Best Ideas: March 2014

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Pine Cupboard Canning Cupboard Kitchen Cupboard

Susan, elaborately carved cupboard.

This is Susan, my charming little rose carved, canning cupboard. She features an elaborately carved rose back piece and doors. This cupboard is as versatile as she is pretty. This cupboard would be just as useful in a kitchen holding your newly canned pickles or in the bathroom to store shampoo. This cupboard is available on my Etsy shop and can be ordered in Pecan as shown, or Special Walnut.

This is a closeup of the rose carvings.

Eugenie Woodcraft
www.etsy.com/shop/woodcraftqueen
Beautiful Furniture, Made Simple

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Opting for Woodworking Bookshelf Plans for Novice Craftsmen

If you are like a ton of consumers, you at present have far more publications than you do place to put them. In my house, we have rooms full of ebook shelves, and still I am nonetheless frequently searching for sites to be ready to suit a great deal more. I always wished I grew to become a carpenter for that factor that I could potentially assemble the items of furniture I want , but I am still quite clueless on the matter of constructing. Possibly you transpire to be like me and may well absolutely adore to realize wood operating bookshelf plans that you can go along with comfortably even if you have not but acquired a complete good deal of experience . You will be ready to come across dozens of these kinds of styles on the internet.

You can discover a selection of details you genuinely want to search for whereas you select bookshelf programs for a challenge you plan to try and do all by yourself, specifically when you are inexperienced. You have lists that inform you in detail about the products you will obviously you will certainly necessitate to execute the position. You also want a record of any application you will be necessary to have. It is extremely significantly simpler to do a employment if almost everything you demand is assembled in just 1 location. You could get frustrated if you frequently have obtained to glance for a device or generating one other see to a hardware shop to get however a person even more item that you are lacking.

Some patterns will reveal the items of wood you are going to have to reduce and give you the exact measurements in assistance of each merchandise. Having this data can simplify the task for you significantly, and also a beneficial set of strategies really should offer it for you. The drawings should certainly also be especially clear as ought to the recommendations that occur with the . Weve all been in a spot in which we have attempted to put some matter jointly following directions which most certainly did not benefit us that a lot , and you will not want that to occur to you in the midst of a making venture. You really want move-by-move guidance which will inform you accurately what to strive and do all the way .

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Building a bookshelf is definitely amongst the quickest varieties of initiatives for any starter to attempt , due to the actuality the vast majority of of these have simple, general lines however, lacking a particularly wonderful set of , you are likely to be tackling a chore that is may perhaps be much extra than you can control. As a end result, you demand to opt for your designs from a recommended organization that you know you will have all that you compensated for.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Alvar Aalto

Alvar Aalto was a well known Finnish architect and desinger, who also worked on textiles and glassware. During his time, Aalto had many clients who were industrialists since his career was parallel with the fast growth of industrialiazation and economic growth in Finland. The span of his careers went from the 1920s to the 1970s and his style of work included Nordic Classicism, International Style Modernism, and Oranic Modernist Style.
Alvar was born on February 13, 1898 in Finland. His father was a surveyor and his mother was a postmistress. In 1916, when he was 18 years old, Aalto enrolled to study architecture at Helsinki University of Tecnonology and graduated in 1921 at the age of 23. After graduating from the university he returns to his hometown in Finland in 1923, where he opens his first architectural office. Aalto was well reknowned for his architecture in his hometown since most of the buildings were built by him. He is known as one of the most influential architects in the style of Nordic modernism. In 1925, Aalto completed his first public building a workers club for his hometown and two defence corp buildings.
Aalto would later shift his designs from classicism to modernism. Aalto completed the Viipuri Library and the Paimio Sanitorium, architecture pieces that caught the worlds attention and made him well known. Later Aalto would experiment with woodwork and move awaya from the style of modernism. His first experiment would be building a luxury home for a couple in 1939 which turned out to be a success. His sucess and growing fame led to him being invited as a visiting MIT professor in America. He taught his students about architecture and also helped design one of the dormitory buildings on campus. After teaching at MIT, Aalto returned to Finland rebuilding the school where he was taught about architecture. After his death in 1976, his wife took over his architecture office and created works such as, city theaters and an opera house.
Aalto went through many different styles including Classicism, Modernism, to experimenting with his own unique style. He was involved with many projects like city planning, architecture, furniture, interior design, glassware, and even painting. Majority of his projects/buildings are in Finland but some are spread across the world including the U.S., Germany, Italy, and France. Of Aaltos 500 planned buildings and projects, 300 were built. Some of his experimenting on his style led to to invention of a new form laminated-bent plywood. Another invention by Aalto is his high stool and stool e60 which are used in Apple stores to seat customers.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Single sheet of plywood bookcase

This is an easy project. At least it should be. I ran into a few complications.

My goal with this bookcase was to maximize a full sheet of 3/4" plywood. The design I came up with does just that. There is very little scrap lumber left over.

I also included room in that sheet for a simple dowel hole jig. Joining this all together with dowels creates a strong piece of furniture as well as eliminates the need for any fasteners.

To make this bookcase, just download the plans and follow the cutlist. Keep all your grain running the right way and keep track of your pieces and you will have no trouble at all. It really is that simple.

Stained?

Since I was using pine plywood, I thought it might be nice if I stained this project: something I rarely do. Typically I just apply a clear finish and let the natural color of the wood shine through. Unfortunately, I decided to try a product I have never tested: a polyurethane/stain mixture in one can. The results were disastrous. Very difficult to apply, it left ugly streaks and pools of stain. It refused to stick to the birch edge banding.

People use that stuff?

Id like to think I have a fair amount of experience at staining and finishing wood. Ive tried just about every technique there is and I knew this would be similar to applying poly, a fairly time-consuming process. I did everything the manufacturer recommends. I applied a pre-stain wood conditioner and carefully brushed it on using one the the manufacturers brushes intended for their polyurethanes. I let it dry overnight, sanded with steel wool and applied a second coat, which they also recommend. Still looked horrible.

As I was already running behind on this project, I had to make a decision to keep applying more coats (after waiting 8 hours between each) or cut my losses and just paint the bookcase. I opted for the latter. This is a product marketed as an easy one-can finish for inexperienced finishers and DIYers. I cant help but wonder how many of them became as frustrated as me and gave up ever trying to finish wood again.

Yes, paint!

Strangely, I am very happy with the way the paint turned out of this piece! It matches one of the colors in my Jetsons wall clock and fits well in my mid-century modern living room.

If you want a super-easy easy weekend project, make this bookcase with the intention of painting it. If you choose to go that route, you can eliminate the edge banding and just paint the exposed plywood edges. You can also eliminate the dowel jointery and just glue and screw it all together. Recess the screws (or nails) and fill in the holes with paintable wood filler. You can also save money by just using MDF instead of plywood, since grain direction is irrelevant on painted pieces.

Plans

WWMM One-sheet-of-plywood bookcase (pdf file...includes cutlist)
Sketchup File

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A little shop cleanup

I have a second YouTube channel that Ive really never used for much, other than testing and personal videos. I decided to start using it to post videos of a more personal nature: ones that might offer some insight, but arent projects. Midweek videos from time to time, to update you on my shop.

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Its been a while since Ive done any sort of re-organizing in my shop. This past weekend I had some time to make things work a little better. The hardest part was deciding what wood I needed to part with. And the towels and rags...oh the towels and rags!

Bookshelf art

Many of you know that I like to visit several local libraries on a regular basis. One of the main reasons is because I often find woodworking inspiration in books that have nothing to do with woodworking. Its the random nature of discovery at the library that I find hard to match online.

Try it sometime. Browse through books on toys or ancient games. Find an image of an unusual musical instrument in a book about King Henry VIII. Discover a museums book that feature galleries of Aztec art.

I recently picked up a book devoted to nothing but bookshelves: Bookshelf, by Alex Johnson. Most of the bookshelves featured in it are works of art and highly impractical, but they all inspire me to create. Probably nothing exactly like any pieces the book, but perhaps elements from them will show up in my projects. Either deliberately or unconsciously.

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Update:
Bob Daniel just clued me into the Bookshelf web site. Take a look!

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Woodworkers Halloween episodes

Just thought I would put together a few Halloween episodes of four of my favorite celebrity woodworkers. Its amazing that this stuff never aired.

Woodworking Bench Vise The Front Vise

When you buy or make your own woodworking bench, you need to make sure that your bench has a vise attached to it. A vise is just like an extra strong hand which can improve your work. With a vise you will able to make smoother sawing, steadier plane strokes as well as make sanding faster. Here are some information about front woodworking bench vise.

The front vise type is normally placed at the woodworking bench left corner (at the long edge of the bench). It is great for clamping a drawer side upright when you are cutting the tails of a dovetail joint, clamping a board edge-up horizontally for the purpose of hand planning, or any other job which need a strong hold on wood pieces without the use of your hands.

What kind of front vise is best for your bench? The best front woodworking bench vise is the one which is made from cast iron. Mainly, it has 2 steel rods to align the jaws and also to prevent inward flexing of whichever side of its outer jaw if you just use one side of the vise. There are also vises which have fast release mechanism to make the changing between various clamps easy.

Normally, the jaws width shall describe the vise. Hence if a vise is described as “7 inch vise”, it means the vise has jaws width of 7 inch. You will also normally find that the vise maximum opening capability as well as the screw diameter are listed in the vise specifications.

It is best that you choose a vise which has an opening wide enough to hold the thickest wood piece you shall be working on. In figuring out the opening, remember to subtract the wooden pad thickness, which you will be installing prior to your work, to have the actual opening. So, a vise with a 9” capacity and with pads of 3/4 thickness shall give you 7 1/2” opening to work with.

However, there are some odd occasion where you shall bigger opening. A vise with 13 opening capacity shall basically cover for almost everything you might run into.

I hope this article will help you in buying your woodworking bench vise. Whatever vise you choose to buy, remember that a woodworking bench is not complete without a vise.

Recommended Instant Access To 14,000 Woodworking Plans & Projects

Throwback Thursday Toys

Since everyone seems to be doing this whole "Throwback Thursday" thing lately I thought I would jump on the bandwagon before it disappears!

Ive got a really cool toy project tomorrow, so heres a video from February 25, 2011 that shows how to make a fun toy called the "Ten Cent Labyrinth Challenge" from Bob Gilsdorfs incredibly awesome book, Zany Wooden Toys That Whiz, Spin, Pop, and Fly.

By the way, Bob has a new book out! Zany Wooden Toys Reloaded!: More Wild Projects from the Toy Inventors Workshop. More fun toys and games you can make with limited tools.

Heres a toy I made when I was eight. Kind of a clunky scooter made out of plywood. I think mostly I wanted something to put that huge smiley face sticker on, because I dont recall riding it too much.

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Meet Max

I recently heard from Max Truell who is 13 and lives in New Zealand. He has a basement workshop and says he has been learning woodworking by watching YouTube videos. But wow...Max is one very busy woodworker. Check out his work. Love the inlays, something I have never tried myself.

Check out his chess set. He made is with a drill, a plane, a clamp, and a jigsaw. He made the pieces using a home-made lathe from a drill, a bit, a bolt, and a 2x4.

The best way to learn woodworking is just get out there and do it.

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Mere Minutes

Follow-up to last Fridays video

Monday, March 3, 2014

Grand Slam Tools!

I dropped over to T-Chisels website today and stopped in the forum and noticed some talk about Grand Slam Tools; it appears to be a set of layout tools that Tommy has been making and selling either as a pack or individually. Check them out here: http://www.grandslamtools.com/

If you know Tommy, you know he is from the Boston area and is a huge Red Sox fan (too bad for him actually), but one look at these tools and you understand where his inspiration for tools came from. I really dig the Major League inspired logo! Youve got to love the t-shirts as well "Major League Woodworking; way cool. Tommy, if you read this, you need a t-shirt that says "whos better than me?"!! That would be a huge seller for you!

So, check out Grand Slam Tools and then jump over to the forum and let him know what you think!

A Little Iron Work Some Quick Twisted Spindles

This afternoon a friend asked me if I had a good way to draw twisted iron spindles similar to the one on the left in the photograph. I hadnt really thought about drawing an iron railing before but I realized that drawing these twisted spindles could utilize a method similar to the finials I drew a little while back.

Three plugins will help to make quick work of this. They are DrawHelix 1.4, Weld and Extrude Edges by Rails. Im also going to divide the spindle into smaller components to keep the file size down. I think this is important since in a typical model, the spindle would only be a small part of the entire thing.

In this example I am creating a spindle that is 3/4 inches square.

The first step is to create the helixes for the twist. I activated DrawHelix from the Draw menu. The plugin asks for start and end radii, pitch and the number of turns I calculated the radius by multiplying 3/4 by 0.707. I set Pitch to 8 inches and set the number of turns to 1. The helix is drawn as a group centered on the origin and starting on the red axis. Next I rotate/copied it through 90°.

Next, with the Line tool, I drew a line between the bottom ends of the two helixes. I then divided the line into four segments and immediately after, I welded the segments together. Although the line will look the same as before this divide and weld step is required for the Extruded Edges by Rails step coming up. I chose to divide the line into four but it could have been 2 or more. The more segments you choose, the smoother the twist will be but that comes at the cost of a larger file size.

The helix groups were exploded and then the entire model was scaled up by a factor of 100. I drew a 1 inch long line off to the side a bit and measured that with the Tape Measure tool. I typed 100, hit Enter and clicked on Yes. Later, when it is time to scale back down, I just repeat the process but type 1.

Now it is time to start the extrusion. Activate Extrude Edges by Rails from the toolbar. The plugin directs you to first select the profile, then the first rail followed by the second rail and finally it asks for a melding profile. The line at the bottom is the profile. After it is selected it shows in cyan. The helixes are the rails and show in two shades of magenta after they are selected. For this profile, well click on the profile line for the melding profile.

After the extrusion is made you have to make some choices. Most of the answers will be no but you should answer Yes to deleting coplanar edges, reversing faces if the back face is on the outside, smoothing edges and deleting original lines as those are no longer needed. the extrusion is made as a group.

Scale the model back down at this point. Then explode the group and make it a component. Doing this after scaling back down ensures that the component definition is set at the correct size.

Rotate/copy the component 90° and make three copies to complete the four-sided twist. We now have a twisted square section that is 8 inches long.

Make a Move copy the four sides up 8 inches and make two additional copies. Now we have a 24 inch long twist with three turns. The spindles overall length is to be 34 inches so I moved the twist components up 5 inches.

For the ends of the spindle I drew a square across the end of the twisted portion. Then I made a 1/8 inch Offset to the outside.

I used Push/Pull to pull the outside down 1 inch and the center down 5".

To create the grooves around the square block I drew an arc to create a profile for Follow Me. Note the arc only has 4 side instead of the default 12. the grooves are very tiny details and dont need a lot of segments to read correctly in the drawing. Reducing the segment count here helpd to keep file size down.

The arc is copied down for the second groove. Follow Me is run around the block to create both grooves and the spindle end is made into a component.

The spindle end is copied to the top and flipped along the components blue axis. Then all of the components are selected and a nested component is created. This component is then saved for later use.

The spindle component drawn as I have done here makes a component that is only about 47 Kb. If it were drawn without using components for sub-assemblies, it saves out at over 450 Kb. By itself thats not all that large but when combined with other parts in a larger model, the total file size could get to be quite large. A component of less than 50 Kb will have miniimal effect on the overall file size.

Dave

Click Here and Start WoodWorking

Drill press table with vise

Check out this idea. Heres a drill press table Robert Naylor sent over. Nice table with a fence. But he added a thick removable center piece that can be swapped out at needed. But not just swapped out with another sacrificial piece, he attached a vice to one insert. Really creative way to hold stock into place:

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Mere Minutes

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Balance

"Tree Flowers"

Yesterday evening the house was quiet... one girl was asleep, the other with my mom and dad... I was doing dishes and all of a sudden I had this overwhelming urge to take a break from my routine the following day and go to my parents farm and spend a little time with my mom and the girls outdoors.

Its funny... my mom and I lived hundreds of miles away from each other for years. Now we live just down the road from each other but were always busy, busy. Usually its a quick catch up before we race off in separate directions to the next chore, the next task. Always too busy, thats what I am most of the time.

I dont know if its the same for you, but lately it feels like the days just keep getting busier and busier. I keep thinking the next week or the next month will slow down... but it doesnt.

Lately weve been trying really hard to finish up some projects in our house so that we can just take a break and enjoy the season.

The days are still hot and the foliage is still green but I think I started to see some hints of autumn today during a much needed walk in the woods at my parents farm.

We named this trail at the bottom of the hill the "nut trail" the first time we all walked it for the simple reason that there are nuts scattered across the ground. Today I was on the search for some acorns for the living room and we found plenty. Really, could there be a cuter nut?

Sometimes it seems like we spend so much time working on our house and running here and running there. This fall I want to make time for some other things.

Yes, I think a little balance is just what we need. My fall list doesnt consist of things like painting. Nope, Im thinking about things like fall crafts with the girls, picking pumpkins, planting mums, playing in the leaves and especially walks on the nut trail.

Im sure Ill be adding to that list this weekend while I (ugh) finish some painting.

But before I wish you a happy weekend, I had to introduce you to my parents animals. This is Belle, the perfect farm dog. You know that shes always game for a walk.

And meet Promise, the funniest horse Ive ever met. She runs towards us when she hears the car coming up the hill and always wants to be nearby to join in on the fun.

Happy weekend! And Id love to know if you have the time... what are you looking forward to doing this fall?

Giveaway

In honor of Spring Forward Weekend,

hop (get it?) on over to our Facebook page for our latest giveaway!

via

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to the love of my life and the best dad in the world to our kiddos.

You are our strength....we love you!

Wishing my dad was here to celebrate this day, too....

Happy Fathers Day to all you great dads out there!

Fall Dining Room

There are no words to express how touched I am by all the sweet and encouraging emails and comments I have received over the last few days. Wow. I wish I could personally thank each of you.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. :)

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Wood Working Magazine Wooden Ideas

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