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Inspiration for multiple handmade gifts came after turning two garden tool handles. Using salvaged cherry and maple flooring I glued up some blocks for turning on the lathe. Surprisingly, with one exception, these are the first handles I’ve ever turned.

I liked the idea of giving a gift made with love for a specific person and to keep the theme I picked up a few more kits. The ice cream scoop uses the same Cherry and Padauk combo I used on the garden fork handle. The coffee scoop and knife handle are made from Cocobolo.

My daughter seems to luck out with the neatest projects and this year I was excited to present her with something very close to what she asked for. My instructions were to make a wood plaque of the Abbey Road album cover with The Beatles above and that’s pretty much what I did, after finding a metal reproduction of the very album.

I cut out the letters first then made the picture frame and drawers. For this project I only had to purchase flocking and an 1/8″ band saw blade. I looked for little round rock buttons at music stores to use for drawer pulls but ended up using two large square Beatles pins.

This Beatles Abbey Road shelf is made from 1950 mahogany coated with Waterlox and Bartley gel varnish. The drawer interiors are coated with wine color Suede-Tex flocking fibers which really compliment my little wood projects nicely.

I was going to make the drawers big enough to hold The Beatles Mono Box Set that I got her but it is what it is. I hope you enjoy my sharing it online.

I’ve got an idea! I went online and grabbed an image of a crab that I liked the style of then printed it out the right size for this project and taped it to a piece of the 1950′s siding I had prepped. I cut away the design and marked the edges, transferring the image to the wood. When it was marked, I cut out the crab on the band saw.

With crab cut, I ripped a length of 1/2″ x 1/2″, hand planed it smooth then cut it into two 12″ pieces. After sanding, I made marks 1.5″ apart and drilled 1/4″ holes for the dowel I made. A spot of dark wood glue in each hole, a mallet to knock in the 1.75″ pegs and a quick handmade peg from some denser hardwood to join the two sides.

Here are some images of the project coming together.

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Sometimes my work is so much a part of my life I literally live with it. Here is a picture of a chunk of floor I removed from a Frank Lloyd Wright house that I kept due to it’s ill nature. Too bad a piece of the original subfloor didn’t come up with it. Tomato, accounting and subfloor??

I am starting a new project that I hope to share online soon. I’ll be making a dozen windows that match this awning window leaning against my kitchen cabinets. Say Hello to Lana our beautiful yellow Lab.

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Freedom of design, materials, schedule… methods… wow! Sometimes being a carpenter is a dream job for those of us that enjoy the work.
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I started with some measurements of the space and a meeting with the client to go over exactly what she hoped to accomplish and some details of construction. > Built-in cabinets consisting of Adjustable Bookshelves with Deeper cabinets below and a new mantle, everything to be painted white.

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While I was building the cabinets at my shop, I scheduled a plumber to cut the existing baseboard heater shy of the new cabinet location. It took a day to collect the various trim for my idea and another two days to machine and assemble things before I could start the installation.

One of my options was how to make the shelves for a 40″ and 45″ cabinet. Experience shows that 3/4″ shelves just won’t hold up when spanning 42″ without middle support. The client didn’t want a divider in the middle of the bookshelves, Thicker shelves or a built-up edge?

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Today, a week later, the job is painted, the paint is dry and I’m guessing the shelves are being filled. In lieu of making the custom size raised-panel doors, I ordered them and they should arrive next week.

Since building these cabinets, I have heard nothing but praise for providing something this client has dreamt about having for years. “It completes the room and makes it feel much bigger and brighter. I love the cabinets!”

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For the wood, I used pieces of mahogany removed from the same FLW home. The stock is true 5/4 X 12 but riddled with nails, coated with a hardened finish, oils and some exterior stain.

After surfacing enough roughly sized pieces to make a frame, I milled the pieces to shape and cut a rabbet on the inside edge to retain the painting. Then came the fun part; making up the design! I cut the top and bottom out on the band saw, filed smooth, sanded and viola – ready for assembly.

I didn’t want to buy anything for this project so I used some stain and new poly I had on hand. I haven’t used stain and polyurethane in ages. I made sure to let each coat dry thoroughly and sanded lightly before the next. It’s really amazing how the third coat really brings it all together. I like it and I’m the one that has to sleep with it.

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The painting is a David Chethlahe Paladin titled: Talking Gods and The Sacred Twins – 1973

Here is a gift I made for my daughter this Christmas that I thought I would share. Constructed of Philippine mahogany with 1/4″ birch-ply backing it’s mahogan-’E’. Based on multiples of 5 1/2″ the boxes will fit in any location on the shelf; 3 across the bottom, stacked several high or one here one there.

The shelf was finished with Sikkens Cetol Log Decor then a low-lustre BL Interior Clear topcoat. The boxes were colored with Master’s Solar-Lux dye then covered with 3 coats of Sikkens Interior Clear.

The lumber was all milled to 5/8″ or less and finished with two coats before assembly with a pin nailer. Because of the ultra-low profile of the 23 gauge brads, I only used glue and many pins for the assembly. I predrilled two holes in the birch ply 16″ o.c. for mounting and wrapped each box separately with another wrapped gift in each one.

I enjoyed the result of the letters I made for pulls. Before setting to the the bandsaw, I decided a hand drawn letter looked much better than a stencil or ruler drawn letter and all three of these came out matching italic capital letters.  After finishing each with a chisel, sharp knife, sand paper and dye they really look sharp!

The steps for repairing the window can be viewed in the gallery of images below.

• Removing broken side of frame
• Measure details of existing
• Create a blank rail from new mahogany stock
• Mill blank on router table, using slice of old piece as pattern
• Mortise for existing tenons
• Clean tenons of old glue and glazing
• Fit, glue and clamp
• Create and apply new mahogany stop to retain glass
• Added 1/2″ to top of this storm, ‘plane-to-fit’ exact size of opening later.

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An exciting phase of this job was to install new interior trim on the lower windows. The previous homeowner had installed mahogany trim around all the windows leaving 1″ for a future window upgrade but he skipped wrapping the lower windows.

The task of precisely matching the color was a challenge and the results were beyond my expectations. My freshly planed Philippine mahogany was quite pinkish but the existing wood is quite yellow. After an extensive array of samples, we hoped to ensure the new work would age similar to the existing by bleaching the new mahogany before finishing it with a transparent stain rather than use a semi-solid stain to cover the pink.

I was told the previous contractor used Sikkens Cetol 1 “Natural” but learned during my research that Cetol 1 and 23 are not approved for interior use because of high VOC’s believed to cause cancer. I called Sikkens and discussed my options using their 2008 product line. Sikkens now makes a Cetol “Log Décor” for interior applications that comes in several colors including the “Natural Light” color I needed. Nobody stocks this product! I found that of five local distributors not one had any idea how to correctly apply the Sikkens products they sell. (One distributor told me Cetol is a single-coat process, then handed me the product data sheet saying maybe I should read about it first. When I opened the brochure it’s right there in bold print: Application Procedure: 7 steps, 3 coats.) hmmm…

My finish process consisted of first bleaching all the wood with two-part “Klean-strip Wood Bleach”, then applying 3 coats of the new Cetol in Natural Light, then a top-coat of “Sikkens Cetol BL Interior Clear” to achieve a low-lustre sheen.

When installed the new and existing interior trim pieces were indistinguishable from one another. (see photos)

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A new exterior stop was fashioned from clear cedar to hold the large panels in place requiring many passes through the shaper. The clear cedar was more expensive than mahogany. At the start of this project, I planted ten saplings behind my house in a caged started box.

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This is a 2 lb. closed-cell insulation with an R value of 6 per inch. We are achieving R20 on these old exterior walls of true 4x material. The closed-cell spray foam was chosen for it’s structural quality on this project which is predominantly without sheathing. For 175 years this section of the house has never been insulated. The siding was nailed directly to the studs, some of which are still hand-hewn chestnut post and beam. The siding I removed had square-cut nails securing it.

The homeowner tells me his walls are actually warm on the inside of his house this evening. It’s October 21st, 2008 and it’s partly cloudy with a chance of sprinkles. Brisk with lows in the lower 40s. BTW: The spray-foam is watertight, so my liability stress factor has just gone way down. Glad this phase is a success.

Fix #1:
As the bearing started to fail from the extreme force it suffers from the steep angle of the first step up along the slide, I removed and replaced the bearing to no avail. Next, I removed the slide and put it on my grinder, easing the slope of the first step. I figured if it weren’t so steep it would roll better. That didn’t work.

Perfect fix:
I cut a piece of steel and screwed it onto the slide, modifying the slope into a perfectly smooth incline. This took five minutes to do and my saw is back to it’s super-smooth action!

BTW: This fix results in the blade guard resting in a “slightly” opened position (see photo) which is infinitely safer than removing or pinning back the guard. I was taught safety first and never pin back my blade guards, not even on a wormdrive while cutting rafter tails.
I am very pleased with the results of this fix. In fact, it is such an improvement I would purchase this Bosch saw new and apply this patch before I would buy a ‘yellow’ brand saw any day.