Woodworking


Woodworking
I've been working wood in one form or another for most of my life. My father had a radial arm saw and some hand tools. I lived in Iowa for about 7 years and while there I financed my woodworking tool acquisitions by doing projects for other people. I was careful to select projects that "required" the next tool on master list. I now have a decent set of tools and enjoy making sawdust. I'm hampered these days as to do any woodworking I have to first dig the machines out of my overcrowded garage and move them onto the driveway. This page will contain some of my projects. As I dig through my pictures I'll add other projects. I'll try to keep them in roughly chronological order. Most of the pictures at this point are scans from prints. The quality isn't as good as I'd like but it would be just about impossible to track most of the projects down to retake pictures so you will just have to live with them as is.
	A unique commission that was an interesting journey. It started as a simple coffee table and slowly morphed into what is shown here. It is made from solid mahogany and mahogany plywood. The magazine holders were my first box joints. A little monotonous after the first couple but still fun to make. I still have the first one I did as a prototype.
	An end view of the coffee table.
	One of two minimalist built in bookcases.
	The other of two minimalist built in bookcases.
	A packing bench for my employer. The left bay held a huge roll of bubble wrap. Overall size was almost nine feet long, four feet wide, and about 4 feet tall.
	One of several flower boxes I made from cedar. I found a great deal on skip planed cedar. The house smelled great for weeks after I planed all the pieces. Probably not easy to see in the picture the sides and bottoms were inset into dados on the end pieces then screwed in place with plugs covering the screw counter bores. Since the plugs were made from the scrap, they were almost invisible.
	A quick desk I built for my daughter. It was still used as a desk until a couple of years ago. We converted it to a bookcase and the top was reused as shelving.
	Some real basic file storage units that I built for my employer. Solid, strong, cheap, and fast. What else could they ask for?
	A coffee counter I build for my employer. One of my first laminate jobs. I was laminating the top in the garage when the outside temperature was in the 30's. I was stressed that the contact cement was not going to work properly. it all turned out ok in the end.
	Two of a set of trellises I made for my wife Becky. Made from cedar, the cross pieces are drilled for the uprights. They held the weight of several very heavy rose bushes for a number of years. The picture is from our back yard in Iowa.
	A mirror easel. The picture doesn't do it justice. I really liked the way the proportions came out. It is a simple, understated, and functional piece. The cross pieces have dados so the mirror slides in from the side.
	This was gift for my wife's sister Betsy. A shaker style coat rack in solid oak. It was to be finished by Betsy to match other oak pieces. I never saw the final result.
	YACC (yet another companion commission). This time for a large coffee table.
	Companion commission to the end tables shown below.
	A bench build for a friend for reloading. His specifications included the overall dimensions and a storage area. The final one was interesting. It was supposed to over designed so that an engine block dropped onto the bench wouldn't cause noticeable deflection.
	Here is the owner, Pat, just after running across the room and jumping onto the bench to test for his final specification. For the record, Pat is a good sized guy, 6' 3" or 4" and 260ish. When he hit the bench it didn't move and he made a funny grunting sound. It passed his test.
	My first bookcase commission. Really simple design.
	This was a fun project in 3D visualization. I was asked to build a fitted crate for shipping a trade show truss system. The crate was used several times and generated addition revenue when it needed repairs after a forklift operator used it for target practice.
	The first piece was so well received I was asked to make a duplicate to make it into a set of end tables.
	One of my earliest pictures of a commissioned piece. It is constructed entirely out of recycled wood. The top is cut from a solid core office door. I salvaged about a dozen doors from another suite in our office that was being remodeled. The doors were headed to the dumpster as the new lessee didn't want them. I loaded my pickup until the springs were flat. Each door weighed about 120 pounds. All the door trim was stacked in as well. The trim became edge banding for the table top and was glued up to make blanks for the legs.
When we moved to Iowa my brother in law picked up his old Craftsman table saw. It became a priority to get my own. I ordered a Delta contractors saw with a Unifence. It was shipped freight and the bill of lading showed three boxes for a combined weight of around 500 pounds. When the truck arrived the driver was surprised I didn't have a forklift, not a good sign. The first box only had the legs for the Unifence, less than five pounds. The second box had the aluminum fence extrusion, another five pounds. Uh oh. The last box was dollied up to the end of the truck and I tried to gently lower it to the ground on a couple of 2*6s at an angle of 60 degrees. It's a wonder I didn't break either the saw or myself. The truck drove off and I was sitting at the end of my driveway with a 500 pound box, 100 yards from the house. Did I mention that my workshop was in the basement? I unpacked the saw and disassembled it down into mostly manageable chunks and then grunted them into the basement. My next project (a replacement table top) was traded for a day of labor to help move and setup the joiner and drill press.