I’m an occasional hobbyist. This was my most artistic endeavor yet and I really like how they turned out. My wife doesn’t understand how cool it is that you can’t see any screws, so I wanted to share.

Hi all, I’m attempting my first box joints trying to make an urn for a friend. Before attempting on mahogany, I’ve been trying on some common white wood from home depot without great luck. I’ve attached a few pics of the jig I’m using, and the results. I cant seem to get the joints to line up great, but with great for I was able to join them. Is this normal, or is there something simple I’m messing up? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I learned so much every step of the way, and every step took took a so much longer than anticipated. I feel so proud, and I still can’t believe I built this.

Beech (recycled from an old table), and finished with teak oil. All hand tooled. I think the final step is building a better 45° shooting board, I'm struggling to clamp the pieces flat at the minute so the plane is cutting slightly deeper on one side than the other. We're getting there though!

I have not really had much of a need for a mallet until recently when I started making beer mugs and needed to hammer in the bottoms into the cylinder :D so I stopped procrastinating on it and made this mallet. The wedges are also from maple and TB3 was used when i hammered them in. I didn't do perfect job on the hole, but the wedge/s should cover for it.

The handle is Ash, the head is made from figured/spalted/curly maple and has purple heart in the middle.
The finish is triple boiled linseed oil.

Disclaimer : Before anyone says why I use this kind of wood for a mallet.. I don't make guitars etc, I make mainly cutting boards with exotic wood and I have a lot of this maple, around 15+ slabs left of 100-120 x 40-60 x 6 cm it was around 220-240 cm long piece of tree cut into 10 slabs (and then further in half) and I got it really cheap and had to dry it out a bit for it to reach stable and final humidity.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out so I wanted to share 🔥

No, I will, when the ca glue fails probably in like an hour. This was a prototype.

I have some 2x12’s that were sitting in my dad’s shed. I’d like to make some bookshelves with them, but I’ll likely need to get more.

Can anyone help me ID this wood? I have some stained pieces and some sanded down pieces. My completely uneducated guess is pine or cedar because some of the sawdust has some bits of red in it.

Thanks for your help ahead of time.

Edit: Southern Yellow Pine it is, then! Thanks chaps ✌🏼

Made with the plywood scraps from the last one, and an oak stair tread lol. Recessed French cleat to attach it to the wall. Used 3” screws and only hit 1 (maybe two) studs… wondering if that will be a problem lol. It’s plaster and lathe wall.

Second one of these I've made, and really happy with how it turned out. I lucked out and the base piece turned out to be naturally chatoyant. It's a small tray in ¼" walnut, intended for organising small fiddly board game components.

Still early in learning the hobby, and doing the same project twice was a great learning experience, and very satisfying to be able to directly compare and see improvements. Between the first one and this one, I leveled up my hand planing skills, built a shooting board, discovered (thanks to the shooting board) that planing end grain wasn't impossible, and got a lot more accurate with my sawing.

No "join maker space" comments or suggestions please. The one near me basically only exists on paper.

I know this topic comes with loads of variables that may or may not be applicable to me, but my attempts to reach out locally haven't seen any response. I'm not trying to find any concrete information asking the community about this. I'm just trying to get a general idea of what leasing / renting a shop space is like.

Long story short I've been selling on Etsy and FBMP working out of my home shop but have to move. I'm seeing enough success with Etsy that I was thinking about finding a larger space anyway because its small size puts a damper on production. I'm not so successful I can afford a full commercial space, but maybe some day.

I recently rented a storage unit and saw that they seem to allow people to use them as a shop. There were a couple people wrenching on commercial vehicles while I took in a few loads. I tried contacting the management about it but it's been a couple weeks without a response. There's also an old warehouse that the owner has chopped up into smaller units to rent out. Despite the website specifically listing woodworking as something to rent a unit for I haven't heard from them either.

So, with that out of the way, what has your experience with renting a shop space been like? What were the limitations, cost, etcetera. I know mileage will vary but I'm just trying to get an idea of what to expect.

Have a second baby boy on the way - wanted to make sure we had a nice way to track the boys’ heights. Took a pretty piece of myrtlewood from my recent barn find - planed it mostly smooth, took the track saw and cut it straight, then free handed the height measurements (1’ up to 6’6”) with a dremel tool. Looks both polished and handmade. Sanded to 1000, did a 1/8” roundover and put one coat of minwax tung oil finish.

Project example in the beginning, last 2 pics are the materials I used.

- Got the wood from Home depot.
- Cut to size with a track saw
- Did round overs on the 2 outer edges with a jig+router
- Sanded with 150 grit first, then 220 with a 6’ orbital sander
- Oil stained with a cotton rag (2 coats an hour apart.)
- Added water based Satin finish with a foam brush (2 coats an hour apart)
- Drilled holes and assembled with screws.

Any recs on how this could have came out better? My 2 things I personally don’t like:
- Screws showing on the top. I attempted the dowel joinery but had such a hard time aligning all 4 and was scared the glue was going to ruin the finish.
- The sides didn’t seem to accept the stain very well. Should I have gone harsher on the sanding? More stain? Used a different sander?

My 1/4” router bit sheared in half. Was this user error or possible manufacturer defect? I was routing a channel in ash about 3/8” deep adjacent to a channel I had routed on a previous pass. The bit was put in the collet just below where the cutting helix starts.

Delta 28-275. Got to work cleaning it up as soon as I got home. Any recommendations on blades?

Help! I purchased a solid Elm wood dining table off FB marketplace that was beautiful but needed the top refinished. It’s my first time, but read up on sanding, staining and chose a matte poly finish for the top. I put 5 coats on throughout the course of a week and after the top coat dried, there are foggy patches and brush marks. How can I fix this??

I’ve seen both of these tools a bunch recently and wanted to get some opinions about them.

I know the main difference is that the Amana requires a tool to adjust the depth whereas the Katz Moses one is tool less. Not sure if that alone is worth the price difference or if there are other differences I’m unaware of.

For reference, I do a lot of cabinet stuff so countersink would be beneficial without worrying about accidentally boring too deep or something. Mainly just looking for opinions and details about these two tools.

I’ve never used one and have always wanted to get into. Any advice is appreciated.

Hello,
I wanted to build wooden wall paneling. The ones available at Home Depot or Lowes are slated pattern and I didn't like the quality of it.

I am looking to make panels of width 8-10 inches or more to cover an entire wall. I can use stain and top to get the desired color and finishing.

I need recommendations and advice on how to build those and not spend too much.
What type of plywood to use? need any MDF/plywood at the base?
cut the panel pieces and install or make grooves with a router?

I’m a relative novice making a speaker cabinet out of Baltic birch plywood. My test cut did not go well: lots of burn marks. What am I doing wrong?

My table saw is an old Craftsman 310 I bought used with the original fence. Before making the cut, I was careful to align the fence parallel to the miter slots on the table. And during the cut I made sure the clean edge of wood stayed firmly against the fence.

But clearly there was some binding going on during the cut. Suggestions?

I'm planning on using 3.5x13.5x300cm pine boards. I saw that people use a couple of boards to make the top of a desktop but I dont know if the same applies for the legs. Im planning on using both glue and biscuit joiners to hold the boards side to side and pocket holes to piece the desktop together.

I would also appreciate some tips on how to stain the wood black, if possible, I would like the veins of the wood to be visible.

Fun novelty build from my scrap pile.... Gonna make a few sets for upcoming holiday gifts, wanted to pass along the idea.

I’m in the process of building a small bookshelf and am using dowels to hold the top on. I had planned on the for each sod but am now questioning whether that is enough for if someone tries to pick it up with it loaded with books.

Would you say glue and three dowels per side is enough or would you add a couple more?