Building a Natural Edge Wooden Sitting Bench
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Sitting benches have been around in various forms for perhaps thousands of years. They may well have been one of the first forms of formal seating as they can be made from very basic materials and utilize a many different kinds of options for legs or supports. I have long held a love of live edge wood and try to incorporate it in as many things as I can, and especially when the project lends itself to using this kind of wood. This build, the natural edge sitting bench has been on my list for quite some time but finding the right piece of wood for the top was more elusive than I expected. When I spotted this spalted maple, live edge board I immediately envisioned a sitting bench with contrasting woods.
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The board was still fairly wet when I purchased it and wasn't much longer than it is now so I didn't have a lot of wood to waste on the ends. It already had a small crack in one end when I got it, but hoped that drying it slowly would preseve the crack from creeping. .... It did not .... the crack continued to grow as the board dried ...
Making a Depth & Distance Measuring Jig
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I love making woodworking jigs, it's fun and intereting to see what improvements of adaptions can be made to suite every different woodworker's needs. This jig has been around for many, many years and has changed little during that time. Rather than follow one of the plans that are readily available on-line, I decided I needed to make this jig to fit my own needs that may or may not be available in the plans someone else has created. My main objective was to ensure that both legs of the jig would straddle the insert throat plate in my saw, after all, that was the whole purpose ... to build a jig that would accurately set or measure the distance from the top of a table saw blade to the top deck of my table saw and not to a measurement from the top of the blade to base of the throat plate, which is often the case.
To start off with I would need something thicker than 3/4 inch material for the main body of the jig because I wanted to use one of my plastic off-cuts of mitre slot material. I wanted something harder than many woods as this jig will be used a lot and I don't want the measuring arm to get dinted and chewed up by the table saw blades over time.
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I started off with a block of wood that was 8 inches wide, 5 inches high and 1.25 inches deep. From this block, the first thing I did was to carefully cut a dado slot that would fit the plastic mitre slot material I wanted to use as the center measuring post. ...
Making a Woodturning Tool Holder and Stand
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My list of woodworking projects seems never ending and from time to time and make an effort to finish some of my "priorities", like this tool holder and stand for my woodturning tools. I have had my tools sitting in a cardboard box for to long, yes it keeps them together but the problem is that some of the tools are carbide tipped and if the carbide is allowed to bump against steel from other tools, there is a high risk the carbide will chip or break because carbide is very brittle.
The other issue of course is that cardboard attracts moisture, or at least it retains moisture which means if the boxe is not stored in a warm dry place there is a risk the tools will start getting rusty. I need to avoid this risks by finally making myself a storage place and something I can use whenever I am using my lathe.
The best way to solve this issues quickly is to finally make some sort of working tool rack that can also double as a storage unit and maybe even something that I could put doors on to help keep out dust and to a degree recuse moisture exporsure.
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I had a quick look on the Internet so see if there was anything I like and I decided there were a couple that fit my situation and with a bit of modification I could make something unique to what I need. The first step was to lay out all my tools on my workbench to see exactly what kind of space I would need and what the dimensions of the storage/stand would be ...
Make a Wall Mount Tissue Dispenser
- Read Time: 4 mins
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For me, woodworking is about building things and having fun doing it. I'm lucky in that most of the things I build are items that I have choosen to make, but once in a while I get requests for things that are either hard to find or are not easily available other than to have someone build them. This seemingly simple tissue dispenser turned out to be a lot of fun, I got to use a whole range of tools, even on this small build, and I did something I have never done before which is to purchase commercially available molding and use it for creating or augmenting something I build.
I have seldom spent much time looking at molding in the lumber store and was surprised and how little variety there was when it comes to wide material with any kind of sculpture design. There was lots of plain molding, but not much in the "fancy" category, but I selected a couple that I thought might work. One was a baseboard molding which I finally decided against, the other was a crown molding piece molding with a bit more charcter to it.
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My challenge was to make a wall mount kleenex or tissue holder and dispenser and someone even gave me a tiny picture as an idea to help me with the build. I had no idea on sizes so went out to purchase a tissue box. To my amazement there are many different kinds and all sorts of different boxes, and none of them exactly the same ... similar, but not the same. I decided the best way to do this was to build for the largest tissue box and that way it would accomodate the smaller boxes too.
Making a Splayed Leg Side Table
- Read Time: 6 mins
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Some furniture pieces are timeless and such is the case with these little splayed leg side tables. They are still as popular today as they were decades ago and little has changed. They seem to fit many decors with their tapered legs and small size, they can easily fit in a blank corner, or become a stand or showcase for artworks, plants or pictures, and they are not difficult to build despite their somewhat complicated look with the splayed legs.
Like all small tables, these want to at a comfortable "sitting height" which puts them around the 24 to 25 inch height so they are comfortable to use for anyone sitting down, which is another reason they are often called side tables, as in a table beside a chair or sofa. Most of what I have seen have been a solid color for whatever the wood they were build with, but in my case I decided to make something a bit more showy by making the legs and the top of different colors.
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I stared off with the legs that were 25 inches long and 1.25 inches square. I set these up on my tapering jig on my table saw so that the blade would leave about a 3/4 ionch square at the bottom and disengage from the top at of the leg about 6 inches from the top. then carried on a cut all 4 legs with this taper.
Make a Bevel Cutting Jig for the Table Saw
- Read Time: 6 mins
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The table saw is easily my favorite tool. For me, it is amazingly versatile in what it can do and when you start adding jigs to it, the table saw can do some amazing things. I am currently on my fourth, and possibly my last table saw. Since none of my saw, including this one, hand the same fences, many of my jigs I have had to re-make, including this bevel cutting jig. Hopefully this version will also be my last because I am going to make it with a small amount of adjustability in mind. Something I neglected on my last versions. To be honest, the last versions of the Bevel Cutting Jig that I made, were all rushed together quickly to satisfy an immediate need. This one I am making without that immediate need and with the knowledge that I will be using it in the future.
The biggest problems I had in the past with this jig was - storage. All my jigs needed to be stored in an unheated outdoor shed. This means the wood moved a lot. In the winter it is cold and damp and the wood expands to around 14% moisture content. In the summer it's often hot and dry the wood shrinks down to 8%. Now all this is not huge, but when you are working with close tolerances, like on a metal table saw fence. A jig I make in the summer, will certainly not slide back and forth on the table saw fence in the winter, in fact, some won't even fit over the fence they have expanded so much.
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This time I am going to select my wood carefully and make the part the slides over the table saw fence, slightly adjustable without having to take it apart and re-make it ...
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