Quick and Dirty Router Circle Jig
I needed to cut some fairly accurate circular holes and arcs in some 0.220″ acrylic sheet and MDF. Ordinarily, I’d use my bandsaw circle cutting jig to cut arcs and circles, but in this case, the waste piece was the disc in the centre and the ring left behind was the part I wanted, which …
Shop-made Bandsaw Fence
I really like using my bandsaw for ripping. Whenever I can get away with the slight reduction of precision and the inferior surface that it produces in comparison with my tablesaw, I prefer the bandsaw because it just doesn’t seem as dangerous to me. I bought mine without a fence and for a while, I …
Walnut Bowl
I was asked to make a salad bowl out of solid walnut a very, very long time ago. I lucked into a very nice piece of walnut that had been drying for several years, so I snapped it up. Despite being handled apparently properly, there was a bit of a crack in the end grain …
Sharpening an Oval Skew without creating facets
I have a couple of oval skew turning chisels. A lot of the comments I’ve seen about oval skews indicate that a major flaw with them is that they’re quite difficult to sharpen. My skills at the grinder leave much to be desired, so I did some digging on various forums to try and find …
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 …