kitchen projects

I don't think there is wooden article that is more diversified than doors. There are thousands upon thousands of different doors in all shapes and sizes, with and without window, highly decorative and exotic to plain and funtional. For this project I am building a door for my outdoor storage and garden shed. I built the shed a couple of years ago and the only door I had that fit at the time was interior door which is not really suitable for putting a good solid lock on, so the goal here is to make a sturdy, functional door that also happens to look nice that can be used to replace that interior door.
For the wood, I will be using a reclaimed Douglas Fir beam about 10 feet look that should contain enough wood to make the entire door if I cut it properly. The beam has been planed flat on one side but otherwise is rough. Three of the sides have also been stained. I do not want to run any of the stained sides through my jointer or planer if I can avoid it. Almost all stains contain some form of dirt that is used for the coloring of the stain and this dirt can be very hard on blades and contribute quickly to their dulling.

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The first order of business is to cut the beam to a rough length to make it manageable to handle. The door size is 76 inches by 28 inches so with that in mind I began by cutting the beam to lenght, then in order to cut some widths, it needed to be run through the joint to make at least one edge flat and straight...

Anyone who knows their way around a kitchen will tell you that cooking and serving good food has as much to do with the presentation as it does with how good the food tastes. I think I would have to agree with that statement because when ever I find myself at any kind of a fancy eatery for whatever occassion it might be. The food is always served in a manner that makes it look as good as it tastes. Often this has to do with the combinations and colors of foods, but sometimes what it is served on makes a difference too.
And so it was that a recent trip to a favorite Sushi Bar inspired me to try my hand at  making serving tray for sushi, and well... anything else that you might want to serve on it too, like pastries, vegetables or any combination of assorted foods.

What I wanted was something simple, but it still needed to have enough detail to make it interesting without taking away from the food, after all the tray is to enhance the food not distract from it.

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To start off with I wanted to platten part to be thick as this is part of the detail. A piece of 3/4" board would have worked as well, but something that is one inch thick makes more of a statement. I thought about what kinds of legs or stands I could use for a tray like this...

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....

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.