Handmade Baby Toys, or the Elephant in the Baby’s Room. Two of my daughters recently gave me grandsons (a month apart). I had to stop and really think about what I could make for these guys. I am nervous about anything they can put in their mouths, that might come apart, so I made some baby toys that are going to be more decorative, at least until they get a little older. Continue reading Elephant in the Baby’s Room – Making Baby Toys
So, I decided it was time for a new desk. I spent a lot of time on the internet and Pinterest looking for ideas. I thought about an industrial design, or up-cycling found objects. I decided that I wanted to build a vintage desk, styled from this one that can be seen on “brown dress with white dots”.
Sometimes you have a great piece of wood that has a natural edge, a bit of crook, or you want to put a taper on a board. There are a
couple of ways to get a clean, straight edge on a board. The quickest is, of course, on a jointer. You can also use a router table. But you can also do it with a hand router and a straight edge guide, just like cutting with a circular saw. In fact there are times when the combination of circular saw and router is the quickest and most flexible solution. So, here it is, how to joint a board with a router. Continue reading Joint This! How to Joint a Board With a Router
When it comes time to set you router bit to a specific height, how do you do it? Tape measure? Carpenters square? Eyeball it?
There are several gauges and fixtures that you can buy, or make. I am going to review the small, but effective “Router Depth Gauge.” from Rockler. There are similar products from other vendors Continue reading Router Depth Gauge
To create a solid wood panel for a desk or tabletop, you need to glue boards together. You need to know how to glue up a panel! How do you do that?
In a recent post, I discussed the various tools for sanding projects (Tools for Sanding Success) , and just as there are a lot of ways to sand, there are a lot of options in sand paper.
Rather than going into a long technical explanation about sand papers, let’s explore the basics and make recommendations specifically for woodworkers. Continue reading Get a Grit on Sand Paper
From the moment we moved into the new house, the wife has been looking for a side table for the living room.
She looked everywhere, and we tried several tables of various shapes and sizes to no avail.
Finally, while at a furniture store, she found a table made from what looks like an old baluster, that she thought was a great inspiration piece.
Continue reading How to Build a Table From Reclaimed Column for Less Than $35
One of the quickest ways to build “stuff”, is to use a pocket hole jig. Basically, the jig drills a screw hole at an angle into a board. This lets you put a screw through the center of one board into another. No dowels, no tenons, no dovetails, no fancy tools! It may not be a family heirloom, but most of the things you can assemble with pocket screws will hold up to a lot of abuse.
Continue reading Beginners Guide: Kreg Pocket Hole Jigs – The Mini
Our move was quick, and in the winter. We needed additional storage, so… we bought an Ikea Brimnes bed frame. It has large drawers under it, but it’s very plain. Not how I would have built one at all, but very workable.
The problem is that we needed it to be about 4″ off the wall. I hate when my pillows fall behind the bed! Solution, a short, padded headboard.
Continue reading A Quick Padded Headboard – Or another Ikea Hack
Recently a friend asked me to design and build a hall tree for her entryway. Her husband farms, and she was tired of his muddy boots on her floors! She sent me some pins (Pinterest) of what she was thinking. I designed the piece two different ways for her using Google Sketchup. One as a corner unit, the other as a single bench.
Continue reading Hall Tree – How to build one from scratch
