Has this ever happened to you? You just finished the construction of a nice new project in cherry, alder, maple, or birch. After the first coat of stain, you notice something a little weird. The wood looks like crap! How can this happen?!?!? You sanded the project for hours, you bought the best oil-based stain you could find, and despite all that effort, you are left with a final result that just looks terrible. Well, you are not alone. Eventually, we all have to fight blotchiness. Knowing which woods exhibit this property and how to handle it is the key to success. So join me Thursday evening at 8pm Eastern for a live demonstration of my favorite way to deal with a blotch-prone wood.
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Here’s another great small project for the holidays. Its a small Contemporary Clock. This piece should take about two days to build. And this is another project that can benefit from the batching process. So be sure to make a bunch!
And just to help you along, I did my best to create a working SketchUp file that should be perfectly to scale. Just keep in mind that I am by no means a Sketchup expert, so please give all measurements the “common sense check”. After reviewing the sketch myself, I realized that the width of the center square piece is about 1/16? off. Rest assured, it should be 3 1/2?. Download the Sketchup File by clicking the link below. And if you haven’t used Sketcup before, you can download a free copy from Google: Sketchup
Download Sketchup File for the Contemporary Clock
To sum up, here’s a basic cut list (also stated in the video):
(1) 3/4? thick x 3 1/2? wide x 3 1/2? long (for the clock)
(4) 3/4? thick x 1 1/2? wide x 6 1/2? long (for the frame)
(2) 1/4? diameter x 1 1/4? long dowels
And here are some links to the materials used in the video:
General Finishes PolyAcrylic
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Circle/Grommet Templates
This is the plexiglass template kit I used to create the holes for the clock works. Highly recommended!!
Circle/Grommet Templates |
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This week’s project is submitted by Bryan. Let’s check out what he has to say:
“This is my first piece of ‘fine’ furniture, which has helped to develop my passion for woodworking. I built this piece as part of a Furniture Design class in the architecture school during my undergrad, even though I was a finance major. The piece is made of red oak and walnut and the table tops stand at 12” and 24” respectively. I started out with all rough lumber, 5/4 red oak, and 8/4 walnut. I milled the oak with the thickness planer down to 1” thick by 3” wide for the larger side, and 1” thick by 2” wide for the smaller side. Once I had these measurements, I used the table saw to cut all of my angles for both the longer pieces and smaller ‘head’ and ‘foot’ pieces. At this point I had cut all of my oak pieces and it was time for glue up. I did this in sections. First I glued up the 3” section by combining two long pieces with the appropriate ‘head’ and ‘foot’ pieces. Once all of these smaller sections were done, I glued them together until I eventually had one long row of alternating blank sections and long sections 17” wide. I then built a jig to hold this entire piece at the appropriate angle in order to route out the section for the walnut/glass, which took a nice long 2” router bit a while to hog out. Once this step was done, I was able to put the last two outside boards to make the ends look more finished. I cut the walnut to size, drilled the holes for the dowels, cut the angle on the walnut and glued it into place, along with the red oak dowels. I used a ½ piece of wood as a spacer for the glass. I did the a similar process for the 2” smaller side, except I didn’t glue the alternating boards on the bottom section until after I meshed the two together. Once together, I glued in the missing pieces, securing the two sections forever. The last step was inserting the 17”Wx23”Lx1/2”D glass into the top section and the 17”Wx11”Lx1/2”D glass into the bottom section.”
“It is finished with about 3 coats of Danish Oil sanded down to about 400 grit and has a poly spray topcoat. Overall this is a very strong piece, and has no problem holding the glass, even with me leaning on it, as the table will tip over before the joint would ever fail. There are definitely things I would consider doing different though, but that’s the challenge for my next piece. Enjoy my cantilevered end table and thanks for all of the inspiration. As always, I look forward to the next video!
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As the holidays approach, my mind always turns to small, simple (yet elegant) projects that we can make for our family and friends. I have two of them in store for you this year. And the first one is a collapsible magazine rack. The rack is designed to pull apart and collapse for shipping or storage. Its lightweight but surprisingly sturdy. This piece should take about two days to build, and that’s just because you’ll be waiting for glue to dry. So let’s call it two half days. And best of all, it would take just as long to build 5 as it would building just one.
And just to help you along, I did my best to create a working SketchUp file that should be perfectly to scale. Just keep in mind that I am by no means a Sketchup expert, so please give all measurements the “common sense check”. Download the Sketchup File by clicking the link below. And if you haven’t used Sketcup before, you can download a free copy from Google: Sketchup
Download Magazine Rack Sketchup File
And to wrap things up, here’s a basic cut list (also stated in the video):
(4) 3/8? thick x 4 1/4? wide x 16? long
(1) 3/8? thick x 4? wide x 14? long
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