Community Brag Posts

I've made another record cabinet, this time with a nice dark walnut stain.  To see more details and plans visit my blog.

http://www.woodworkingfourdummies.com/

Cheers,

Ian

We have considered buying a cedar-lined chest to store blankets, towels, etc. for many years.  However, we couldn’t find one that came close to matching the Knotty Pine bedroom set that we had in our master suite. 

Hence, our design criteria was quite simple; match the bedroom set and have a chest sturdy enough to support our Beagles as they peer at the squirrels outside the window.

We used plans / ideas from several different chest designs which were readily available on the internet.  Most of those plans were using hard woods such as oak.  Those plans called for a hard wood framing with ¼” oak plywood for the panels.  Since we needed to use Knotty Pine to match the bedroom set, we used 1” Knotty Pine for framing and Knotty Pine ¾ ply w/ Kreg Screws and copious glue to strengthen the construct.  We finished it off with locally available 3/8” cedar T.G. planks.  It is very heavy and very strong!  This project was done entirely w/ Kreg Screws and no router rabbeting for the panels.

We learned the following while doing this project:

·      When using soft woods, always put the power sander on the wood before you start the sander.  Otherwise, you can get scratching / sander burns that don’t present themselves until staining begins.

·      While very strong, ¾” plywood is very heavy!

·      When using plywood, it is recommended that you stain both the visible and non-visible sides of each piece where glue is not to be applied.  Otherwise the chance for delaminating increases dramatically.

60 hours work and $350 to build.   

This is the cooler stand presented by Jenny from Birdsandsaoap. Very easy to build and always ends up with someone asking to buy it or have you make them one.

Was looking for something to do with an old Radio Flyer wagon.. Saw some great pics on Ana's site for garden ideas and thought this might have the right shape to make a water feature.. beats making a flower potter out of it. -And it does in fact work.. The original plan was to use a simple chrome hook-style faucet but found a great brass antique on ebay for under $10 which really set the tone for its look.

The inside of the wagon is double-coated with Rustoleum clear sealant, over-layed with a red top coat. The wheels and handle are original and the hanging bar across the front is from conduit. The wagon is attached to the stand only around the drain by 2 1/2"x 1/4" machine screws. The brass handle on the right end is so the wagon can be tilted to drain settling water. The drain is a standard 1 1/4" sink kit that connects to a compression coupler. Both the feeder and drain line have hose connections.

This project was so much easier than I thought it would be when we started. If you follow ana's plans your bunkbed will be much stronger than anything you can buy for a fraction of the price. I would never do it but I honestly think I could park my truck on these beds. The finish is red mahogany stain with a couple coats of polyurethane over it. They say not to use dark stain over pine because of the uneven coat but i like the way it striped the grain. Not everyone's cup of tea but we love it.
We've all heard the saying "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Thank You Ana for teaching me to fish. This was the first, but will not be the last project i do from your site.

Lots of fun on this one

Modified the classic bunk bed plans to fit crib size matresses for our 1.5 & 2 year old girls, loved how my toddler bunk beds turned out! 

My attempt at the murphy bar featured on this site. Still have to add the sash locks. Added pallet crossmembers at the back, an x in the leg, and a french cleat to mount to the wall. 

We wanted a round table that would seat a full Monopoly game. To do this we needed about a 5' diameter tabletop.  The base was made consistent with the plans.  

A few tips on the base:

1. Get your angles as close to 45° as you can.  Otherwise, there will be much sanding and puttying in your future.  
2. If you want to hide your lag screw like I did, I used a spade bit to recess an area for the screw head.  Then I glued in a plug made from dowel and sanded flush.  

If you want to make a round tabletop, here is what I did (there may be better methods).  Keep in mind this was for a ~60" diameter table, I was assuming that the perimeter arc pieces would be about 4.5" wide and that I would cut the inner circle at a 50" diameter.

1. Picture 1 - I built two 5' slabs of (7) 2x4s pocket-holed together.  
2. Picture 2 - Then I cut two pieces from each slab that would later make up the 90° "pie slice" pieces.  Make sure to remove the screws that will be in the way your saw blade. Also, you just have to concern yourself with the angle since the radius will be dealt with later.  There is a lot of wood waste with this method, but I think it avoided headaches. 
3. Picture 3 - I assembled (screwed and glued) the "pie pieces"to the cross pieces. The length of the cross pieces don't matter much since they will also be to cut to a specified radius.  Since I would be cutting a 50" diameter circle, the large cross piece had to be at least 50" and the two small pieces had to be at least 22.25" (subtracting the 2x6 width).  
   1. Picture 3 - I mounted my router to a piece of MDF and drilled a hole at the necessary distance to cut a 50" diameter circle. This distance is 25" + half of the bit diameter.  Since I used a 1/2" straight bit, my point was 25.25" from the center of the router bit.  I screwed this jig to the center of the tabletop assembly so the router could pivot and cut a circle.  As for logistics, I rested this assembly on some scrap wood and kneeled on the tabletop as I was cutting it.  It took a large number of passes with the router since I was cutting through 1.5" of material. 
4. Picture 4 - The perimeter pieces required some time and geometry. I found that I would need (8) 23" 2x8 pieces (the 23" is approximate because I was a little off for some reason, though I can't recall why).  From those pieces, I used the same router jig to cut the perimeter arc pieces. You will need to make two new radius holes in teh jig to accomplish what you need.  To cut the inner arc you need a hole set at 25" - half of the bit diameter (24.75" for me).  To cut the outer arc, I used a hole that was 29 5/8" from the center of the router bit.  You may need to do some fine tuning to these pieces to get them to fit correctly, but for me it pretty minor.  I trimmed a couple pieces with a miter saw but that was it. 
5. The rest is screws and glue.