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There aren't many woodworking projects that are nice looking and useful that you can make in one day, but this is one of those exceptions. This little umbrella stand is easy to make and even finish in one day, provided you are using a pocket hole system, and in our case we used the Kreg unit. Of course the advantage of holding joints together with pocket screws is that you don't have to wait for glue to dry, which speeds things up immensely. We love the Kreg Pocket Hole System for other reasons too, there is no glue oozing our of joints, so you don't have to worry about white spots that the finish didn't penetrate because there was left over glue on the wood, and for some projects that need to be taken apart later on, the pocket hole screws are perfect, and they really do hold very well.
To start off with we needed 4 corner posts and after fitting together some scraps and knowing that our middle cross gable pieces were going to be 3/4 inch, we finally decided that the corner posts would need to be 1-1/4 inches square and 26 inches long. See CUT LIST in the Read More Section. When ever possible, always cut the largest pieces of your project first because what is left over can often be used of other pieces in the project, and in our case we were able to get about half or more of the spindles that were needed, these were the half inch square by 17 inch long pieces in the middle of each side.
The next pieces we need to make were the upper and lower gables. We decided on 3-1/2 inch by 3/4 inch Garry Oak. The first thing we needed to do with these pieces was to run a 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch dado in one end to hold the spindles. We set up the table saw as close to the center of the edge of the board as we could, and ran the board through.
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If you are one of the millions of people who watch programs like The Antiques Road Show, American Pickers, Canadian Pickers, Pawn Stars and other similar shows, or if you have ever been to an antique or collectibles show and sale, you have seen these little display boxes at various sellers tables. You may have even seen them in someone's home or business to display small, featured and valued items. They are called all sorts of things, slanted display boxes, pickers display boxes, collectible boxes and sellers show boxes and so on.
In this video we make our version of this box with a bit of a twist, our box will use box joints for the corners to make it more attractive and sturdier and instead of painting the inside or lining the bottom with felt, we are going to flock the whole inside of the box, a rich green to make items in the box stand out. This project will consist of 3 parts, making the box, making the top or lid and finally, finishing and flocking the box.
Part 1 - Making the Box
Part 2 - Making the Top or Lid for the Box
Click below, for more details on sizes and other construction detail.
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There is something rewarding about taking rough lumber and turning it into fine furniture, especially if it is a design you love to make. Such is the case with this little side table, in the Arts and Crafts (A&C) style of furniture. I thought about all the furniture that I love to make and discovered that there are a number of types and styles, starting with the A&C style of furniture. I am a big fan of William Morris, designer of course of the Morris Chair, Gustav Stickely, Harvey Ellis, Greene and Greene and others, but I am also a big fan of Thomas Molesworth who made a very unique type of furniture in the mid-west. All of these people contributed greatly to styles and types of furniture we have today, and they influenced generations of woodworkers.
This little side table is a simple design, and like most woodworkers, I have adapted some of my own wrinkles to, by combining, in a way, the styles of Havery Ellis and Thomas Molesworth. The carcass of the table is recognisable as a typical A&C table, but the top boasts a natural edge rather than a sawn, planed and finished edge. I also like the height and size of the table, all of which was designed using a Fibonacci Gauge in order to get pleasing lines and dimensions.
But there is a lot more than simply building a piece of furniture. It needs to be finished AND with this piece ti has a natural edge top, so what do we do for edge treatment for the top ... click below to see the following videos ...
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Every woodworker spends a protion of their time designing things to build or modifying existing plans to suit their own purposes and needs. Many woodworkers are also designers who start with a blank piece of paper and design their works from a concept or idea in their head, and plan the whole project out on paper.
One of the challenges of designing projects from scratch is ... how do you ensure they "look good", now I know that what looks good for one person may not look good for another, but we are talking about the "balance" of a project, not about whether you actually like the idea or not. For example you may not like the design of a certain chair, while other do, but the design of that chair may or may not be "in balance", which could be contributing to why some may not like it.
Back in early Greek times, when the concept of mathematics was being developed, a very keen mathematitian discovered a set of numbers that can be used to help desginers and architects design projects that are "in balance"". This set of numbers was morphed into an artchitectual device called a Fibonacci Gauge. The device is a simple concept that is basically like a three legged devider, but with a bit of a twist. When you set the 2 outside legs, the inner leg moves as well to a designated spot, and it is the middle leg that is used as well, in helping to design furniture, buildings and almost any type of visual artistic work.
In our case we need to use the Fibonaccin Gauge to help design a pleasing look to a small side table we had seen in a publication several years ago. We wanted to make a table of the similar design, but could not find the plans so had to go about making our own in a manner that ...