Category: Woodworking
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I built a bandsaw box, and I only made at least eighteen mistakes
I made my first bandsaw box. While I’m very happy with the end result (and pleased that it looks like an ice cream sandwich), I thought that instead of crowing about how great it is, I’d list all of the mistakes I made so that I can avoid them the next time I make one.…
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Introducing the Fintendo: My Bartop Arcade Build
I have fulfilled the greatest dreams of my childhood and built an arcade machine that plays my favorite games from the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and more. There are many very good tutorials on the Web on how to build your own bartop arcade, so I won’t be going into a ton of detail. I mainly…
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Today’s Project: Puzzle Storage
I just finished building a 16-puzzle storage box so that we can consolidate all of our board puzzles from three different smaller boxes to one large one. Not a lot to say about this one; it’s just a Baltic birch box with a bunch of little supports along each side. I used lock rabbets to…
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An Automattic Bowl
For part of the gift I sent through the Secret Santa exchange at work this year, I decided to make a bowl with the Automattic company logo inlaid in the bottom. I’ve never made a bowl or done an inlay before, so this was definitely a wise decision that would not backfire. I started by…
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Wooden’t You Like to See These Christmas Gifts I Made?
Here are a couple more Christmas gifts that came out of the workshop. The first one is a wall-hanging for my die-hard Vikings fan mother-in-law. I cut it on the X-Carve and hand-painted it. This one is for my parents to hang up pictures of the grandkids: If you’re wondering whether making a sign like…
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I Made Some Animal Stools
I made four little animal chairs for young family members this Christmas: The process for each chair was basically the same: cut out sides on the X-Carve, cut the seat and seatback on the table saw, and screw them together. I hand-painted the elephant and unicorn, and I finished the whale and otter with Danish…
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Making Name Puzzles with the X-Carve
For a couple of the younger kids on my Christmas gift list this year, I made name puzzles with my X-Carve. The puzzles are made out of Baltic birch plywood; the letters are 1/4″ thick and the base is 1/2″ thick. I cut out the letters of the name (and some additional puzzle pieces) with…
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Today’s CNC Carving: A towel rack that says Towels
What do you hang your towels on? A plain old towel bar? Ha. A hook on the back of the door? Sad. You drape them over the shoulders of a mannequin like a cape? Ok that’s pretty cool. But what would be even cooler would be to hang your towels on a towel rack that…
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Garbage Can Cabinet Medallions
Ever since I built our garbage and recycling cabinet last year, visitors to my home have been mystified as to where to throw away their trash, so I made some identifying medallions for the front of the cabinet with my X-Carve. They’re carved out of red oak (the same wood used for the top of…
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I Built a Shoe Cabinet
Our front entryway usually looks something like this: Those are bins to hold shoes; they’re uncharacteristically empty in this picture, but with as many as seven kids in the house at any given time, they’re usually overflowing (and not nice to look at). We decided to get a shoe cabinet to keep the shoes (and…
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Box, the Sequel
In the comments of my last box-building post, Cain posted a link to a video tutorial for making a mitered box. I still needed storage for more 35mm slides, so I followed the tutorial to make a 35mm slide case out of quartersawn red oak.
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I Made the Bower Power Industrial Tripod Fan
My wife came across this DIY tutorial from Bower Power on how to make your own industrial-style tripod fan, and she loved it. Of course, what my baby wants, my baby gets: I cut the tripod center on my CNC router because I still need to justify its purchase. Leave a note in the comments if…
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My First Time Boxing
I’ve built lots of larger things, but small delicate pieces have always eluded me. Therefore, it is with great pride that I show off my latest project, a box for holding 35mm slides.
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Building a gravity chicken feeder (for gravity feeding, not gravity chickens)
It’s not that I don’t enjoy feeding our chickens every day, but when they started pecking at my toes because their food dish was empty for too long (a.k.a. more than five seconds), I decided to build a gravity-powered feeder that would keep them fed for weeks at a time. Here’s the finished product. Note the…
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Look at what I did in the bathroom!
My wife requested a cabinet to hang above the toilet in our downstairs bathroom, and she sent me a link to this Shanty 2 Chic design as an example of what she wanted. Usually, I would draw up my own plans, customizing them based on the materials I have and the space I’m filling. This time,…
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There ain’t nobody here but us chicken coops
My wife texted me this about six weeks ago. She had ended up in a farm supply store with her mom and our kids, and they had baby chicks for sale: We ended up skipping the duck, but six weeks later, we have two six chickens and a very sturdy coop. I began buying coop materials as soon…
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Artisanal CNC-Carved Growth Chart
My kids have been requesting a growth chart, so I made one with my X-Carve. I used red oak left over from when I built our dining room table. It took three separate carves to get all six feet of numbers and inch delimiters carved since the X-Carve’s workable area is only about 30 inches…
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Get yer laundry! Piping hot laundry!
A recent project I tackled was adding a spot in our laundry room to hang up clothes to dry. I attached iron pipe to the wall studs via some flanges and for the shelf, I used some barn wood that I’ve been hoarding for a few years. The total planning time for this project was about…
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CNC-ing a Stepstool out of a 1×12
My wife requested that I make matching stepstools for our hall bathroom so that the smaller children could reach the faucets. I used the opportunity to design a stepstool that could be carved out of a 1×12 and assembled in minutes. I used Inventables’s Easel software to design a stool that would be 12″ tall…
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Refinishing is Better Than Restarting
I’ve been busy with projects lately, but most of them are just cleaning up furniture that my wife Christina found at garage sales. Here’s a summary of all of my refinishings over the last few months. Christina found this rolling wooden cart at a garage sale, and I refreshed the finish on the top and…