I had some walnut scraps laying around and decided to carve a spoon.

This ended up beng too small and would only hold about a teaspoon. So for now it's just practice, which is somthing I did need. The walnut itself was bone dry and not very easy to carve.

I plan on taking a branch from the backyard to do another one in greenwood.

#woodworking #tools #diy #hobby #oc

Following up on my previous post: finished with the miter saw. Sanded the handle and blade, jointed and sharpened the teeth, waxed the blade, BLO on the handle, polished the reinstalled the nuts.

Seems to cut well!

The blade has a nice marking on it, hard to photograph. It's not perfectly shiny, but I got the bulk of the rust off anyway.

Working on the handle for the 2nd one. Sanding those inside surfaces is a pain, tips welcome. It has some big cracks, so I'm filling those with sawdust+glue.

Also working on a plane.

Disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the metal. Sharpening in progress. Looks like it's missing one piece, a little washer that sits on the lateral adjustment arm and fits into the slot in the iron. Both wooden handles were split, so I'm gluing them before refinishing.

I built a modular shooting board out of scraps I had laying around.

It works well but I had some problems with the side of my plane not being at 90 degrees, so I have to adjust to that or adjust the plane?

Any suggestions on the best way to get it right?

My wife is insistent that we turn this piece of wood from a tree we had to remove, into a birdhouse.

I'm thinking I need to build a box behind the piece. Unsure of dimensions, and if I should fill in the hole a bit so only the smaller birds can get in.

Southern Ontario, Canada, as that may matter for native birds/sizes. More photos below.

Edit: spelling, grammar.

Made this a few years ago myself. Mostly with my Shopsmith, since we were about to move and I’d sold most of the other tools. Floating tenon (DIY domino, basically) on the joint.

I made this headphone stand a few years ago. It's been on my desk holding my headphones everyday since.

It's black walnut that I made with handtools, a drill press and a lathe. It's finished with pure Tung Oil.

#woodworking #hobbies #diy #oc

Originally built this as a quick & dirty standing shelf for an awkward spot when we first moved in, 5 years later finally got round to sorting out the corner where it lived so it became homeless

Husband asked for a nicer table for the plant in the window so I shortened the old guy, added some legs and a proper coat of finish and boom

Nice easy one to get back into the workshop after Christmas

This is a wing Chung training dummy. Its 50 plus years old. The crack runs down the length of the dummy. It doesn't move, its still very solid, but we would like to seal the crack to avoid further damage.

Our thought wes to use wood shims to fill in the space with wood glue, then use straps or screw down hose fittings to squeeze the dummy together so the glue and shims hold. Then saw off the excess and stain to match color.

Is there a better method or is the above plan stupid? This dummy is special and has history, I just don't want to make it worse.

Update: Thanks for the suggestions. This wood is hard as a rock. I tried a small wood chisel just to see if a butterfly joint was doable and I could barely scratch the thing. I am guessing I couldn't squeeze it tighter around glue and shims either.

Someone mentioned just leave it if its that old....i m thinking I might just do that. I may just fill in the crack them closely watch it for signs of damage as it gets used.

I'm being very careful because this thing has history being used by Dan Inosanto.

These will no longer be taking up space in the knife drawer. They now live two and a half feet above the exact spot they are always used.

Made with padauk scrap.

Squaring up some table tops.
My old BT3000 saw has a sliding table, but the sled is so much nicer. It took about a day to retrofit.

Was bored on Wednesday night so I tried my hand at doing a project w/o measuring or any semblance of a plan. Please note that the different spacing between the shelves is intentional to be able to fit my glasses properly.

The Purchased Slab unfortunately had a big Soft inclusion on the front for which I had to break out the wood over top of it clean it and re-glue the broken part. I also dropped the thing leading to a crack i repaired with dowels. Apart from that and the 10s of smaller defects it was just sanding and linseed oil coats.

The inner radius was by far the most annoying to get smooth because I had to hand sand (With a beer bottle as a sanding block), but it's now my favorite part because the wood there just so happens to be the most interesting piece of wood in the slab.

The previous counter was a white Vinyl particle board affair and the improvement from that is so substantial I still smile every time I look at the damn thing.

Beginner, making my way and learning. It’s not as huge as the photo makes it look. 1st is pine. 2nd one is hardwood and stained darker.

Restoring an old medicine cabinet with an apparently rough life, pulled from a junk pile. The interior was coated in thick white paint. I stripped that with a water based stripper, then sanded back with 80grit. That went pretty well but there is still quite a bit of paint deep in the grain, almost acting as filler in some of the larger/deeper fissures

Thinking of a few options:

• Manually picking out the paint, possibly with some heat. Probably not feasible as there are so many little flecks. A stiff brush helps, but so far not much luck
• Keep sanding back, which would probably require removing a lot of material to access all of these deep grooves. I'm leaning towards this, but also holding out hope that there might be a way to loosen/flush it out without losing too much wood
• Consider wax/stain options that might even it out. Least favoured option. I suspect the white might not take stain well, and pop even more. My original plan was just tung oil finish, which I'd still prefer

Any advice on ways to handle this?

This is my first larger furniture piece and definitely made lots of mistakes between design and execution.

It’s all cherry and designed so one end is a right angle and the top shelf if shallower to fit into the fireplace.

My main power tool is a track saw but I did have access to a wood shop for a day to mill some rougher boards. Otherwise I used hand tools to finish the rest.

I used dowels and track saw cut grooves/rabbets for most of the joinery.

It was a mistake to make it in two sections instead of just having the sides be one larger piece. I also went too aggressive with my new router. Should have made much smaller bevels.

The device in front is a pretty standard tool for slashing dough for baking. I did not like it at all.

The blade sits out in the open and you lose the little sheath that comes with it.
It doesn't give you control. If you want to do a big slash it's fine but if you want to get ornate small cuts it sucks.

So I started trying different designs in the woodshop. So far I like the second from the bottom first. It's better for my hand size. The blade can be stored in the device when not in use. It allows for fine movements where you can control pressure and angle.

The third from the bottom is just large enough to hold the blade inside when not in use. It's too small for a lot of hands. It requires complete disassembly to store the blade instead of just tucking it inside after loosening the wing nut. Each time you have to touch a blade increases the hazard.

The top one is a mix between two and three. I made it just a hair too small to allow for the blade to just swing inside but it does offer a wide profile for easy control.

These were all made with scraps (maple, cherry, white oak) and stainless steel nuts and bolts. Sealed with Watco butcher block sealant. Cost each was about $2 for hardware because I went with stainless instead of zinc. Going with zinc would get the cost down to under a dollar but for kitchen use I recommend stainless or brass.

The dough was leftover from a week of pita eating. I'll need to find a use for it other than its current status of experiment fodder.

The left saw has two kinks, but most of the rust is sanding off pretty well with 220 grit. The right one has a slight bend but no sharp kinks, though it has a fair amount of pitting that's deeper than sandpaper is taking off. I'll probably continue to restore the right one, but curious if folks think they wouldn't be functional.

This shed door had outlived its functional life and a client wanted it replaced. I asked "Do you want to just get it done or do it right?"

They picked the right option.

Most of the nuts came out with minimal force, but the last one just spins in place. I tried rubber gloves, painter's tape, and duct tape to get a better grip. I'd rather not cut a slot in the domed nut if there's another good strategy.

The rest of the restoration underway:

Researching work benches will often show many examples of the sliding deadman. I opted not to put one on my bench because I valued drawer space more.

On the rare occasion when I need to support a piece from the bottom I'll just use a clamp in expansion mode.

Before we kick this off, I was enmoderated on this community a few months ago, and I haven't had to do a single bit of moderation in that time. Not a single user banned, not a single comment deleted. This community has been absolutely excellent to each other, and I sincerely thank each and every one of you for that.

Without further ado, let's have one of our community sidebar picture contests!

It's the holiday season, and I'm sure a few of us woodworkers have hand built some wooden gifts for our friends and loved ones. To enter the contest, please leave a comment on this post with a picture or two of your gift project along with a brief description. The project with the most community upvotes wins.

The prize will be your project displayed on the community sidebar until the next contest (where the New Yankee Workshop sign is at time of writing) and the choice of topic for the next season's contest.

Votes will be tallied on the evening of Dec 24.

Let's see the wonderful stuff y'all made!

These are not my first dovetails but it has been a while since I've cut them. This set were not very good but I'll slow down for the next ones.

#woodworking #wood #handtools #oc

$15 at an estate sale, I was definitely prepared to pay more. I've seen people finding such cool stuff at secondhand shops and had no luck myself, so I'm hoping I can get some life out of these.

Also got a plane (one of the adjustments doesn't work but otherwise looks decent) and a Heath Kit power supply.