Shop Electrical
So I was completely fed up with tripping over extension cords and spending almost as much time plugging in and unplugging machines as using them. When I started, I had 2 duplex outlets on the same circuit as the lights in my space. I put up with that for quite a while, but I reached …
A Little Tool Cabinet
I built this tool cabinet to replace a 4′ square of pegboard that I had screwed to the wall. Originally, I had my workbench in that space and it made sense that the pegboard would be there to hold all my most used tools. When I moved my bench, that particular pegboard was more or …
My Workbench
Well I didn’t take any good progress pictures on this one, but it has quickly become my favourite tool. This design is somewhat based in the workbenches that Lee Valley sells. It has a Veritas twin screw vise on the tail end, and a large quick release vise on the front. I drilled holes in …
Coffee and End Tables
After building stuff for other people for a while, I decided it was time to build something for myself. This coffee table is solid red oak with maple drawers. This project had a few firsts for me. I paid particular attention to the grain orientation on the legs, skirts and drawers on this one, and …
Tea Table in Walnut
This is the last of these tea tables that I’m going to make. After staring at the earlier versions for a while, I decided that I wanted to refine it a little and make this one feel a bit more delicate. I probably still didn’t go far enough with the lightening up but I don’t …
Tea Table in Cherry
This tea table was based on my prototype table, and was made as a gift. The design is practically identical. This is solid cherry with a bit of boiled linseed oil applied to bring out the grain before finishing with sprayed waterborne acrylic lacquer. A barrier coat of shellac between the oil and the water-based …
Tea Table Prototype
At some point, I decided it’d be fun to experiment with a piece that was a bit more sculpted. The piece I was planning was to be a gift, and I wanted to build it in cherry, but trying out this many new techniques in cherry didn’t seem like a great idea so I built …
Saddle Cabinet
This is a quickie rolling cabinet that I built to store English riding tack for a certain rider I know. It’s mostly made of scraps I had sitting around – a bit of 3/4″ maple ply, a couple of 2×4 studs and some white melamine particle board. The wheels were from some scrapped appliance or …
Antenna Bracket
A friend has this 30-some year old flying saucer-like TV antenna that was sitting on their front porch for some time. One day near Halloween 2008, they asked me if there was a way to mount the thing higher to get better reception, so I thought about it for a bit and figured, “sure – …
Barrister’s Bookcase
This is my 2008 take on a barrister’s bookcase, built out of solid white ash. This project was an exercise in what turners like to call design opportunities. I think I screwed up every single piece of this project at least twice. Okay I might have managed to put the finish on without incident… The …