Pallet wood coffee table

  I had this thought that it might be a pretty cool idea to incorporate some rough textured and well aged pallet wood pieces into a piece of furniture.  I have seen various articles detailing using pallets to secure wood to make projects...however, I never saw it used to make a coffee table.   It intrigued me and I set about finding some pallets that met the criteria.  The slats needed to be flat and all relatively the same thickness.  They also had to have the right "coloring" due to exposure to the elements or just from age.  I found them only about a mile from my home at an old nursery that opens for seasonal sales, be it the summer for vegetables and fruits and in the fall for pumpkins, pies and the like.  Jointed one side of the pieces (once they were cut from the pallets) so that all of the pieces laid flat and I also jointed both side and cut them to the same width on the tablesaw.  I used some sugar maple I had laying around for the tapered legs and some other maple that came from New York state for the border of the tabletop.  The pallet wood was mounted on a 3/8th's sheet of plywood to obtain a reasonable thickness that was going to serve as a solid top in combination with the pallet wood.  Fairly simple project and it will reside in our living room across from the fireplace insert.

Catching up on some smaller projects

It has been a while, with the exception of the most recent post, that I have added to this blog.  I have done this or that for people...some simply not worthy of posting.  Worthy in the fact that I helped out others with my shop and my skills, but not worthy of taking note of due to the fact it was mundane and just not noteworthy.  However, here are a few that I have done in the shop and mostly because it offered me the chance of showing my wife Karen some different woodworking techniques.  This first one was the suggestion of Karen.  This television was relatively new to our bedroom and we like to lay in bed to watch tv at the end of the day.  Well, Karen decided that the tv needed elevating to facilitate easier tv viewing.  I saw the possibility of storage for the remotes associated with the tv...the DirecTV remote and the remote for the DVD player.  So....I rolled the design around in my head for a few days before we began to fabricate the parts needed.  This was one of the first projects that Karen joined me in the shop for...so just about everything associated with this project was new and a learning experience for her.  I have to say...now that it is built and in service...it definitely makes laying in bed and watching tv a little more of a pleasure.

  The next project I would like to detail is this beautiful picture frame I made from walnut and yellowheart.  Some left over yellowheart from a former project that I was contracted to build, allowed me to incorporate it into this beautiful frame for some artwork from my wifes past.  Quite simple design that actually used the inner walnut piece of the frame to hold the glass, picture, and everything else involved inside of the frame.  The yellowheart face of the frame is only maybe a quarter inch thick and laminated to some simple and soft pine.  This allowed a small amount of the more expensive and exotic wood to be used and the soft pine allowed easy penetration of the push points that holds everything in place once placed inside of the frame.

 Just below that frame is an addition that my wife Karen loves.  This came about because of the remodel of our bathroom just to the left of this cabinet.  Due to new cabinetry for the bathroom, we lost a little bit of storage for bathroom related items.  This cabinet was designed to take up that need and sort of play off of a floor to ceiling storage cabinet on the other side of the bathroom door.

Made from simple pine...it was basic construction with frame and raised panel construction of the doors.  I added the fancy rail up top because it dressed it up and I had it laying around the shop for years from some other work. 







  The last thing I wanted to get up posted was this simple little childrens table.  I was first contacted by a friend to ask if I could repair some lamination defects in one or two the chairs shown with the table. 

  As I was completing those repairs...the subject of a round table came up and I was open to the project as it wouldn't take all that long to fabricate.  Again, simple pine and I was to take it to this point.  No finish as the customer was going to prime and paint it once it was delivered.  The main reason why I was open to building this table was because a number of months ago...I had fabricated a large router jig that would allow me to attach my router to it and turn out perfect circles in wood up to like six feet in diameter down to something around fifteen inches in diameter.  So, this was the perfect opportunity to give that jig a whirl and it worked beautifully.

Ships Binnacle case

My Brother Dave is big into buying and selling on Ebay.  Makes a surprising amount of money doing so.  He recently purchased this ships binnacle at a flea market and thought that it would significantly increase in value if it had a decent box to be displayed and protected in.  So, he asked me to build one for him to cradle it safely while being transported.  I agreed to make one for him and it offered me the chance to get out my Incra I Box box joint jig.  It also offered me the chance to instruct my wife in a few more things in the craft of woodworking now that she has the time to devote to it since she is now retired also alongside of me.

A shared effort!

This project represents the first combined effort of both myself and my wife Karen who has always had an interest in woodworking...but just never took the time to get up in the shop to learn the craft from me.  Red oak with some walnut trim.  I got the idea for the style of the project from a picture in a store flier and loved the look of it. 

Barstools

I was contacted by a former customer who had another order for me.  I believe he said that his Sister asked him if I could build her a set of four bar stools.  Having just completed the Doug Box project shortly before this….I was fully confident in my ability to now tackle splayed out legs (as had been used on the dough box project) and the bar stools would definitely make use of that technique.  So, I took on the task and the picture shows the results.  Using all quarter sawn red oak, I was looking to prevent as much laminating as possible to fabricate the legs.  I had a beautiful slab of red oak in my stock pile that would have allowed me to make the legs in one thick piece.  Trouble was….I only had enough for twelve legs and I needed a total of sixteen.  The trouble with that situation is…I didn’t have any more of the particular red oak that the other legs were made from.  All of the red oak I had in stock was of a lighter hue.  A work around to this problem is that we went with an artsy kind of idea and utilized three of the darker legs and one of the lighter, laminated legs.  In the laminated legs, I sunk a set of three walnut dowels….two 1/4’’ dowel inlays surrounding a larger 1/2’’ dowel inlay…..just for decorative flair.    Not something I would want to do with all of my projects, but it was making lemonade out of lemons….so to speak.

I used my beading bit to run a nice corner bead on the outside of each leg to add further visual interest.  Stretchers down below and up under the seat were all mortice and tenon joints into the legs.  These tenons were acquired thanks to my recent purchase of the new Powermatic tenon jig.  Everything leg-wise was based on a 5 degree angle.  Nothing unusual about this particular project….well, with the exception that I decided that because of the use and wear and tear that these stools may get exposed to….I decided to not spray them with my usual Deft lacquer concoction.  I wanted to make use of some Polyurethane that I have had laying around the shop for a number of years.  The poly would offer a much more durable finish to stand up to people sliding on and off the seats and probably stand up to the scuffing of feet on the bottom stretchers.  The only problem was….I had to brush the Poly on and since I have been using my HVLP Wagner spray gun for a number of years, I HATE to manually brush on a finish anymore.  However, I did and while I do love the deep and thick finish that it afforded the stools, I still would much more prefer my Deft lacquer and spray gun.

Dough Box

I had long wanted to attempt to re-create the antique "Dough Box" that my wife owned and had been passed down through the family.  A dough box, for the uninformed, is a piece of furniture used in the olden times to put freshly made bread dough and other similar concoctions in to allow it to "rise" before baking.  The inside of the piece of furniture provided a warm and dark environment for the dough to "proof" and become ready for the oven.

   For the longest time...I was sort of intimidated by all of the angles and tapers involved in the project.  However, with time, I became much more a believer in my woodworking talents and I finally reached a point where I was confident that I could manage such a thing.  As it turns out, it really wasn't hard at all.  The picture above shows both the dough box that I made on the left and the original antique on the right.  They are identical in every measurment.

Lazy Susan Picture Display

The same buddy that had me build 3 Hope chests recently, also wanted me to attempt to to fabricate some sort of revolving picture display using some locally purchased 4'X6" double sided picture frames from Michaels Craft stores.  Getting to the diameter that was needed...I sketched out the plans for what I liked to call, "the picture carousel", and determined that we could get a total of sixteen frames comfortably fit onto the carousel....meaning a total of thirty two different pictures on display.

   The project intrigued me as it would definitely require some jigs to be built specifically for the task, but also offered me the opportunity to build some other jigs that I could use, but were needed for this project also.  So, I not only got to build the project, but came out the other end now having some additional help in the shop in the form of reusable jigs that will serve me for a long time.

  After some ideas being thrown back and forth and settling on an idea and size...I sketched out a final plan and went at it.  Gotta say, I really liked the result.  However, for what I would have to charge for the thing, in relation to the amount of work put into it....not quite sure if many people would want to pay the tab for something that just displays pictures.  Still, I was quite proud of it and obviously, since it spins in a lazy susan mode...it must have a bearing in use and it does...that is sandwiched between the two bottom discs, using a routed trough in the bottom disc for the bearing to sit within.  Thanks to one of those reusable jigs I spoke of.