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Woodworking

Woodworking

I bought all my woodworking tools after deciding to make my own kitchen cabinets. I researched the price of all the toos I would need and the wood and in the end I still wouldn't have spent as much as if I had bought new cabinets. So I bought the tools. I decided I would start making some smaller projects to get use to them and learn more about woodworking. Below are some of my projects.

New Shop!!


Here are some pictures of my new workshop! boy it sure is nice having a workshop in your basement. No more cleaning up and pushing away all your tools everytime your done for the evening. Just turn off the radio, turn off the lights and shut the door. My basement was perfectly suited for it. Their is one section that has concrete on three walls and is under the opposite side of the house as the living room and bedrooms. I just spent some extra time insulating it to further reduce sound. You can see I put the dust collecter in a closet under the stairs and insulated that as well. I really helps keep the noise down. I have a 9 foot foundation (1 foot deeper than standard) so I have plenty of headroom as well. It is sealed off from the rest of the house quite well so I haven't had any problems with dust. I also ran an air line from my garage into the shop from my air compressor. I had an electrician friend run a seperate 100 Amp pannel so I'll never run out of juice!

Projects:

Entertainment Rack
This was my first project I made prior to bying the woodworking tools. I looked around at all the major stores and just couldn't find the equipment rack I liked. Finally searching on the web I found one I liked...too bad it wasn't sold in the US! Frustrated I took their idea and ran with it. In the end mine has one additional shelf and is made to fit my equipment. Here's a Visio drawing of it.

Here's the same drawing only in a .jpg format.
Here are some pics of it completed: Entertainment Rack Pics


CD Cabinet
This was the first project I made with my new tools. It was quite a bit harder than I anticipated but came out wonderfull. It was made for a friend of mine and his wife for a wedding present. I got the plans from a great show on the DIY channel called Woodworks. Here's a link for the show: CD Cabinet Link

Here are some pics of it completed: CD Cabinet Pics

Coffee Table
My second project was a coffee table I designed from scratch. It's made out of Maple and Walnut. The approns are tied to the legs with mortise and tennon joints. The legs I used an interesting process to use two pieces of stock, glue them together and then cut them on the diagonal. The result is a leg with no visible seams because the seams are on the corners. Pretty slick but I have to say I think it was more effort than it was worth. If I had to do it again I'd probably get ahold of some thicker stock to start with. But hey, that's the fun of woodworking. You always learn something new.

Here are some pics of it completed: Coffee Table Pics
Here's a Visio drawing of it.

Speaker Stands
This is a project I started in my old house in the garage shop. Then had the joy of finishing it in my new shop! The new shop pictures are above. Boy it's amazing how much faster you can finish a project when you have a shop dedicated for woodworking. No more cleaning up and puting away all the tools everytime your done for the evening. Plus all your tools are already out and set up when you start working again.

Pics of them completed coming soon: Speaker Stands
Here's a Visio drawing of it.

Fireplace Mantle
My first paying job! Greg, a friend of mine also found on the dirtbike pages asked if I could build a fireplace mantle for his new custom home and I said OK. Well, the plans showed for, and he requested a 6' long by 10" deep by about 3-4" thick mantle. I turned it out for about $200 in wood plus a couple of router bits. Of course it couldn't be that simple. As I've learned, don't make custom fit projects without first tediously measuring what it's going on. As it turned out due to construction needs the mantle was actually only about 5 1/2' wide with two 45 degree angles on each side. (You can see this in the pics) So I had to take the mantle I so carefully made 6' wide, whacked off the ends and made it wrap around the fireplace. Long story short, he now has a custom built SOLID oak mantle that turned out pretty good. I would guess it weighs in at somewhere around 100 pounds.

Here are some pics of it completed: Greg's Fireplace Mantle Pics

Christmas Gifts
These projects were made for Mary and I's parents for Christmas out of scraps I had in the shop from the CD cabinet and coffee table as well as some mahogony I got at an estate sale.

The first one is a jewelry box I made for my parents. It's made out of curly maple, walnut inlay and mahogony. The Mahogony I got at an estate sale real cheap. Now I've got lots of mahogony and no projects for it yet! I'm sure I'll find something.

The other project is a candle holder I made for Mary's parents. It's made out of Walnut and curly maple.

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