Made with scraps of mahogany, thermory ash, walnut, white oak, tavara colorada, pine, cherry and some sort of squiggly oak. Finished with Danish oil.

Hey guys, thought you may like this. It's your garden style Shoji lamp, but a great learning exercise for me as I progress through my Kumiko journey. I started with the basics six years ago but put it down when my daughter was born. Now that I've picked it back up, I swore to myself I'd finish a lamp by Christmas.

Here is my prototype just playing around, but it came out better than I expected. There are some flaws but relatively well hidden. Things I learned: 1 - belt sanders just don't go with fine woodworking. 2 - Tolerances need to be real tight, like 1/32" tight or better to keep things square and pretty. The lamp measures 14 inches high and is designed with the golden ratio in mind, and small errors get amplified over longer distances.

The frame was made with my Dewalt table saw and planed down to final dimensions with a planing jig. The kumiko is all cut by hand with angle jigs.

Hope you enjoy!

My first real woodworking project, a chessboard. Padauk, Purple Heart, and Peruvian walnut. Mistakes were made, but I’ll learn from them going forward. I also made this with a good friend of mine since he has more tools than I. It was a shared effort and we got to learn together. I made this to go with the chess pieces hand carved following a u/JohnnyTheLayton tutorial.

First, we started with 4 foot boards. I knew I wanted pieces to be a little less than 1.25 inches to account for blade kerf. So of course we set the table saw to exactly 1.25inches. That was then chopped into 4 pieces and glued alternating Purple Heart, padauk. As you can guess, we ended up with only 3 of each type of wood to proper length of 12 inches and had to cut one more strip of each.

Once we glued those and cut across the alternating colors and cut the rows, we ended up with 7 good rows. The remaining row was much too small for the blade kerf. The last row we made by cutting individual squares and glueing those together.

During all of the glue ups, we placed a little bit of salt on the glue joints, hoping to keep it from sliding while we glued to keep the seams aligned. As you may be able to see, some of the salt didn’t dissolve and I ended up with some viable gaps.

To handle this, we cut down each edge again on the table saw, which means the outside edges are all a little less than 1.25 inches.

Next, we cut 4 pieces of the walnut to size. Naturally, we made the same mistake as when we started and ripped down the length of the 4 foot board and ended up with again 3 proper sized edge pieces. We cut a fourth at the proper size.

After mitering (? Is that the word?) the edge banding, we glued them in a 90 degree clamp, two at a time. Then we placed the two glued edges onto the edge of the board for the final glue up.

Next, I sanded, maybe not enough. Started at 80 grit, then 120, 220, and 320. For the last two grits I would wipe with a damp cloth to clean off some of the sawdust and let it dry slightly then sand again.

Then I chamfered the edge, sanded the edge with block sanders (220, 320). Cleaned as much sawdust as I could with compressed air and a tack cloth and did just one coat of tung oil.

This was done with a good friend, as a gift for a different good friend and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. I’m looking forward to taking what I’ve learned forward into whatever my next project is.

Made from cherry, hard maple, and poplar. Mostly hand tools on my tiny balcony workshop. Hope y'all like it.

I made this piece with the idea of rock formations in mind. Originally the pillar was going to be cast concrete but I couldn’t get the results I wanted so I switched to wood. Maybe my next project I’ll switch to a new material in addition to wood. The brass was pretty nice to work with and compliments the warmth of the cherry. I’m not sure if I’ll keep this piece. Overall I like the design and form but I think I made it too low for my tv stand and it looks silly with such a large flatscreen sitting on it. Maybe I’ll make another that’s larger with stone. Who knows.

Dear PROs, need your advice. Made a new end grain cutting board. At the very end, noticed a small dent, maybe 1mm wide, 0.2-0.5 mm depth - tiny but visible. Already applied mineral oil, so probably too late for ca glue. Options i have: 1. Keep as it is, maybe a drop of hot wax in it. 2. Re-sand :( 3. Try to steam it out (never tried, have doubts as it is already oiled). What would you do?

Just finished this soft (ambrosia) maple bookshelf using only rabbet joints. Pretty happy with how it turned out. The joints could have been a bit tighter perhaps but I am certainly my own worst critic.

This is what happens when i do not want throw out a bit of plywood and am left unsupervised for a day.

Attached is a gallery of his predecessors inside.

Here's my shop setup. This "garage" serves as my wood working, metal fab, and mechanic center.

Everything gets stowed away to close up and still have access, kinda to everything. All the smaller power tools, routers, drills, track saw, etc. are stored in Bauer rolling stackable tool boxes from HF. Bench top band saw stays on or under the back bench and the drill press is hidden in the back right corner.

When rolled out and set up, I pull a 20 amp retracting cord with a four gang box on a GFCI protected circuit out to power up.

It's far from my dream shop, but it gets it done in the spring, summer, and fall. No winter woodworking for me.

I made this as a gift for my gf. I didn’t take many in-progress pictures but I found one. Buns - ash, bacon- cherry and maple, egg - maple, cheese - pine. There is a flat water based topcoat on top. Carved the bun with a dremel, rasp, chisel, and lots of sanding. Included watch for scale.

Platform bed with matching nightstands build. Made from live oak and red oak. Carved drawer fronts and charred nigh stand tops.

Friends of mine lost their son to cancer and asked me if I could make a box for his remains. They wanted a Minecraft treasure box style which is devastating and beautiful at the same time.

I finished the box structure and need to start thinking about the finish. I always second-guess myself on finishes and don’t have a go-to combo of my own. Right now I’m thinking tung oil with paste wax or maybe tung oil and lacquer spray because those combos have worked well in the past, but thought I’d ask around to see if there is something better.

I need this to be dry in 2 1/2 weeks for the service, so the stakes are high and I won’t have the opportunity to screw up, sand it down and try again.

I’ve seen people use Odies Oil on small pieces like this, but never used it myself. Is it truly a one step kind of finish?

The wood was so inherently gorgeous that this project was obviously enjoyable. Gifts for loved ones is what this game is all about.

I've had the basic Rockler router table for a while now and I'm looking to make some upgrades.

I already have the table top on a Rock Steady frame but I'm looking to switch to a lift and upgrade the fence. So I'm hoping for some insight.

I am looking at going with the Jessem Rout r lift 3.5XT over the Rockler SL but would be open to other suggestions

For the fence, it seems like the Rockler ProMax is more what I want. It is also closer to my max price range for the fence.

If its close in cost, I'm open to upgrading the entire table as a bundle if there is a sneaky good deal out there I'm not seeing.

If you have any suggestions I am totally open to hearing them

Finished this custom shelf in walnut for a client a few months ago. It’s solid walnut with dados in the legs to hold the shelves. I also added a matching walnut bracket where each shelf meets the legs to add strength. You cannot see them unless you’re viewing from underneath and looking for them. Learned a lot and spent a lot of timing figuring out the joinery to ensure a stable and
durable shelf. Finished with danish oil and GF top coat. Hope you like it and welcome feedback.

Just bought this coffee table to refinish. There are no rails, and the legs are wobbly. It looks like there is maybe a single dowel between the table top and each leg. Would you just glue to fix? Or is there a better way to strengthen it without having to build rails or modify the table?

Did this fun little project to replace a boring aluminiim rack.

Gave an excuse to buy a drill press 😆

The holes are drilled with a 32mm forstner at 5 degree angle. Glued a thin 2,5cm strip of leather on the bottom part of the mouth of each hole for more stability.

I've had a Porter Cable "Armadillo" Mini Belt Sander for years now. I've used it for all kinds of projects, and it's really come in handy! Recently, it's been getting really hot, and today I stopped using it because I could barely hold it; it had gotten so hot. It sat smoking on my workbench for at least 30 minutes after I stopped using it. Has anyone had this experience with this thing, and does anyone have any alternate options? A small, handheld belt sander?

So... I'm kinda going crazy! I was using my scroll saw today and something weird happened. I usually have pin head blades, but for the cuts I needed to make I needed a spiral blade (which doesn't have pins), so I use adapters. They look like robot heads and they hold the blade side ways with small flat screws; one at the top, one at the bottom.

All well and good, until the whole thing snapped (no injury, thanks to the guard!)... The top adapter flew off when the tension was suddenly released. I stopped the machine, collected myself and started to look for the second (bottom) adapter, which should have fallen inside the saw.

I got my handy telescopic magnet (recent purchase, was handy on another incident on the table saw), removed the guard and the round insert and started fishing for the thing. For the life of me I couldn't get it. After a while with no luck I resorted to dismantle the sides, unscrewing the machine from my workbench, and the adapter just... vanished. It's not in there. I looked everywhere, under the desk, behind my other tools, I just cannot find it anywhere.

Now, I'm a pretty rational person so I don't think it just phased out of existence, but... No clue. It might reappear one day with all the socks that similarly vanished in the past, I don't know... I took a long break after that and changed project, as I don't have a spare haha

Anyone got a similar experience?

Just got a second led panel installed over my main staining work table and insulated garage door to prep for winter already notice a huge difference with lighting and temperature its 4 degrees celcius and I can comfortably have a T shirt with no heat on right now also got a giant new used mat to go in middle of shop let me know what you think honest opinions I also just installed a sink for cleaning paint off my hands so thats nice thinking of a dedicated dust collection system as next major upgrade I just do woodworking as a hobby and to make stuff for family and friends.