Best Project wood: happy

Showing posts with label happy. Show all posts

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Happy Labor Day

I hope all of you here in the U.S. are enjoying the three-day weekend. Good day for a barbecue or picnic. Speaking of which, here are a couple of versions of my picnic tote from a week ago.

Michael Beilner really expanded on my design to hold lots more stuff:

I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out a way to add a handle to my caddy. Bill Bumpus had a great solution with a semi-circle wedge on the back.

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Got more mallets, you ask? Why sure. Heres 16-year-old Adam Howarths ash and lignum vitae mallet. Nope...I hadnt heard of that wood before, but it sounds very hard. Adam salvaged it from an old lawn bowling ball.

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Check out this mirror stand made by Mike Speakman with very limited tools and showing some great detailing created using a Dremel tool.

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Finally, here is one awesome race car bed Josh Phillips made for his grandson. Wow, I would have loved a bed like that when I was a boy! Whats also cool is that Josh took pictures along the way and has shared them in this photo album. Well worth looking at.

In his email, Josh described himself as "an occasional woodworker, with fair skills, and no mania for perfection".

I absolutely love that phrase, "No mania for perfection." Beautiful. If I ever start to get manic about perfection, I suspect I may lose a little of the fun in woodworking.

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Mere Minutes.
A little bit more on my shishi-odoshi fountain.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Happy Birthday To Me 2

In the tradition of my last birthday, Axminster Tools and their free next day delivery got the better of me - again! I treated myself to a few shiny things ... as Ive said Its an addiction!.

Firstly, a Lie Nielsen no#4 Iron bodied smoothing plane. I decided against the Bronze body as this more than meets my needs for a smoother. It has the standard A2 blade and I have the option of a high angle frog at a later date if needed. My beater Stanley no#4 will be kept set rough, as thats all its capable of anyway to be honest.

Secondly, an imperial Lie Nielsen Dowel Plate. I have some riven Oak and Walnut stock that will make nice draw bore pegs for Mortise & Tenon joints and dowels for boxes etc..

The other items include, a really posh Cap Iron screw driver which is lovely to hold and prevents scratching up your nice new premium planes as the brass collar captures the large screw head. A joiners Scratch Awl which unfortunately has a round shaft. I thought it had a square shaft when I ordered it... Oh well, it will still be useful.

And Lastly, I decided to get some Veritas honing compound to add to my home made leather strop block. A number of well known wood workers use it and some swear by it, so I thought I would see if it improves my sharpened edges.

Now I just need to put them all to work...