in travertine for the chessboard. It actually goes great, similar design angles, with my pool table and it has served as a nice conversational piece.

I have since learned a whole lot, thanks in no small part to Marc, and am building a shop I can be proud of. I am also happy to report that I have a waiting list backed up 8 months on orders for furniture, cabinets, toys and those annoying little things like surgery.

Happy cutting everyone!!!!

Finish Used: Cabinet carcass finished with 3 coats of hand rubbed danish oil. Slab top stained with 2 coats of wood conditioner, then 2 coats of stain. To top it off I gave the whole thing 6 coats of thinly sprayed on poly.

Wood Species: Pine slab, reclaimed maple, birch plywood carcass, fir log accents.

Project Description:
Inspired by watching Marc’s video build of the retro low entertainment center. I had a client call me up right after watching the series, and he wanted something very similar to match some log work I had done for him in the past. PERFECT TIMING MARC!

You can check out the whole process on my blog, RusticWorks.

I finally completed the sideboard project. The woods used are curly/tiger maple and cherry with pine for the back. This is entirely solid wood construction. The fun part of this project was that I only used dovetails for joinery and as a result, this is a big (and heavy) puzzle, with a unique order to follow for assembly. Finish is sprayed clear shellac followed by sprayed poly with 320 grit in between coats.

It was a my really first big project and I’m overall satisfied. I should have paid more attention in the selection of the parts from the wood, but I made the mistake of selecting the parts on rough wood. The real figures and defects in the wood appeared after planing.

Just wanted to send you a little note. I have been having a lot of fun turning as it is one of the few things I can do right now. It gets frustrating with the lathe I have, (a mini lathe) but it just makes the challenge that much more interesting and the finished product that much more satisfying. I turned this for my little brother out of a piece of his fire wood (lodge pole pine) and some padauk. I call it “Growing from the Heart”. I thought it was neat but it is really a rough piece. I didn’t sand the belly or fix course turning in the base. Even the finish (6 coats of shellac) has some streaks in it. Of course I will admit I left everything that way on purpose as for me is symbolizes the “growing” process. My wife says I tend to be to deep and sentimental.

It’s just a pretty traditional cabinetmaker’s workbench. Its made of soft maple and pine for the base with big dovetails and all! The base is held together with double mortise and tenons with some bolts for the longer stretchers. The top is just a 2 1/2″ thick slab of maple with the dogholes on there. The caps around the top are all dovetailed and bolted together. The tail vise is just the screw type with the grid work of wood underneath keeping everything in line. I made my own wooden dogs out of padauk just because running into a metal dog is just something I don’t want to deal with. And here’s a link to my blog: Derrevog.Blogspot.com. Thanks and I hope you like it!

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.