Category Archives: Wood

I recently finished a pair of credenzas for our family room. They were built to house our growing collection of retro gaming consoles. The drawers are full of games, controllers, and accessories. We've got a NES, SNES, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Atari 2600, PS2, PS3, PS4, and a Switch. The credenzas are built from cherry, and have tile tops. Since this picture was taken I built a shelf above the TV for the soundbar, and have moved that PS3 controller charger off of the top and to another spot in the room. I'll try to get a new pic of the setup sometime soon.

My sister is thinking about doing some DIY concrete countertops at her new house. As an experiment, I wanted to try and make a coffee table with a cast concrete top to see how hard it was. I built a mold out of melamine, then filled it with Quickcrete 5000 and steel reinforcing mesh. After it had cured, I sanded the show side smooth and sealed it with an acrylic concrete sealer. The base is red oak, and a simple (but sturdy) design. Even that relatively small table top weighed a ton, and Lori and I had to work pretty hard to get it up the stairs. All in all, I'd say it was a success. I learned a few things that my sister should be able to leverage when doing her countertops, which will hopefully help her avoid a few (minor) problems I ran into.

Carter saw a side table at the store that she wanted to buy for her room, and I told her we could probably make one for next to nothing. And on top of saving the money, she'd have something her dad made with his own two hands - which someday might be important to her, or something. :) Anyway, here's the start of it. I cut the top today from an old downed log in the backyard, leveled it, sanded it, and put the first coat of polyurethane on it. It still needs several more coats, but it looks nice enough already that I wanted to get a photo out there for everyone to see.

I know these photos aren't going to look much different than the old workshop, but it really does feel different in person. Because the new house has sort of a third garage bay (it's not car-depth), I no longer need to share my woodshop space with bikes, generators, snowblowers, etc. It lets me spread my tools out a lot more, and makes the shop a lot more fun to work in. Plus a little natural light coming in through the man-door between the garage doors is a great bonus.

Finished the workbench today. I flattened the top, drilled the dog holes, and put on two coats of a tung oil finish. Both vises are installed and working, and I made some bench dogs to use with the dog holes I drilled in the top. I also found some handmade iron holdfasts on etsy. I still don't know what I want to do underneath it, but for now I am calling it done!

I've started working on a traditional, Ruobo-style workbench. It's made completely of red oak, and weighs over 300 pounds - it's a beast! The top is over three inches thick, and the legs are about four inches square. The bottle of sarsaparilla is there for scale. It's got a traditional leg vise, and a full width end vise. I still need to install the end vise, flatten the top, drill the dog holes, and apply a finish to the whole bench. I may install a shelf or some drawers underneath, but I'd like to use it for a while first and figure out what would be the most useful. I'll post another set of photos once it is done.

Another project I've forgotten to post - I made these shelves in the spring, to hold the growing collection of toys that keep showing up in the Loot Crates. My favorites are the larger Firefly figures on the middle shelf of the largest unit. The box all the way to the left is my new solution for organizing my wire spools - so far it's been working out great.

Borrowed an idea I saw in a YouTube video - basically, when the hook-and-loop pad on my random orbit sander wore out, I replaced it and screwed the old one to a nice piece of cherry to made a hand sander. The hook-and-loop still has enough grab to hold the sheets when hand sanding - plus it is nice and comfortable to hold. Although I probably need to add a strap across the back to make it easier to hang on to.

Made a few tools for myself this weekend. On the left is a carver's mallet that I turned on the lathe from a piece of red oak firewood I had laying around. I forgot how much I love using the lathe! I'm going to have to make some more projects on that soon. Later that morning Carter came out to the shop and asked me to teach her how to turn a pen. I forgot to take a photo of it though - hopefully I'll take one soon and post it here. The second photo shows a pair of hand planes I made this weekend. The bigger one is a standard block plane made from cherry with a bubinga sole and a walnut wedge. The smaller one is a chamfer plane made from hard maple (center) and morado (cheeks). For that one, I even made the blade myself from some O1 tool steel. I still need to cut the wedge down a little shorter on that one - it's pretty tall right now. I've also got a long jack plane that I'm working on, but it's not finished quite yet.

I built this keepsake box recently as a proof-of-concept for an idea I saw online. The top is some burl veneer (I don't remember the species), the main body of the box is black walnut, and the skirt and legs are curly maple. Inside, if you look carefully you'll find a tiny hole. Poke something into that hole (like a paperclip) and one end of the skirt will pop out - revealing a secret drawer below the false bottom.