Just sharing this picture of the walnut coffee table I am finally coming back to after several months. The wet danish oil on this looks incredible. A little sorry I am going for more of a satin final finish because a high gloss on this would be amazing.

So this project was always on the back burner for about eight years. It was daunting to me, so in the meantime, I did a number of other projects. Paint can hide a lot of sins, and I certainly needed paint while I honed my skills.

This is in a space we call the cottage, which as it sounds, is a smaller space that we use to entertain, a remote workspace, and guest room. It is the focal point of this space, and also solves some storage requirements.

It is made from Alder, both veneered plywood and solid planks. The body and the doors are all three-quarter inch ply, with 1 inch tops that started off as 5/4 boards. I used 3 sheets of plywood and a number of boards, which I had to join together to get the needed widths. Also a lot of edge banding which used up a whole roll of 1’x8’ Alder paper backed veneer.

I am an architect, so sometimes the designs in my head can get out of the hand. So of course, like an idiot, I had to make my life difficult by introducing curves in the doors. Luckily, I have a retired furniture maker friend and I was able to pick his brain as well as use/abuse his equipment (jointer and planer).

I made a jig to help bend these panels, which I kerfed every 3/8”. Once I got my bend, I glued a layer of 1/8”, three layer ply to the inside, which locked the radius in place. Hinges are Soss.

Finish was sanding to 220, (Edit: water based stain), then spraying (with a spray gun) 2 layers of House of Color, Mohawk EZ Vinyl Sanding Sealer. That was sanded with 400 grit, then topped with 2 layers of Mohawk Pre-Catalyzed Satin Clear.

The quarter inch back panels were painted orange latex to match some other designs in the space. The speaker cover under the television is a remnant of mid-century designed bark cloth. I still need to install handles on the doors.

I am super proud of this, and this is just the beginning of my journey.

EDIT: A number of people have asked about the flooring. It is a concrete floor, and the color comes from acid stain, then sealed. The acid stain product is from ‘SRI Concrete Products’.
FYI, there is water based concrete stain that works well, however it’s limited to mostly natural colors, and it’s hard to get vibrant colors with it. Acid based stain can do more vibrant and saturated colors.

This project required many techniques and processes that I'd been wanting to try, all rolled into one. As a result, I got to try edge binding (with solvent bonding, which still melts my my mind a little), mother of pearl inlay, and a woven cutting board style cap for the mahogany body.

It's not perfect, but I definitely learned a lot and am happy with the result. Only bummer is that I don't play guitar.

I did a quantity production of 5 watch boxes. Usually takes me 2-3 weeks for 1 but making 5 only adds a couple weeks. Economies of scale. I was able to integrate a bunch of new stuff into these builds. Wenge, Padauk, Walnut and Cherry. Also this is the first time using spray shellac! 4 boxes got the usual Danish oil but I decided, just for fun, to try the spray on Shellac on the 5th. It is curing right now but so far I am very impressed. So much quicker!

Got a bunch of old maple and am about to start making things. Jointed 2 edges and went to plane the wood. Then I noticed that my planer was self adjusting as it was planing the wood. Thinner wood isn’t really a problem, but this wood is about 3.5” and you can see the knob rotate as the wood is going through. This happens even if the knob is past the 6 o clock position and will still rotate clockwise. So my pieces are thicker on one end than the other and will do the same the next time I run the piece through.
It’s on the dimensioning speed setting. Any help would be appreciated. Out of warranty and dewalt won’t help.

Hey.

I got this beautiful continental hand plane from a flea market and as it has ended up being my main plane, I've wanted to know more about it's background.

It's an old Dana, who I have gathered has made a lot of hand planes for school use, but this one seems a bit special with it's structure and use of what I believe is lignum vitae as the "foot". I've only found a couple of examples online, but I seem to need more expertise, since it seems to be from Sweden/Norway/Denmark. The blade itself is an Erik Anton Berg which has a lot of history but Dana is difficult to find info about.

Hey everyone!

Just wrapped up this spoon project carved from local green Istrian oak, using only manual tools (hand axe for roughing out and sloyd/detail knives for the rest). Oak is always a challenge to work by hand, but the grain and durability are so worth it.

The handle features a carved Norwegian flag as a small tribute to my fascination with traditional Viking shipbuilding—I'm always amazed by how they still construct ships in Norway using ancient hand-tool methods.

Process & Finish:

- Hand-carved the flag pattern into the handle top.

- Applied a strong coffee stain over the carving so it settled into the lines, giving it a subtle contrast against the light oak.

- Finished with traditional burnishing to smooth the fibers, then sealed with a coat of natural oil.

I’ve included the progress shots in the post so you can see how it evolved from the initial sketch on the split log to the final piece.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the finish!

I’m currently designing a new table for my Big Green Egg XL and am struggling with how to engineer the middle shelf so that it supports the weight of the BGE.

From what I’ve read, a mortise & tenon joint would be most ideal for the 2x4s going into the 4x4s but not sure if the 2x4s connecting to the same post would interfere with each other. I plan to switch the decking from 1x6 to 2x6 for the added strength but not experienced enough to know if adding additional support members under the 1x6 decking would suffice.

Any tips or pointers would be much appreciated! My tools (and woodworking knowledge) are minimal but my dream is big and I don’t mind investing in a cheapish tool or two if that’s what it’ll take. Thanks in advance!

I live in Australia, and a lot of our native wood species are dense, tight grained, and hard.

I have been trying to determine what makes an ideal end grain chopping board and after a quick Google it seems that maple is the gold standard of end grain chopping boards. From what I can tell though, the reasons it is so good would make some Australian woods quite good too.

I guess my question is: What characteristics make the ideal end grain chopping board?

Wood art - no stains or dyes. Based on Scar art by Jahnoy Linsay.

I have 2 circles of olive wood they’re 200mm diameter and 25mm thick, to small for a clock what would u do that’s not a plant stand. Tia

This is my second time building this jewelry stand, I wish I wrote down my plan last time cause I had to relearn how I made it. This first one was for my sister and the second is for a friend’s wedding. The first time the dowels I used for bracelets and rings I screwed through the wood into but that was hard and ended up with them being able to spin a little. This time I drilled holes the size of the dowel and pushed them through with glue and they are rock solid. Live and learn. The dish is always something unique I find thrifting so tomorrow I’m on the lookout for one I can glue to the bottom. Let me know what you guys think. I also engrave the initials on the corners for a personal touch.

One of my self-imposed design constraints is using natural materials as much as possible.

I need advice on a natural finish/sealer/lacquer (preferably a homemade recipe) that is resistant to water, oil and mineral spirits, for use on whetstone boxes.

My current general finish is linseed oil and beeswax in varying ratios, but this doesn't seal well enough for this project. I have pine rosin that I used for Cutler's Pitch, but from my research this is attacked by oil and mineral spirits. I suspect the same is true for shellac. I would like to be wrong on both these accounts, and I'll do some experimenting soon, but it would be nice if someone has a recipe already.

I’ve been lurking in this community for about a year now, and decided to share my first project (two actually), as a sort of thank you for all the good advice and suggestions I read in the many inspiring posts from this community.

About a year ago something bad happened and I was feeling quite down. I decided to give it meaning by turning this negative event into the reason I did/created something positive, and landed on woodworking.
I had never built anything before other than Ikea furniture, although I had basic knowledge of how few common tools work.

I quickly realized that to be able to do woodworking, the first thing you need is a workbench, so I built one over the course of the last half year. It’s not perfect, at the beginning I just used a ryoba and a chisel (working on the floor), to learn the feeling for the material, before moving on to basic power tools (I was also scared of the plunge saw, so I didn’t use it at first).

Of course I made plenty of mistakes, bad measures, gaps in the joints etc. It’s also not fully featured, at the beginning I kept the scope limited, I just built it around an MFT plate and my storage and use needs. The sides have simple holders for clamps and whatnot, below the top there’s storage on the right (above the drawers) and under the MFT there’s “saw dust collection box”.
I plan to expand it in the future as necessary (the split top is designed to be interchangeable to save space and can be upgraded in the future to house eg.: a removable router table instead of the MFT).

But for now it is exactly what I need for what I want to do in the near future and I’m very happy with the results, especially considering I’ve never had a chisel in my hands before starting.
With the exception of the MFT, all materials are scraps found in shops or from private people, as I wanted to keep materials costs down, especially considering I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish this project at all.

Although not clearly shown in the pictures, I used different joining techniques (from classic mortise and tenon to fancier Japanese joinery and hybrid methods like “pocket hole dowels”), first done only by hand, then more and more with power tools (I’m now literally in love with my plunge saw and especially with the router). I’ve even built self closing drawers, that to my big surprise work perfectly smooth and crack me a smile every time I close them (I guess I’ve improved my skills over time). I also painted the front with teal, as I was trying to learn as much as possible from this experience, from raw material to finished wood (oil, wax, paint), in order to use this knowledge later on.

All in all it has been a wonderful experience and I also started doing little projects, like an “infinity forest” as a smart programmable night light for my little one. It won’t win prizes, as I built it completely by hand, partly before the workbench was operational and before buying a router (which would’ve made the whole thing a piece of cake) but my girl loves it and that’s what matters (the effect is gorgeous, although I can’t really take a good picture of how well it works).

Wow, this was a long post, apologies for that and, again, thanks everyone for this community, it has helped me a lot during a rough patch.

Take care and keep up the good work 🙂

I am in need of a 36in T square. Im not paying Woodpecker prices so what's a solid alternative?

Probably a 24in as well

What are your favourite woods for making small items of aesthetic/functional value? I have lots of small offcuts that I planning to use for bottle-opener handles, some more interesting than others:
- oak
- ash
- holly
- sapele
- walnut
- padauk
- zebrano
- elm
- spalted beech
- apple
- ebony (inherited, very small piece)

For those of you who turn pens and similar, what do you like to use?

I had a debate with one of the other managers at the college makerspace I work at today while we were writing new orientation SOP's.

The subject was whether or not to omit nuanced discussion of grain direction in either our Woodshop 1 (bandsaw, miter saw, belt sander, shop basics) and/or Woodshop 2 (S4S, table saw) orientations.

By grain direction, I specifically mean things like the "bundle of straws" example, explaining tearout and how to avoid it, demonstrating how to look at a board and understand which way the grain runs out the side, different ways a board can be sawn and how it affects the final pieces, etc etc etc. Obviously we wouldn't cover all of this at once, but I'm giving examples of the level of nuance I'm describing.

I think starting out with knowledge about wood as a NATURAL MATERIAL with INDELIBLE REAL PROPERTIES is very important. Many of our students are designers and architects who, respectfully, see wood as just inert "material", shapes and volumes, and don't have much understanding of the nuance above. I similarly had that understanding at 19 years old, but I don't think it's that hard to have explained to you and I would have benefited hugely from having that click earlier on.

These are things I can't avoid thinking about now, as my own personal work is in hand tools and green wood, which need a much higher level of sensitivity towards what the wood is doing. I remember finally being shown these things and finding them pretty intuitive...

The counterpoint is that it's not super necessary at the level our students work at, and if they continue on with their wood education, it's something that they'll naturally learn from either us or the process. I don't disagree that too much technical information can muddle an already information-dense machine and safety demo.

I'm interested in opinions about the above debate specifically, but I'm actually really interested in perspectives on what I said in the title-- was grain direction, runout, etc. intuitive for you to learn? Is this just hindsight that they're simple to explain and understand?

(thanks, and please, none of the usual ad hominem reddit attacks about how neither me nor my coworker should be allowed to run a makerspace, teach students, have differences in opinion or times of uncertainty, etc, whatever)

Ladies and gentlemen: do not bother with your local estate sales. There is nothing left worth buying. Everything of value is gone.

My bad.

Just under $300 before tax for everything pictured. The JDP-17MF and the JBOS-5 both cleaned up and run perfectly. Total repair bill: one light bulb. The JBOS-5 is a massive quality of life upgrade, by the way. The induction motor is SO much quieter than the harbor freight unit it replaces that I risk forgetting to wear hearing protection.

But, to address the title of the post, I have already made the money back from these purchases. I sold my old Harbor Freight spindle sander and Little Grizzley benchtop drill press for $300 combined and I have a second drill press on the marketplace as we speak (I was already mid-upgrade).

The early Stanley fore planes will be users. No. 6 gets a full restoration and joins the No. 7 alongside the ECE Primus and the chisels which all came from the same sharp enough to shave with.

The Speakers are already wired up in the home office.

Everything else goes in the restore/refurbish queue.

So here's where I could use a little help. My actual stated goal this weekend was books for my little library. In my defense, I did buy one book. It cost $1. So if my girlfriend asks any of you, I need you to back me and say I was LASER FOCUSED and made only a single responsible purchase.

Good luck out there. I will be in the shop the next couple of weekends so you all can have a chance at the good stuff.

I made this record player stand for a friend and neighbor who reached out for a custom piece. I honestly wasn't sure if I could do it at first. I had been struggling for most of the year getting straight rips on my table saw so I wasn't sure i could do it without a proper jointer or hand plane. But In extremely pleased with the results and have some newfound confidence for taking on other projects.

Anyways it's Red Oak, Walnut, Cherry, and Maple. Turntable will sit on top and their speakers will sit underneath on the left and right. For various geometrical reasons related to their apartment and things they didn't want to rearrange, we decided it wouldn't be tall enough to fit records standing vertically underneath. That's a design feature that might haunt me for a while but it ultimately was the customer's decision.

Anyways, I ripped the strips, glued up two panels, then realized they were too wide for my 13" planer so I took a rip down a glue seam, sent the pieces through one after the other, then reglued them. Later, in a moment of stupidity, one of the panels fell and broke along a glue seam so I reattached that with dowels, glued and sanded flat.

Sanded the panels with 120 and 220. Then after sitting for a few days, I discovered they started curling. I posted about it and based on the excellent advice I got, I spritzed the concave sides with water and placed them face down. Flat again in like half an hour. Phew.

Sanded the raised grain by hand with 220, crosscut the verticals to size, cut dadoes and partially glued the verticals in place (this is something I'm uneasy about re: long term stability and wood movement but there's no going back now). Applied Osmo Polyx Clear Satin in one thin coat with a microfiber towel. Very pleased with this finish which I selected based on advice from this sub.

This is my final post on this project. Thanks to the r/woodworking community for the advice and help along the way!

URL: https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-power-tools-got-worse-on-purpose

The site talks about what’s happened to tool companies in the world of buyouts, consolidation, venture capital, etc

I'm about to embark on a breakfast nook project made in the style of Greene and Greene furniture. The original uses Honduran mahogany, but I don't have access to either genuine or African mahogany where I live. My only two mahogany-type alternatives are Spanish Cedar and Andiroba (crabwood/royal mahogany).

Spanish cedar has a Janka hardness of 600, making it quite soft for a hardwood (genuine is about 900), but it looks amazing when properly finished.

Andiroba has a Janka hardness of 1200, but in my experience, the grain tends to look, well... grainy (noisy, dark streaks everywhere).

My questions would be:

Have you successfully managed to get past the grainy issue of Andiroba (or similar woods) to make it look more like genuine? If so, how?

If you HAD to use Spanish Cedar for a tabletop, how would you finish it? I've heard you shouldn't use a hard film for softer woods. I'm okay with some dents and scratches so long as it doesn't draw the eyes too much (whitish streaks, light flashing off, etc...). I am not okay with water rings, though.

Anyone try to add a handle to their low angle Jackson for a shooting board? 75 bucks from Lie Lielsen is far too steep