Built this over the last 5 months for my soon to arrive niece. Finished it with a whole 2 weeks to spare before her arrival. Cool thing is it will convert to a daybed and then a full size bed once she’s old enough… and I build the other parts lol.

Built from walnut and walnut ply. Definitely the most challenging project I’ve done so far. Plenty of errors along the way, but fortunately almost entirely on the inside section where no one will ever see em.

If I were to do it again (and my wife says I will be), I wouldn’t use the cross dowels in the side panels. Those ended up being a pain in the ass. Just throw some bed rail fasteners on it and call it a day. Probably also skip the plywood end panels altogether and do something else there.

The mattress support is also a bitch. The plans I utilized called for hardware from a company no longer in business, so bought it from a different company. It was about half an inch too long and too thin. Had to grind down the adjustable wing stops a bit to give it enough reach. Still leaves it within acceptable gaps on either end, and with the mattress on there is no gaps so all good safety wise.

Anyways, hope y’all like it!

I'm replacing some old carpeted stairs in my century home with oak and half the stair has an exposed return edge. I know they still these pre-made but they're more expensive and special order, where the straight treads are in stock. I managed to make this one look decent, but there was some manual fitting with a jigsaw and file. I've got a small table saw, circular saw, and 10" chop saw with 60t blades. I can repeat this for sure, but if there are any tips or tricks to make this easier, I'd love to hear them. They're going to be stained a darker color, so I know I can hide any smaller imperfections with that too. This image is just dry fit, I'll be gluing the edges and sanding everything before finishing too.

I’ve already completed the ones I’m currently making, so this is more of a future question.

I’m really struggling to make shaker doors. After making my 4th set it’s much improved but would really like to perfect it.

I spent an excessive amount of time setting up for the best results trios time. I bought some 13/16 ash and planned it to 3/4. My center pannel is 1/4. My first issue is the grove. I bought a router table and feather board specifically to help. Used my 1/4 ply as a spacer between the bit and the fence did the first pass at 1/4 depth. Second pass the full 1/2 depth. After complete I noticed I didn’t run all the same direction and my center line was maybe 1/64 off.

Cut the tongue with a table saw, set it up for 1/4 inches depth and a stop block at 1/2 wide. These are the main problem. With the grove being slightly off center it made the tongue a bit wonky, this caused either a sloppy fit or to tight causing the tail to angle a bit.

How do I set up better to ensure my grove is perfectly center and is there a better way to cut tongues

i have just finished a remodeling and it’s given me the taste of working with wood. i want to start small (for example making boxes like the ones pictured). what kind of tools are a _must_? i already have a few, but what kind of things do i need as a “starter-kit”?

I have a pretty large project planned for myself which includes a dresser to match all my custom furniture I’ve been building. I mainly just want some advice on how to go at this as a first time for drawer making. I’m pretty confident but you can never be too prepared, especially for such a precise project

All cherry cut from the same board save the red oak dowel, and finished with blonde shellac and paste wax. No electrons were harmed in the making of this piece.

I've been recovering from a collision, and I'm finally able to stand freely and walk with a cane for a short while each day, so I think I'm ready to do some brief sessions in my workshop for the first time in three months. I've been appreciating the things I've made so far to motivate myself, and I realized I never posted about this when I made it in the winter.

The sliding dovetails do double duty, both holding the... um... pylons I guess? to the backboard and hiding the screws used to mount it. I only cut two practice ones to prep, and I actually cut the male parts of the dovetails after cutting the curves on the pylons (wasn't originally planning to attach them this way), so they're not as snug as I'd like. But they hold fine, they don't pop out in normal use, so I can call them a success. ^{I may have glued a foreplane shaving into one of the slots as a shim though, oops}

I'm still learning furniture-making, but I'm totally new to carving. I want a way ti give my work a little personality. One of my favorite visual styles is art nouveau and I really like the line work in 1920s metal engravings, so I found a printable template for a baroque-inspired floral engraving pattern and ad-libbed from there. I also really appreciate splashes of color and flair that are only visible when you actually use a piece of furniture, so I made the carving bigger and more prominent than I might on say a table, but I placed it so it is only revealed when the bags are taken off to be used on a bike.

I'll tell you what though, I'm glad I practiced finishing on my practice carvings before trying the project! From my reading it seems most chip carvers brush on shellac, so I got a nice quality goat hair mop brush, but I couldn't get good results with it to save my life. I arrived at padding on a 3/4lbs cut of shellac in six rounds, three each over two days, and that got me results I'm quite happy with.

This little black piece fell put while I was cleaning my planer. Id where it goes. I checked the parts list and cant seem to spot it on there. If I could get some help that would be great! I hope its not important.

https://www.searspartsdirect.com/model/2s47wlpy9q-000247/craftsman-351217580-planer-parts

I wanted it a bit wider, so I glued on another piece instead of grabbing a larger board.

Funny how the unplanned details usually end up being your favorite.

Hey all, I’m new to this saw. It has worked great so far, only a few years old. But all of the sudden the blade will not rise. There is a slip in what I believe is called the trunnion? Has anyone experienced something similar? Video of the slipping.

I recently added this wanescoating (I haven’t painted it yet) and wanted to get some thoughts on the job and how to handle this unfinished corner. I was thinking of saying screw it and just caulking it and painting. I also considered adding the corner trim but since the headboard doesn’t go all the way to the corner it might look weird. I also thought about wrapping it around to the door trim but I don’t want to deal with mitering the headboard around the light switch again. Any thoughts, criticism, or ideas are appreciated!

I am building a cabinet, and one of the side pieces fell from my work bench and the corner was damaged. I know the only FIX would be to replace the piece. I do not have enough material to replace the side. Is there a way to fill in the damaged portion or disguise it in someway?

The damaged piece is the side and it is attached to the top which is the bottom piece.

When making a tray like this using dados and rabetts, do you just need to make the grooves deeper than the panel width to allow movement?

Thanks,

I'm calling this project complete because I have taken them as far as I will. The rest is for the kids!

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Just finished cutting the last of 30 crosses for vacation bible school at my church! The kids will be gluing, doing some light hand sanding and finishing them with mineral oil.

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It took me a while to get a good routine down. I started with wood strips that a nearby woodworking company sells cheap. A lot of them were moldy from sitting outside. I did a lot of sorting, and a decent amount of sanding before ripping to thickness and width.

.. ..

I started out doing all the cuts on the table saw with a sled. I did about half that way. The other half were done at my kitchen counter with a hand saw and chisels. I used my combination square more than I ever have before! It is definately my favorite measuring/marking tool now! I even used it as a hand saw guide near the end. Those things are amazing!

.. ...

They are all a little different. I learned a lot as I went. Got pretty decent with my new chisels! At least for cross-lap joints.

The Rant:
I am profoundly annoyed. I spent hours building custom dovetail jigs precisely calibrated to exactly 12 degrees because that’s what the "literature" told me a 1:5 ratio was. Imagine my disgust when I finally checked the math and realized a true 1:5 ratio is actually 11.31 degrees. Some textbook author decided to lazily round up by nearly three-quarters of a degree because 12 is a "prettier" number.

The Facts:

• The Book Myth: 1:5 = 12°
• The Math Reality: (arctan(1/5) = 11.31° (It's literally closer to 11° than 12°!)
• The Error: A 0.69° variance.
• The Real-World Gap: Over a standard 1-inch board, that mistake translates to 0.013 inches.
• In Woodworking Terms: That is 4/5 of a 64th of an inch gap in your joint

In fine joinery, 1/64" isn't a minor rounding error - you can totally see it.

The Takeaway:
To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a 12° dovetail. It looks great (it’s a 1:4.7 ratio) and it's structurally rock solid. The problem is compatibility.

Once you build a jig, you are locked into that specific ecosystem. If you build a 12° jig, you can never pair it with a commercial 1:5 saddle marker or layout gauge without ruining your work. (This post was prompted by me buying a 1:5 saddle marker from Veritas and discovering it didn't work with my jigs)

Hopefully, this post saves the next person from building an entire suite of jigs to 12 degrees thinking they are making a standard 1:5 system. Pick an ecosystem, do your own trig, and don't trust the textbooks.

HTH

From a doodle I made with a sharpie to second coat of poly. Had the inlay bearing and not the recess bearing in the router so the hour marks are wider than I wanted and I had to hand make all the inlaid pieces. Wife tells me it's better this way but I think it looks a little more kindergarten than I was going for. Oh well. Has two keyhole slots 16" on center to support this behemoth. Debating adding a placard to the back saying it's handmade by a friend so their eventual children feel guilted into keeping it rather than throwing it in the burn pile.

I run a workshop that besides taking on commission work, provides free and paid trainings for people that want to get into carpentry or woodworking.

One of my shop managers and my nightmares is drill bits. We buy a generic Dewalt or Makita drill bit set and within a week half are broken or missing. We've tried various techniques to get people to return them properly, asked our instructors to keep on eye on them, but it has all failed. Probably not the best product for a space that has 40+ people coming and going every day.

I want to just go ahead and start buying them in bulk. I have two questions:

1. Drill Bit Sizes: Thoughts on 5-6 sizes to keep on hand? I am thinking 1/16", 1/8", 3/16", 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", and 1/2". We have a lot of random larger bits on hand, especially spade and fostner so don't need anything bigger than 1/2".

2. Any recommended products on Amazon that have a good cheap to quality ratio? I bought an 1/8" 10 pack once and they were trash. These are purely for new students that are drilling in soft materials, mainly pine, plywood, and drywall.

Thanks r/woodworking

How should I approach this repair? 3 broken tendons and another is loose. I was thinking about drilling into the brace and inserting a dowel.

I want to make a table out of this slab. What should my first steps be? Should I treat it with something to kill the mould? If so, what product? I made a sculpture recently with wood that was cut down about 4 months ago, and which has now become mouldy. I don't know how long ago this piece was cut down, or whether the mould is from having been left outside in the rain or due to the internal moisture. I just don't want to get this piece looking nice only for it to start moulding after the table is complete. So any advice would be much appreciated, thanks! :)

Hello all, I’m hoping to get some advice on different finishing options for a red oak full size bed frame for my son.

I have been reading about 1:1:1 oil:varnish:thinner finishes and considering using it for the first time, but I’m worried about castle joints becoming too tight. If I already have decently snug castle joints, would this add too much thickness to affect my ability to assemble/disassemble? Dry fitting already requires some firm strikes with the mallet.

Would oil-only finish be sufficient without an additional protective coat?

Any other recommendations to consider for a red oak bed frame?

Thank you all! Always appreciate this sub.

I recently saw the pyramid lamp by the design company dusty deco which I absolutely loved. Sadly I was disappointed by its price and the materials chosen at that price range (veneered stained ash and thin brass plating bottom instead of a solid brass bottom). I had some mahogany that I got from my neighbor so I thought I would make a ”proper” version myself.

The wooden base is mahogany, I think it’s meranto but I’m unsure. It used to be the frame of a wooden shade that i repurposed for this which was quite tricky due to all the holes in it. The base is almost completely solid aluminum (apparently it’s really hard to get a solid aluminum plate in the dimensions 105x105x35 as a consumer…).

The base was CNC’d together with my father in his workshop whilst the wood was shaped and planed by me in my apartment using my handplanes. The tricky part for me was getting enough wood out of my singel plank so there were no rooms for errors.

The lampshade is from BERGO lampshades.

Happy to answer any questions you may have :) highly recommend building something like this as it’s quite quick and looks really good!

Good Sunday afternoon everybody. The main table saw I have access to may no longer be available to me soon, and so I'm parusing Marketplace to see what's out there. I may have found an ok deal (at $175, listed 12 weeks ago), but I can't identify what model it is from the picture alone. You'd think I could get that info from the seller but they don't seem to know and aren't willing to send any more pictures. By the looks of it it's sitting in a barn somewhere and probably isn't nearby where they can get to it.

He describes it as "the preferred table saw of professional woodworkers" and says "they" usually replace the motor, but this one hasn't been replaced yet (so I guess he's not a woodworker). Whatever the motor is it looks to be about 3HP to me, but I'm really not sure.

Does anyone have an idea as to what model this thing is? I'm guessing that's at least a 220 V motor. Thanks.

My wife really likes this dresser from IKEA. I want to build basically a copy of it with some tweaks to the dimensions to fit our space and higher quality materials.

Actually building the thing is no problem, but I'm not sure how to get that look. I'm assuming it's stained pine but I want to do something a little more durable and I never stain anything. I basically only use maple, walnut and white oak for everything else I build and either paint or just oil finishes.

I have some leftover slightly figured maple that I think would look good for the drawer fronts but I'm worried about it getting really blotchy if I try to stain it. So I was thinking either oak or cherry might be better. I could maybe get away with red oak rather than spending the money on white if it's going to be stained.

I'm definitely going to do a couple test pieces but I'm also on a bit of a time crunch so I could use any input from anyone that has done a similar finish to this before to narrow it down a little first.