Old is an Attitude Word Art

by Lambdafarm on March 18, 2012

This was in the May 2012 issue of Creative Woodworking and Crafts.  I made it out of 3/4 inch pine so it would stand up on its’ own.

Old is an attitude word art

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Tool Tote

by Lambdafarm on January 19, 2012

Popular Woodworking Magazine has a column entitled “I Can Do That.”  They are projects using dimensional lumber from home improvement stores that the beginning woodworker can complete in a weekend.  The November, 2011 issue has a simple tool tote pattern.  It also has helpful information for the beginning woodworker such as how to most efficiently do a through mortise and how to properly hold a chisel.  I use one 1X8X8 board for this tote, and was pleased with how it came out.

tool tote

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Workbench

January 16, 2012

I finally finished the workbench in my shop.  My shop is tiny, a 10 X 10 room in the house.  The workbench fills one wall at 8 feet long.  Because the workshop is small, I built a shelf the length of the workbench to store supplies and tools on.

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Practicing Mortise and Tenons

January 4, 2012

I am building a workbench for my wood shop.  It is more of a counter, really, to be made with 4 X 4 posts on each end and in the middle, with 2 X 4s as the scaffolding, then one inch plywood on the top and on a bottom shelf.  Not as nice as a [...]

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Kitten and Garden Fairy

December 21, 2011

This kitten is about to discover that garden fairies may not have teeth and claws, but they can still fight back when disturbed.  This is cut in 1/8 th inch maple finished with mineral oil.

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Isle of Man Pendant

December 20, 2011

I am not sure what this is supposed to be, but it reminds me of the Isle of Man Coat of Arms.  This pattern is executed in poplar and is also from Sue Mey.

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Celtic Cat Pendant

December 15, 2011

This is another pattern by Sue Mey.  It is a celtic cat done in poplar.  

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Southwestern Lizard Pendant

December 13, 2011

I asked Sue Mey, a South African Scroll Saw pattern designer, for some pendants that were not religious.  She sent me several, including this Southwestern lizard.  I think that it came out very well in poplar.

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Giraffe Puzzle in Ash

December 8, 2011

This giraffe puzzle is made of ash.  It came from the book Animal Puzzles for the Scroll Saw by Judy and Dave Peterson.  This is a nice book I get a lot of patterns from.  They sell well and if made from thicker wood can stand up as well for display.  It is published by [...]

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Round box with drawer

December 6, 2011

I made this for a friend.  It is poplar with maple top and bottom.  The drawer pull is an exotic wood scrap from the scrap pile.  Actually, all the wood is from the scrap pile.  Just an illustration of the maxim, “woodworkers don’t have scraps, we have smaller and smaller pieces of wood.”

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Tabletop Catapult

September 13, 2011

Sometimes you think better while your hands are busy.  I built this little tabletop catapult, a trebuchet, Sunday while I was thinking.  I found that 1)I reaffirmed that I am not a very good carpenter, and 2)when I build a man sized catapult I will know a lot more about how to build one correctly.  [...]

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Fixin to Start

September 10, 2011

I have finally gotten all of the junk and bookcases full of books out of the wood shop to be.  Now I just have to build the counters and tool cabinets, and it will be ready to go.  Of course, the counters and tool cabinets represent a lot of work, so it isn’t that simple. [...]

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Finishing Delicate Fretwork

August 10, 2011

I was asked about finishing delicate fretwork.  Ask ten scroll saw artists how they finish their work and you will get ten different answers.  I am allergic to varnish, lacquer, and shellac.  I also use my dining room table as my wood shop.  This means really flammable stuff is out, particularly during the summer when [...]

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Antique Wooden Plane

August 10, 2011

I received this plane as a gift.  The tag says:  “Early 1900′s wood plane.  From old Hines Farm, Euless, Texas.”  There is no maker’s mark I can see and as far as I can tell, this was made by an individual.  It seems to be made out of the oak that would have been locally [...]

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Phoenix and Dragon

July 30, 2011

This is made from 1/8th inch thick redwood.  The wood was an off cut and I bought it from the sale table at Wood World in Dallas.  It was so fragile that I had to turn the saw blade speed all the way down and go very slow so it didn’t shatter.  The posts are [...]

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Building Wooden Planes

July 17, 2011

I have had David Finck’s book Making & Mastering Wood Planes: Revised Edition for a while. I also have the book Tool-Making Projects for Joinery and Woodworking: A Yankee Craftsman’s Practical Methods by Steve A. Olesin that includes how to make a plane. What had me stymied was the idea of fabricating the plane iron. [...]

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Shelves done, now to sort the wood

July 1, 2011

I never realized how much work building a set of shelves could be.  I finally finished them.  Now I am sorting a mountain of wood that has been on the floor of my study for about five years.  I am finding all sorts of hidden treasures, but it is a lot of work.  I need [...]

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Purple Martin House Installed

June 23, 2011

My Mom had asked for a purple martin house for Christmas.  It took until mid May to get it up.  We didn’t have a telescoping pole, so Dad fixed a hinge to hold two landscape timbers together.  This would allow us to lower the house once a year to clean it out.  Except that the [...]

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Bat Box Installed

June 20, 2011

Sometimes you do not get to see the finished product installed, especially when it is a bat box or bird house.  This one, though, is at my parents. My Dad and I installed it.  The mesh below the box makes a pouch and catches the pups or old bats who lose their grip, giving them [...]

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Building a workshop

June 18, 2011

I feel like I have not been doing much woodworking but have, actually, been hard at work.  I am changing my library into a woodshop.  First I had to move enough bookcases out to make room for the lumber strewn about the house.  Next I built a system of bins to hold the scraps.  They [...]

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Dealing with Scraps

June 10, 2011

I have heard it said that woodworkers do not have scraps, they just have smaller and smaller pieces of wood.  I have lots of small pieces of wood.  I do not have a fireplace since I would rarely need one — it is often 80 degrees in January.  That means designer firewood is out.  I [...]

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Bread Box

June 3, 2011

I have a dog who is an Australian Cattle Dog, a red heeler.  She had puppies by a travelin’ man, who appeared to be a lab with a curly tail.  Well, the puppy, Star, is already larger than her mother and Star is only 5 months old!  I have always kept my bread on the [...]

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Shaving Horse Finished Finally

June 1, 2011

I finally, to the vast relief of my friends, finished the shaving horse.  They were really getting tired of hearing about it.  The good news is it is entirely of wood, all of which was found or was harvested on my property.  It actually functions, too.  The bad news is it looks more like a [...]

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Shaving Horse Frustrations

May 9, 2011

Sometimes in woodworking, especially at the beginner level, you learn a lot from your failures and difficulties.  I seem to have signed up for a college class in these with the shaving horse bench.  First, I broke a tenon off in the mortise because I was too rough, so got to drill another hole.  Now [...]

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Making A Taper or Reamer

May 5, 2011

One of the wonderful things about woodworking is the way you can bootstrap your way to better and better tools and in the process learn a great deal about the craft of woodworking.  I am transitioning from doing scroll saw work almost exclusively to working on bigger objects.  The first stop to a new fence, [...]

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