Beer Sampler Serving Trays

A few snapshots of some serving trays I made for the a local pub. These are used for taster glasses when someone wants to get a variety of beers for comparison. Made from English Walnut, with a live edge on one side.

 

I LOVE this walnut- the heartwood/livewood contrast is so cool.

Type 3 waterproof woodglue, combined with stainless steel fasteners ensure the feet will never come off.

Doing some customer satisfaction research.

 

I highly recoment taking notes when you do a sampler- by the time you get to the end, you forget how you felt about the first few!

Lathe Stand Build, from repurposed materials

The woodshop was on on a Christmas "blackout," so I didn't want to post any work after the last one in order not to spoil any surprises! It just took me a while to get back into the swing of posting. I have quite a few projects to post, so I'll try to not to overwhelm everyone in one single post.

Here's the construction of a solid table (key word=SOLID) for the mounting of the hand-me-down Rockwell-Delta Lathe, made in the 1950's. Total cost out of pocket for this lathe stand: about $30! SWEET!

 Here's the finished product! Super solid base, heavy duty mortise and tenon construction, gravity mount motor, and a tool rack divider. Follow along below and see how I made it:

 

 

 Here's what I started with. It's an old chunk of glue-lam left over from shop construction. When I first knew I was going to build the lathe table, I brought this piece in from outside, where it had been sitting for years. I dusted the termites off with a blowtorch (works great!) and put it on the lumber rack to dry for about a year.

After pulling all the nails and staples, the glue-lam was run through the planer to clean it up. It BARELY fit! Perfect!

 

Then I began the work on the feet. I had a few prototypes already from a conference table I built several years prior. I first established the edge of the bottom recess for the feet...

...then using a dado blade on the table saw, I roughed out the rest of the recess.

A little clean up with my favorite Stanley low angle hand plane, and the feet were mostly done. The reason for the recess is that with a flat board that contacts all the way across the floor, you will have all kinds of wobble. Recessing the middle section will allow for varying floor hieghts not to affect stability as much.

With the feet done, I moved on to tackling the angled tennons (big square pegs) on the legs. This was my first try at it, and let me tell you, it's not a simple process!

the legs mounted in the feet, getting ready for layoing out the mortises (holes) in the worktop. I REALLY wanted to build the entirely from repurposed materials, but I also ran out of 4x4 stock, and didn't want to sacrifice on longevity. The legs ended up being the only wood I had to go out and buy specifically for this project. 

First fit of the legs and base into the table top. Just a little trimming, some final touches, and she's ready for glue!

 

The recently glued assembly. The tennons fit so well into the mortises, and the top was so heavy, there was no need to clamp it all together while the glue dried.

 

Same as the first picture. I forgot to snap photos of the process of making the tool rack , but here's the lathe mounted up and secured to the table top. It's a super solid Rockwell-Delta, from the 1950's. Its a bit cumbersome to make adjustments on, without the new flashy cam-locks and such, but it'll work just fine for me!

For the tool rack, I used the cut off ends of the 4x4 leg pieces, cut at an angle, and secured with a tight friction fit followed with Timber Lock lag screws. Normally, I would have incorporated a mortise and tenon fit here too, but I was already way over on time, and this saved me an entire day's work.

 

 

Close up of the tool rack dividers, made from 1/8th inch backing stock that had a little water damage. I knew I kept this stuff around for a reason! Each slat is individually mounted in a saw kerf recess cut on the table saw, divided by leftovers from some reclaimed material from old Brazilian shipping palates.

 

 

The motor is an OLD Montgommery Ward's motor, mounted with a fan belt from the auto parts store, hung on repurposed door hinges. (The fan belt was the only other item I specifically bought for this project.) To adjust the speed, you simple move the belt over the proper wheel on the motor, followed by the oppposite on the lathe. Viola!

 

 

Sculpture work- Moai

I've had this chunk of wood sitting outside the house for about a year now. I walked past it every day coming and going from the house, and it always bugged me that I hadn't done anything with it. I don't know if I was watching Discovery Channel or something, but I saw an image of the stone head carvings on Easter Island off the coast of Chile, and that image linked itself in my brain to this round chunk of pine. That was 2 months ago.
Since then, every time I walked past this piece of wood, I felt a presence of a face wanting to come out. It was kind of erie. So yesterday, I took the plunge. I hefted it onto my shoulder and packed it on back to the shop. I still had a temporary pallet/table sitting outside, and knowing I was about to make a real big mess, decided this was where the action was going to happen.

I started with a few lines drawn with a permanent marker, then just jumped in with my angle grinder.

 

 

 The face, really starting to take shape.

 Fine tuning his features. Still some work to do.

 

 

 Remember the "My Little Buddy" commercials from the 80's? Me and my new pal.

The blade on the angle grinder is a Lancelot blade- two disks with a slot for holding a chainsaw chain, and makes short work of rough carving. (Thanks for the tip Uncle Ron!)

Did the whole carving with this tool- no sanding, no chiseling, just fired up the grinder and let 'er rip! 

 

The completed Moai head sculpture in his new home, keeping watch near my front door. I plan on painting the eyes like they do on the real ones, just to creep out the neighbors a little more.

 

A little tid bit on the original sculptures- They're found on Easter Island, off the coast of Chile. There's not a lot known of these guys, and were originally thought to be just head sculptures. When they started excavating them, they were found to be whole body sculptures, the rest was just buried underground! The tallest so far is 33 feet high, weighing in at 82 tons. They're found all over the perimeter of the island, keeping watch. (Thanks, Wiki.)



Copper work

I finally broke down and bought new copper for the copper end tables I recieved an order for 2 years ago. I was REALLY trying hard to find reclaimed copper, like I used in the barnwood/copper coffee table (find it here: barnwood-coffee-table.html) I guess I'll have to settle with the satisfaction that these were remnants of other people's orders... but they still cost an arm and a leg!

Brand-spankin-new copper w/ a vinyl layer protection.

With vinyl layer removed, ready for the heat.

 

 



First sheet under the torch.

 

 

 



 No crazy photoshop, no altered colors. This is seriously how they look when the sheets are cooloing.





  A little magic tarnish coating for splash effects.

Apply ball peen hammer,then repeat... around 300 times...

 

 

 Scuff sanding the high spots with some 220 sandpaper to reveal the ridges on the sheet.

 

 

...Then polishing off the scratches with some synthetic steel wool.

 

 

The hammered texture leaves all the color in the depressions, while the high spots create a series of polished ridges for a dramatic contrast.

All the sheets, lined up. Looks pretty cool.

 

 These are going to look SWEET in the end tables I'm making for them. More on that later...

Norm Abrams Style Router Table

A few years ago, I started construction on a router table for my shop, modeled after the one built by Norm Abrams on the TV series New Yankee Workshop. The plans are available for purchase, but I wanted to see what I could come up with on my own.
The design calls for the whole thing to be connected to dust collection, which is a big plus. Anyone who's ever spent much time with a router can tell you that they make A LOT of dust. Seriously.
 I finished building the cabinet three years ago, figuring that when I got time, I'd complete the face frames, drawers, handles, and main compartment door.

 So this is how I've been using it ever since- and even without a main door, dust collection still works fairly well.

 

 sizing up the drawers

 

Cutting the slot for the drawer bottom on one of the drawer pieces. Got a little chewed up...

 

...and here's why. The opening for the router bit on the table makes it unsafe for cutting small pieces. They have a tendency to fall into the gap- super dangerous to anyone who likes having all their fingers.

   

The solution was to take the pieces over to the table saw and make a series of saw kerf cuts just deep and wide enough to accept the drawer bottom.

 

Here's the not yet finished product- stack of drawers ready for test fitting.

 

Obviously I only did the top six drawers here- as seen in their new homes here. I didn't want to build the other drawers until I had the face frame on- (the face frame is what covers up the plywood cabinet carcass- look at your cabinets in your kitchen and you'll know what I mean: it's the "pretty" face of wood you see that's not a drawer.)

 

Walnut boards waiting to become face frames. Quivering with excitement. I wanted dark walnut as the backdrop to create a little contrast with the lighter maple drawer fronts I was planning on installing.

 

 Here, I'm using a specialty tool for joining cabinet face frame members, called a Kreg Jig- it drills a diagonal hole in the end of one piece, than you use a special screw to attach it to the joining member. I bought this jig 2 years ago just for this purpose... and immediately screwed it up. So I ditched the idea and went right to nailing the face frames on through the face of the pieces...

...and here's the end result of face frames going on. Even without finish, it really cleans up the look of the cabinet.

 

Next was to mill some walnut for the main compartment door closure. I wanted to do a mortise and tenon style connection- these are the tenons (although I think REAL cabinet builders have an exact name for this style of joint.) In the next picture, these are the pieces holding in the Plexiglas window right in the center of the cabinet.

 

So I missed a few photos of making the drawer fronts and fitting them to the drawers. Oops. Sounds easy, but slightly more complicated in reality. Here they are halfway installed. Did the easy ones first, since they were all the same size.

 

 

Closeup, right before I called it a night. I love the way the soft maple has this great grain coloration. Most furniture builders would bypass it because of uniformity issues- but I take the other approach and try to make it a highlight.

 

 

I really didn't want to use some boring store bought handles for the larger drawers, so I used some of the leftovers from the drawer front stock. I wanted to keep with the characteristics of the wavy grain, so I went over to the band saw to rough out these handles...

 

 

 ...and then over to the spindle sander to round out the curves.

Made my own maple spacers...

Centered the handles, drilled some holes...

 

...and voila!

 

 

I love how organic the shape is- it just feels good to grab a handle that's out of the ordinary! One of my favorite parts is the character in this top left drawer front.

 

 This is as much of an action shot as you can get with a cabinet!

All it needs now is a few coats of finish- but maybe in another three years I'll get back around to it.

And, if you haven't figured it out from my explanation yet- there's a router mounted upside down in the center portion of the cabinet (with the Plexiglas window) You can see the little cream colored  router bit sticking up through the hole in the top.

2 main advantages of this setup- the dust collection/downdraft action keeps the worktop clean (not to mention the shop, and my lungs!) and it's much safer and consistent for running long material through when you need to put an edge on a board.

 

 

Case in point. I was asked to profile the edge of this oak board for a chair rail over at Rockin' Dave's Bagels here in Bend. (If you're in the area, I highly recommend checking it out! BTW, happy birthday Dave!!)

To cut the profile with a router would have been fairly precarious- trying to balance a wide router on a narrow and long board like this isn't the best way to go. So I just chucked the cove bit in the router table, hooked up dust collection, and fired it up. Easy Cheesy! A little sanding, and it was done.