Fancy Tea Light Holder

Since I earn my keep as a teacher, the end of the spring semester can be quite chaotic; add to that a rapidly growing first child, and (as I've said before) my shop time is often quite spread out.

One of the projects I actually managed to get done this spring was a Mothers Day gift for my mom. In one of those sudden and unexpected dashes of pure inspiration (motivated by the fact that Mothers Day was only 48 hours away), the design popped into my head after my wife casually suggested that I make a candle holder.

I started out by determining a good scale for the project. Tea lights, those tiny little candles many people put in jack-o-lanterns, are about 1 1/2 inches across and about half an inch high, so I figured I'd space them about half an inch apart and add a half inch around the outside. I decided that three candles was all I needed, so this gave me my length and width: 6 1/2" by 2 1/2", give or take.

I grabbed some of my black walnut stock and cut two pieces to a little over size, with the intent of laminating them with a piece of red oak between. I drilled a hole for each candle in the top board using a Forstner bit, stopping the depth to match the candle height. Once I stacked the pieces up, though, I was troubled by the total thickness. I also didn't like the little divots at the bottom left by the brad point on my drill bit.

Ultimatlely, I wound up resawing the top board so that the red oak was visible at the bottom of each candle socket. This created a pleasing look, allowing the two wood species to contrast more (even though the oak bottoms of the sockets will be covered by candles), but just as important, it reduced the blockiness of the piece and created three layers with distinct thicknesses.

The magic of chamfer bits. And hand sanding.

I then hit all the edges with a chamfer bit on my fancy new router table setup. A light chamfer everywhere but the bottom edges, where the chamfer was a full half inch. I sanded everything up to 220, and then I embarked on my first experience with spray lacquer.

I referred to Steve Ramsey's instructions for applying spray lacquer, and I must say, this process produces fast and satisfying results -- despite my apparent efforts to screw it up. A hint: if the lacquer begins to run because you've sprayed too much, try rolling the piece over -- DO NOT try to wipe off the excess, or you might end up having to sand the entire surface again and start over.

The end result was fabulous -- my mother loved it, my sisters are jealous, and my wife asked me to make an even bigger one for our house. Which I did:

...but this one wasn't quite as smooth sailing as the first. More on that later.

Summertime, and the Living is Easy

Summer has unofficially begun, so I at long last have the opportunity to blog once again. I apologize to both of you who have been checking out The Upside-Down Tablesaw since February... My job has a funny way of intervening in my life. Now that I've reached summer vacation (guess what I do for a living), I think I'll be able to stay on top of this thing and perhaps even stockpile some content for the busy months. 

Keep checking back; I plan on new content on a regular basis, starting this week. Thanks for your interest!

Glorious, Glorious Shop Time

My wife gave me a wonderful gift today: shop time.

Now, don't go thinking that my lovely wife restricts my time in the shop. We have a 6-month-old baby and chores with which to contend, and any of you who have kids know the impact that can have on your time in the shop. Sometimes, it just doesn't happen.

But today, since I'm mostly caught up on old stuff for work, and since my brother-in-law is in town, things worked out nicely. The wife and daughter headed up to visit, and I got to delve into the pit of chaos that is my shop. It seems that, before I got sick, I had made quite a mess out there.

So I spent some time cleaning up, made a little progress on my Workbench, and picked some stock to use for a new cutting board I'm going to make soon. Not the most productive of days, and certainly not the most fun -- the progress to which I referred was an hour or so of sanding -- but it was extremely rewarding. Sure, my back aches, and there is little to show for my time, but actually to have gotten out there to do something was a milestone.

So I'll be updating you soon on the new cutting board; it won't be much different from the ones I made for Christmas, but I'll try to document the process better. And I hope to have the base of my Workbench completed in the next couple of weeks -- depending, of course, on when I get more shop time.

And soon, I hope, I will begin featuring some of my favorite YouTube woodworkers. I've gotten pretty excited about that since I first though of it.

Get Sickworking Week

So I wrote a piece for Get Woodworking Week, in which I urged people to get over whatever fears they have or inadequacies they perceive and make something. I talked about being sick, which I was, and about how I was eager to get back in the shop.

Turned out I was fighting bronchitis. Not fun.

I missed most of a week of work, and then I spent the next several days making up for all the extra chores my wife had to do while I was laid up. Now, I'm buried under a pile of things to catch up on at work.

The long and short of it is that I will not be getting any shop time in the next week or two (at least), let alone very much time to blog about what I'm not building.

In the meantime, I will try to share some interesting woodworking things I've come across. I discovered as I was convalescing that the YouTube woodworking community has exploded with new content -- I think I'm now subscribed to more than two dozen woodworking channels! Everything from pros to hobbyists; every skill level from master to beginner. Until I am able to get back in the shop, I think I'm going to highlight these fine folks, hopefully encouraging them to keep on putting up new content.

In the meantime, folks, please think of me the next time you make some sawdust.

It's "Get Woodworking Week"...and I'm sick.

And I have a job. And a baby. And my drill is broken. And I have chores. And I don't know anyone who might be interested in visiting my shop (the customary activity during GWW) that I wouldn't be embarrassed to show my skill level. And I might screw up that batch of nice (insert fancily-named lumber here) if I don't take my time.

And so on.

Since I've started blogging about woodworking, it seemed a good idea to go ahead and write something up about Get Woodworking Week. At first, I thought it'd be cool to share a project I've completed -- or, at least, am working on. But my shop time is so limited that I didn't think there'd be much to share. Then, I thought, maybe I should write about stuff I'm planning to work on.

Eh.

Finally, I realized that I'm Doing It Again. I'm coming up with excuses not to start; reasons that my contribution won't matter, or -- shudder -- will make things worse. It dawned on me that part of the reason my projects drag on longer than I'd prefer is that I always have to overcome my fear of screwing it up. Once I've made myself start, this fear continues to create inertia whenever I encounter a complex setup or an operation that requires great precision. It's a constant battle for me -- especially when coupled with my short attention span.

I've learned, however, that it's not just me. Other people struggle to get started, too -- and not just in woodworking. It affects jobs and relationships, too (how long did you put off asking that special someone out on a date?).

So, since I have a legit excuse for not woodworking today (cough, cough), I will write about Getting Woodworking. And here's what I have to say about it:

JUST GET STARTED!

That, to me, is the essence of GWW. While it's wonderful and admirable to bring your friend or child into the shop in the hopes of inspiring someone to learn the craft, we have to engage in the craft ourselves. Surely we didn't dive into what can be an expensive hobby merely to amass tools we'll never use, right?

So what is stopping you? Apart from actual excuses, such as pressing obligations and day-to-day responsibilities, maybe there's some old hang-up that keeps you from putting blade to wood. I wouldn't be surprised to find that many people suffer from the same fear that I confessed, but whatever is holding you back doesn't matter. Resolve to go out into your shop (or garage, or patio, or toolshed, or driveway)this week and MAKE SOMETHING.

If you got into woodworking, chances are it's because you have a creative streak. Stop apologizing for it or diminishing it. The reason most adults draw like children is that they stopped learning how to do it as children, a time when, in our own minds, all of our work is The Most Amazing Thing Ever. It stands to reason, then, that if you learn a new craft as an adult, the learning curve can be frustrating.If you're new to woodworking, don't be ashamed of the first few doorstops -- er, projects -- that you make; they're all learning experiences. You may be too old anymore to appreciate having Mommy hang your first stupid project on the wall, but that's not why you made it in the first place.You had something to say; a desire to add something to the world that bears a piece of you (metaphorically, I hope). The fact that you stepped out and created something new -- even if it's a total rip-off of someone else's design, it didn't exist until you made it -- has brought something wonderful into the world.

So, just do it. Go make a bandsaw box. Don't have a bandsaw? Make a stepstool. No router? Make a simple shelf. No drill? Make a storage box. No wood? Go find a pallet and rip it apart.

I can't begin to describe how envious I am of those who, like me, have a little free time right now, but are also well enough to make some sawdust. Unfortunately, table saws and groggy heads are, shall we say, a recipe for a messy shop. I also am a little worried that my medicine-head has made this post seem a bit more eloquent and less preachy than it really is; if not, forgive me.

But Get Woodworking.

And Now For Something Completely Different

SPAX screws are your friend.

So, my Christmas vacation ended, and I'm now back to the daily grind. Shop time is now at a premium, so when an opportunity arose last weekend to make some sawdust, I jumped at it. The only problem was that I'd only have a couple of hours. What to do?

Should I continue with The Workbench? I'm now at the point of assembling the base, but once I begin that, I can't stop. I didn't relish the idea of starting that process and screwing it up because I was rushing. I decided I needed to do something else with my small amount of shop time.

Naturally, I bit off more than I could chew and settled on installing a lumber rack.

Now this project has been on my to-do list for some time -- even when we lived in our old house, I had wanted to put one up. Now, though, with a significantly larger lumber stash, my shop floor was becoming a mess (not to mention a trip hazard). I felt this was a reasonable choice to make, and I was sure I could knock it out in a few hours.

Heh.

I have cement block walls in my garage shop, which meant drilling a lot of holes into concrete, not to mention cutting and drilling the studs and building the brackets. And installing them. Oh, and moving all of my lumber out of the shop first. Sheesh...

I started off by mounting a horizontal 2x4 along the wall because the base of the wall sloped away from plumb. This made it impossible to have the studs rest on the floor. I used six SPAX screws, each rated for 750 lbs, to anchor it.

Pilot holes in the studs

I counter-bored the studs through the side at about 1 1/2" in order to allow my 4" SPAX screws to have enough purchase when they reached the pilot holes in the block wall. I used four of these screws in each stud.

One thing I discovered is that one of the studs had a bit more twist than I realized. It didn't show up until I mounted a bracket to it, and I'm not really concerned about it causing an issue other than being an eye sore.

The brackets were lengths of 2x4 sandwiched between pieces of 5/8" plywood. I dispensed with the tapering of the plywood sides because -- as I indicated above -- I have a tendency to cut corners when I am rushing.

Starting to look like a wood shop!

So this took me two weekends. I used the design I'd seen Marc Spagnuolo and Drew Short use in their shops, and so far, it hasn't collapsed. It was awfully nice to get all that lumber off the floor and out of the corner! Next shop plan: using that wall space in the corner to hang my jigs and (hopefully) clamps and getting rid of that stupid shelf I previously used to store my 4' pieces.

And, of course, The Workbench.

The Workbench (Part 3)

As I said last time, I was kicking around the idea of building a tenoning jig to cut the tenons for the long stretchers. As I went out into the shop to start work on the tenons, I suddenly remembered this Fine Woodworking article featuring a "slick tenoning jig" made from phenolic plywood. Just for funsies, I looked up the cost of phenolic plywood and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the price at Woodcraft. Thankfully, I had a nice big scrap of B/C grade 3/4" plywood and a can of paste wax to make mine just as slick and just as serviceable (and a bit simpler) for the cost of a little shop time.

Here's theirs...

...and here's mine.

Toggle clamps? We don't need no stinking toggle clamps!

A 48" stretcher ready for tenoning.

Truth be told, I had to build a straight-edge router jig in order to cut the dadoes in the tenon jig, so in essence, I built a jig to build a jig -- every woodworker's dream!

The test cuts went quite well, so I ventured to throw my 48" stretchers up onto the jig and cut away. The great thing about this jig is that you can batch out all of your cuts, which allows you to work pretty quickly but with a great deal of precision. In fact, you can even sneak up pretty close to your layout lines if you dare (and if your blade is dead-on vertical). You start by setting the depth of cut along the width of the tenon cheeks. Clamp the workpiece to the jig, run it through the table saw, flip the workpiece, and cut the other cheek. Then, you set the cut for the thickness of the tenon and follow the same procedure. After cutting all the tenons this way, I intend to use my crosscut sled to trim off the waste and reveal my tenons in all their glory. Note that I deliberately left the tenons a touch thick in both directions so that I can fine tune the fit.

My first tenon. I'm so proud.

I will admit that the jig can be a bit tricky with such a large workpiece. It already has a tendency to tip forward if it pinches the rip fence too much at the front. If I make another of these in the future, I might make it longer than the 12" the article recommends. Or I might try a jig I saw consisting of an adjustable plywood fence inside a deep crosscut sled. (Check it out on YouTube; it's pretty cool.) At any rate, though, the resulting tenon was dead-on square and exactly the measurements I need to finesse the fit.


Unfortunately, I ran out of gas pretty early on this particular day, and I can get pretty lazy and sloppy when I'm tired, so I called it a day before crosscutting and paring. I managed to get one tenon cut and ready for some finesse work, though, and I was pretty pleased with the results. Due to my lazy-tired state, though, I realized I was trying to pare with a chisel that needed honing and thus risking a mangled tenon. Not good.

Leg assembly glued up.

Oh, and I glued up the leg assemblies! I only have enough clamps to do one side at a time, and none of them are big enough to clamp the top stretchers down (hence the orange cargo straps), but it worked. Nice and square -- but I have to do a little fine tuning of the feet. I probably should have trimmed the ends after gluing up the legs. Oh well.

Hey, nice legs!

The Workbench (Part 1)
The Workbench (Part 2)