Watcha Makin'?

[RetiredTech]

Well I didn't want to post a photo here. I just wanted to say I may not have any updates to the hunting house for a little while. But I guess a photo is worth a thousand words. I only took one photo. Call her what you want. Looks like stew meat to me.

[Wlmedley]

I've been wanting to make something out of some walnut I cut last year. The tree was over the bank from the house my siblings and I grew up in and uprooted. I decided to make some cutting boards to give my brother and two sisters. Got five finished so I have one extra if I keep one. Hopefully they will stay flat.

[Magicman]

They certainly look Very Nice!! 

[Wlmedley]

Thanks MM,I mostly give anything I make to family or friends but like to think that what I give is worth having. People seem to like it but I sometimes wonder if they just don't want to hurt my feelings 

[Magicman]

Many such items are considered too nice to actually use as intended so seeing them used by the ladies as decorative items is not an insult.

[doc henderson]

sharp Bill!

[Old Greenhorn]

Indeed, those look great Bill! Especially with your brand on them which looks sharp! I gotta do something to improve my marking game this winter.
------------------------
I've been mostly making lumber everyday for the last 10 days or so, but in the afternoons I try to get some progress made in the shop. Today after milling I came home and had enough of the pre-work done that I could make this prototype stool. I so like the WRC ones that Doc makes and this stool is literally made from firewood and scraps. The seat came out of the kindling box. I was planning on cutting this splitting this stuff up into kindling packs and putting them in Bill's roadside stand, but in retrospect, I figure a stool @ $50.00 is worth more than a kindling pack @ $5.00.  The legs are cutoff scraps from making box tops and bases. 3/4 x 1-1/2 roughly and glued together to make a 1-1/2" square leg, then I just finish up the sizing to exactly 1-1/2" square and chamfer them on the table router making a nice octagon.

 SO this is it in the white before I trimmed the legs.


I trimmed the legs in the shop, old school, and started a coat of poly to see how that would look. It yellows a lot, but doesn't look bad.



You may note, as I did, that this stool comes with it's own butt crack.
 I kind of like it, I think it's cute at 10" high.

 I have legs to make one more of these and I really want to try using branches for legs, I have a pile of peeled legs up in the attic kiln now that need to dry and they were just cut off a green tree less than a week ago. I figure if I work steady at putting some of these out every month through the winter I should be able to do shows through next summer without running out of stock This year I had to make more stools at least twice. So building inventory to make it through a season is a focus for this winter.

[Larry]

I dry legs all the time in a bucket of sand. Put about 4 or 5" on one end into the sand. Heat to no more than 180 degrees or you can scorch the wood. Summer I use a hot plate but often in the winter I'll set a bucket on the woodstove. This method will dry air dried blanks (sometimes wetter) to less than 4 percent in a couple of days. Sometimes one day is enough. You only need to dry the part that goes in the seat.

The idea is to get the tenon far below emc, than when it goes into the mortise it will regain moisture and swell. This really locks the leg in place. I always wedge with a contrasting wood but this is just for eye appeal.

[Old Greenhorn]

That's a great technique Larry! don't have a hot plate, but do have a woodstove and know how to use it.  That sand should keep the heat fairly uniform. I am not quite into woodstove season yet, just smudge fires in the mornings to dry the shop and warm it slightly, but I think I have a bag of play sand that needs to be dried out anyway, so I will put that in a bucket and get it on the stove soon to dry out with those smudge fires. The legs I have are as green as it gets so I will mess with this method as conditions permit.. My attic kiln is loosing it's punch as the weather cools off so this will offset that a bit. Very neat idea, thank you!

[Klunker]

I made a Cabinet for the wife that sits in the Kitchen.
Top is walnut, but the rest of it, thats the mystery.
Looking at the insides can anyone guess what its made from?








Didn't take long for the wife to start stuffing it full. You can see on the side panel that the wood has a very light and dark color to it.

[doc henderson]

Is that poplar?  Klunker?

Tom, glad to see you are giving up on the Hillbilly construction methods, like through tenons and cutting legs on the sawmill, risking the lives of all within a hundred yards.    I like the look.  We have ERC and if you had a gasification semi-truck we could give you a load, but it may be all burned up getting home.  Looks great.  I consider that a stool for a 4- to 10-year-old.  I have made them for great nieces and nephews.  I made one for the folks across the street and then they asked for 4 more for the other grand kids.  The one I made was for the GC they babysit daily, and he likes to watch me run my equipment (from his yard across the street) he waves and says, "Hi Doc!".  And just like crack cocaine the grandparents were hooked and I charged 50 bucks each for the next ones, as they were not gifts from me.  I told them that was half price, so they felt they got a good deal.  Had I not known them, I would have either said no or charged 100 bucks each.

Cheers Clips: Fredericks first word (youtube.com)

[aigheadish]

Nice butt crack stool Tom, prior to the finish it looks velvety soft!

Klunker- That looks great! Maybe one day I'll have the skills to get the guts to even try something like that. Well done!

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I don't have the guts, that is too pretty for a clod like me to make. I think that wood is poplar also.

 Austin, it sure did look and feel very nice. Wish I could find a truly clear finish to use on ERC to keep that strawberry sherbet color.

[GAB]

Klunker- That looks great! Maybe one day I'll have the skills to get the guts to even try something like that. Well done!

Austin:
When you get the guts to try just make sure you have a wood stove to hide your mistakes.  My wood stove has hidden so much evidence that it could complain of having wood butcher indigestion.
GAB

[Tom K]

Looking at the insides can anyone guess what its made from?

Nice work! Without some better pictures it's hard to tell. It polar as OGH said, or it could be maple.

What kind of paint did you use? It looks like it laid down great.

[beenthere]

Klunker, looks good. 

Being that you made it, can you tell us a bit about how the wood worked up when cutting, planing, and sanding it? 
Also, where did you get the wood, assuming you purchased it or it was given to you, or it was in your stash? 
Maple is hard or can be a softwood, yellow poplar isn't readily available in WI, basswood or aspen possibility, and about any species can show up in a box store. 

The walnut top looks like it worked up pretty well. The paint may cover other indicators of what species the wood is. 

Wife should be happy, and will want more. 

[aigheadish]

GAB- we have a couple fairly large fire piles that help!

The only furniture I've tried so far is the little end table I made, and my dining room table, which is kind of junk that looks neat. It turned out pretty well so I should try some more. I just found out that I haven't posted on FF...

[Klunker]

Klunker, looks good.

Being that you made it, can you tell us a bit about how the wood worked up when cutting, planing, and sanding it?
Also, where did you get the wood, assuming you purchased it or it was given to you, or it was in your stash?
Maple is hard or can be a softwood, yellow poplar isn't readily available in WI, basswood or aspen possibility, and about any species can show up in a box store.

The walnut top looks like it worked up pretty well. The paint may cover other indicators of what species the wood is.

Wife should be happy, and will want more. 

Thanks Guys,
The wife already has 2 other cabinets that I made her plus other stuff, she keeps me busy making stuff. She is always extremely happy with what I make her. She is smart that way, it keeps me making more.

Here is a picture of one of the shelves, it shows the wood much better.



This stuff came out of my woods. I saw up most of my own lumber except for larger stuff. Then I go to one of the local guys with a bandsaw. This tree was a real nice one, straight as an arrow with minimal taper. Only trouble was it developed what I assume is called ring shakes. After it was cut and started to dry out the boards developed splits running with the growth rings. Some of the nicer boards that were 12-16" wide ended up in 4-5 pcs. After going thru everything lots ended up as firewood. A shame as I think the wood is very pretty. You can see some of the remaining splits in the shelf. I fill them with a black tinted epoxy then they are good as new. I kinda like the black streaks from the cracks, the wife, she is not a fan.

As far as working it, in my mind I haven't found a wood thats hard to work. But you have to realize that my day job involved making and working with stuff made out of tool steel. So compared to that stuff any and all wood is easy to work.

As far as the type of paint its Benjamin Moore Regal Select in a eggshell finish. Its a enamel. I'm not a fan and would not get again, it dries too fast, you can get "peeling" I think its called. Like tiny BB's if you go over anything not fully dry after about a 2-3 minutes.

And no, its not Popular.

I have been making stuff seriously out of wood in the last 2-3 years. It isn't that hard, lot of sins can be fixed. I like more complex stuff as again thats what I did in my day job before retiring. My wife finds a picture of something she wants, we make some changes usually. I draw it up in 2d and away I go. This cabinet took about 4 months of occasional working on it.

here is a cabinet I made for my wife for her sewing room. It sits under the end of a work table. It she wanted to access the drawers from 3 sides. So its got drawers on 3 sides and a board that slides out for working on, like a cutting board that goes the full width of it.





here is another cabinet I ade for her sewing room, it kinda matches the 3 sided one.





both of these were made from ray sawn White Oak. A large tree that I had to have sawn by someone else. I find I have to say "Ray Sawn" cause if I say I want the tree quarter sawn I don't get all the nice flecking. It usually involves a discussion on what I exactly want and me telling the the guy doing the sawing to charge by the hour as I know its alot more work to do it this way. After that they all have been happy to do what I want.

[Klunker]

GAB- we have a couple fairly large fire piles that help!

The only furniture I've tried so far is the little end table I made, and my dining room table, which is kind of junk that looks neat. It turned out pretty well so I should try some more. I just found out that I haven't posted on FF...

I like the end table. Looks like you did a perfectly good job, don't be afraid to tackle harder stuff. Look at every job as a skill builder and soon it'll all become gravy for you.

[Tom K]

I'm still thinking maple. Originally I was thinking possibly sycamore, but I'm sure you would be able to identify a sycamore tree.

[aigheadish]

Thanks Klunker. I have all the parts prepped for another end table similar to this one. It was to be a project with my son, for his room, but he (we) didn't have the patience to continue. I ought to get it back out. 

[GAB]

GAB- we have a couple fairly large fire piles that help!

Austin:
Fire piles are nice, however it leaves the evidence visible for others to see and ask questions that I try to avoid having to reply to.

In some instances you could reply - I cut it three time and it was still too short.  On the positive side, it was too short but only on one end.
Have a great day.
GAB

[aigheadish]

Hahaha! 99% of my wood is free or well paid for, my lovely wife would never notice! She'd just be pleased that there is less of it in the garage.

[SwampDonkey]

Lee Valley sells an inexpensive sled kit.

https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/power-tool-accessories/router-accessories/110746-router-sled-hardware-kit?item=15K0701&dm_i=6EER%2CCQ41%2C17GVW9%2C1X3VI%2C1

[Wlmedley]

After getting a planer and having pretty good success gluing up a table top I've decided to try some glue ups using different species of wood. The table top was clamped using ratchet straps and slide clamps and I've been looking for something better. Found a clamp setup on Amazon that I think might work pretty good. It uses 1 1/2" x1 1/2" lumber you can make as long as needed and puts pressure on both sides. I made some short boards to start out with and some long ones I can move brackets to when needed to clamp something wider. I think I'll start with some cutting boards or maybe a bench to see how they work. If they work really well I may buy a couple more. I think I paid about $70 for parts to make up two of them. Anyone using these??