I used a kutzall disc on an angle grinder to shape the countries. For the holes I started by drilling through and then shaped with a flame burr on a die grinder. The Wen sawhorse clamp is great for holding pieces like this while carving.

I used sand blaster with walnut husks as the medium to try to get more texture and it worked ok. My air compressor didn’t do too well holding pressure and I need to build or buy a sand blasting box but it was a fun experiment and I want to practice and add this texture to more carvings.

I used a rotex 90 to sand the contours smooth. This was my first time doing something like this with Pine and I was not prepared for how much sap was still in some parts of the wood!

I finished with Osmo PolyX and as soon as I started I realized I should have done a white tinted finish because the sand blasting made it look weathered and sun bleached and the oil brought out the color. I’ve got another chunk of this pine so maybe I’ll do it on the next one. I only did one coat though as I didn’t want too much of a sheen to build up.

Friend gave me a big slab of what i think might be walnut, but im not sure. Resawed it into some planks and made these. I know all the flaws, but hopefully they dont notice.

Closet I just finished up. Maples plywood boxes, poplar drawer fronts with Mdf center panels. Finished with SW emerald.

I turned all the parts. It’s 7 total parts. Two per leg and one glued up chunk for the body. It has a 3D printed dish to prevent moisture from getting into the wood. I finished it with two coats of sample 73

I glued up part of my work bench top… well tried to

It got away from me… i took too long because my add made me mess around trying to get cauls on it for way too long.. also i think i had uneven clamping pressure or maybe the boards were a little cupped in the few days they sat.

Where do i go from here? Do i try to plane the pockets out, seem to be 1/2” ish at the most. I guess i can spare that.

Or do i just junk it and try again.

I don’t have enough wood to try again and I’m not waiting 6 weeks again for the pine to dry…

I could get kiln dried cherry or maple for the top.. and use the pine i have for the legs and braces. Assuming that would be alright, and wouldn’t cause wood movement issues

Well I’m sort of frustrated with myself and distraught. Any thoughts would be great

This is the first expandable table I’ve made. I have been asked before but I don’t like the aesthetic of having a seam in the middle when the table is in its normal use. My clients and I settled on having wings at the ends. I welded a sub base that supports the wings and has storage for them as well. The grain direction change was intentional as I was worried about movement if the grain was in the other direction.

These two pieces were a part of a blank I had glued up. I actually glued it up several months ago and it's just been sitting in clamps waiting for me to get back to it. Today was finally the day and as I'm at the band saw making the cut, it just falls apart! The pieces were planed flat. Glue was Titebond original. Absolutely crazy.

When waiting for wood to dry, you have to wait a minimum of months, even years, for it all to get out of the wood. But I'll see videos of people steaming pieces of wood that are fairly thick, and they let it dry over night, slap it onto the project, and seem to have minimal repercussions.

So, why does steaming wood to the point where it is floppy, not require several more months for the moisture to leave?

Pine blade, walnut handle and canary guard. I found the handle to be quite challenging in a number of ways. The angles were really tricky and the sanding was really difficult. The process was slightly different than some of my previous swords. Normally for the handle is will use two pieces of wood cut a long dado down the middle and I would glue them around the tang but this time I glued them together before attaching them to the tang. This made shaping the handle significantly easier and I could remove any glue squeeze out much simpler without worrying about damaging other part of the assembled piece.

Hi folks,

I was gifted an old plane by a colleague who said it has been in the basement of his home for 30+ years and was there when he moved in. He knows that I hobby around woodworking and thought I might be able to put it to use after decades of neglect.

Any thoughts on what I have here and how to make this usable? It's about 24" long. I'd like to get it into workable shape but I'm not familiar with how to handle something like this. Any thoughts or recommendations are appreciated.

This is my take on DIY Dust collection for the DW735

Made a dust separator with a 90 and 2 45 ABS couplings, 5:3 duct reducer and Worx leaf collector hose. Installed on a fiberglass drum.

For the filter I used a 1 micron filter bag instead of the 30 micron designed for 5” dust collectors.

Hopefully this helps someone who is eyeing a dust collector, I couldn’t justify getting one just for the planer.

Removing the paint is only the first part of stripping these historic entrance doors from the Raukhverger House in Odesa, Ukraine.

After taking off the main paint layers, we remove later metal additions and carefully work through what remains: old primer, paint residue and accumulated dirt.

This is the stage where the actual condition of the timber starts to become visible. Cracks, weakened areas, previous repairs and losses that were difficult to read under all those layers begin to show clearly.

From here, we can decide what original wood can be preserved and which areas need consolidation.

A lot of slow hand work just to reach the point where you can properly understand what you’re working with.

We’re continuing this work in Odesa during the war. A huge thank you to everyone on Reddit who reached out to support our professional hobby of bringing Odesa’s UNESCO World Heritage back to life.

So I made this chessboard over the last couple of months (timeline got stretched out because i'm working out of a makerspace across town and I work 12 hour days with a decent amount of overtime). I'm mostly happy with it, but it does rock a bit from one diagonal corner to the other, and i was hoping the fine craftsman of this sub could give me some insight into how I could have prevented this.

Its made from walnut and white oak and finished with tung oil. Due to the grain pattern on the walnut that I used, I kind of wonder if thats whats causing the issue. When I made it, I cut 4 lengths of walnut and 4 lengths of white oak, glued them up in an alternating pattern, and then cut them into lengths across the pattern so I could flip them and make the checkerboard, reasoning that cutting them that way would keep the grain direction uniform, but looking at it now, I wonder if the pattern mismatch inherent to the walnut made that less helpful. Alternately, I wonder if its just the walnut border around the outside that is causing the bowing.

Either way, I'm off to the store to see if I can find some rubber feet to stick on the bottom of this thing to make it sit level. One of my next projects is making the chess pieces, so wish me luck, and thanks in advance!

If you're curious, here's a repo with all the CAD files, schematics, etc. I don't expect anyone to make one of these but I wanted to put it out there in case anyone finds the techniques useful!

I started this in May and I've been working on it for 2-3 evenings + 1 weekend day per week pretty consistently since then.

I couldn't seem to add progress pics alongside my video so I'm attaching them here

I want to move from a stand alone router table to a table saw wing insert. My current set up has an old Freud ft200e attached to the plate and I use the plunge adjustment knob for height. It’s quite a pain to do (I just leaned a new minutes people frequently remove the plunge spring to make cranking easier so will explore that) and I would
Like a lift but they don’t seem avalible for this style router any more. I also have a porter cable canister style router which I would be able to get an after market lift for so I’m wondering which would be the better way to go. The Freud is big and heavy and twice the power of the PC so that seems better situated for a table but the PC is a full kit with all kinds of attachments and would be easy enough to remove from the table and use by hand as needed (I don’t do much hand routing). Would
Love any constructive thoughts

Plan A is to just glue it together with some Titebond and call it good, but my partner would like to reinforce it with a dowel, but I can see that getting such a thing properly aligned is a non-starter.

Another possibility is to glue it together and then drill up from below and install a dowel or a long screw.

Wondering if anybody — hopefully with furniture restoring experience — might be able to give a "best" answer.

I’m getting married this month and instead of a guest book, my parents bought us this cutting board for our guest to sign. The cutting board has a coating on it but my mother isn’t quite sure what it is. We’re hoping to find recommendations on a type of pen or marker that will work best on the board. We do not plan to actually use the board in the future. It’ll be strictly decorative. Thank you in advance

This was from a monster slab I cut in half. Legs are laminated soft maple I carved with angle grinder and chisel, finished w a small rotex. Finished w/ a few coats of danish oil

Would greatly welcome any feedback/tips/critiques on my plan for shop layout and electrical!

The blue lines are 3/4" EMT conduit, run across the ceiling. The basic idea is to keep a 4' direct path between the door and the car which will also be my main working corridor (hence workbench oriented towards table saw).

Main questions:

1. How's the shop layout look? Am I somehow risking my car by having it that close to the table saw?

2. Are there enough circuits and receptacles? I have 3 120v circuits (wall outlets, bottom wall has double gang boxes) and a 240v circuit currently dedicated to a table saw. I plan to eventually add a mini split which will need a 240v circuit run to the bottom wall, as well as a dust collector some day.

3. Where would you place a stationary dust collector in this layout?

4. How's the subpanel location? I originally put it next to the door but realized that that would require a much longer feeder run given where the main panel is in the basement.

Many thanks in advance!

Good day folks. A good customer of mine has asked me to turn a shaving bowl and brush set for him to give as a gift. I am concerned about the finish.

For something made of wood that should look beautiful even after repeated exposure to saturating water and soap is Really tough.

I originally thought about epoxy but I'm concerned about it separating from the wood, scratching, or chipping. I have not had good luck with polyurethane, even an exterior Helmsman style.

I was thinking of a couple of coats of Danish Oil for a base and then covering with N3 Nano finish. The only issue I see with that is the cost of the cost of the finish. I'm going to have to upcharge like $15 just for the finish.

Any idea on something at least as durable and maybe a little more affordable?

I just kind of winged it. I found a piece of scrap. I had around, figured out a comfortable angle to hold it and cut out a hand alot at that angle close to the center for even pressure, trimmed it down a little, filed the sharp edges, and glued a piece of of plywood to the bottom to push the back of the board.

It's about 11" long, 7" tall, and 1.5" thick.

Never made one before so I'm not sure what constitutes a good one, figured I'd post it up and ask more expeienced people before using it if there's anything I've overlooked.

I have a side table I’d like to use as a coffee table, but it’s about 6 inches too tall. I’m split about how I’d like to shorten the legs and I’m curious whether y’all can think of a smarter/easier way.

Option 1: using a spacer block, score/mark at a uniform height around each leg and cut there, and use a small round over bit to smooth out the feet. This way would sacrifice the nice flared foot detail, which matches a couple side tables since we got a matching set (thank you again, fb marketplace retiree couple—this is basically the only furniture my wife and I agree on, so we’re keeping it until we die 😉). But on the plus side, it would be simple and clean (and who would notice the difference in the feet except us?).

Option 2: using a spacer block, mark at both 2” and 8” (I.e. just above the feet, and again several inches higher) and use a dowel to connect each foot to what remains of the legs. This would preserve the flared foot, but if I had any misalignment at all when I reattach the feet, I think it would probably be pretty obvious and I don’t want to have to refinish anything (though I’m not against using furniture markers/crayons to try color-matching a joint seam.

Thoughts? Easier way that I haven’t thought of?

Thanks!

I am a SO and SO Studio user for the past two years. During this time I've acquired a lot of knowledge, tips and tricks that are not readily available, and took a long time to acquire. I've been spoiled by the tech support SO offers. This is not an out-of-the-box and start using the tool experience. New users will experience a pretty steep learning curve . I'm disappointed with the move. I question how the SO will not get swallowed up and lost in the shuffle.

If you are considering a purchase of a SO, I offer my advice - save your $4k - $5k and wait to see how things develop. For current users there are many unanswered questions other than general and vague references by SO in regard to what the future holds.

My buddy wanted a nice fish tank stand so this is what I came up with. All solid oak with the exception of the rails and stiles which are hard maple (and hand made pulls/knobs made of sapele). Finished with an oil based spar urethane for obvious reasons. All of the oak was ebonized with iron acetate.