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General

Featured Entries

Retirement

I had enough time working at the fire dept to draw a small pension when I turned 55. Being 41 at that time something kept telling me to go and do something else with the rest of my life... My wife was an RN but not working so she could raise the kids so I knew she could go back to work if my ventures went bad.   I want to build a nice,big go-cart track. WHAT, say that again. There aren't any go-cart tracks around here, how do you know you could make any money was my kids questions
Smallpatch

How I got this started

Where to start is to determine just what do you want to use the bench for. At the time for me it was flatwork and planing. I looked at many plans and decided on parts of several. Not sure where each part came from but the contributing plans were in Wood Magazine, Shop Notes and Popular Mechanics.   I started with the vices. Both are Lee Valley and maybe even paid full price. They are both front vices but one is mounted on the end. Next is to decide on the wood. I wanted White Oak and i
Gerald

Seam Rippers For My Sister And Mom

My Mom is 91 (this past Monday) and she still sews and makes clothes. I noticed she had an the same seam ripper for years so I thought I'd make her a new one for Christmas- but it turned out to be a birthday gift. However when making one it's just as easy to make two so the other one will be for my sister for Christmas.    I bought the kits from Craft Supplies because I needed some other stuff that I can only find at their site. Making the rippers is pretty straight forward, especially
lew
  • lew

Lets talk Photography

Here is a topic that may not come up often enough. I am not a professional and do tend to point and shoot, but there are some basics we can all benefit from.   Lets start with equipment. A good camera helps, but there lots of them. I like SLR's and have been using them since the early 80's. Now using DSLR. There are plenty of compact cameras out there that will work also. Important is being able to change settings from A,to T to P,or portrait or macro and capability to
Gerald
  • Gerald

The Big Night

The last blog post we left off with the completion of the "appreciation awards" for our veterans who work for our school district. This blog we'll check in and see what took place the night of the Big Night. Our girls and the club members really worked hard to make this a wonderful event for our school district employee veterans. On the invitations the veterans were encouraged to arrive in full dress uniform, and many did! It was a wonderful sight. Below are a couple images of some of the vetera
John Morris

Part 3:

Part 3: The work space in my shop is so small that I needed to build this project in stages. With the top finished, it was time to move on to the legs of the base. The entire base frame is made from poplar and the minister is going to paint it white. His specs were for full 4” x 4” legs. I suppose I could have gotten 16/4 poplar boards but those pieces would have been so large and heavy that I don’t think I could have manhandled them through the milling processes. I started with 5/4 boards
lew
  • lew

Part 2:

Part 2: This build was not going to be particularly difficult. My biggest concern was the maple top. I’ve built smaller edge grain tops before so the process was not unfamiliar; however, the staggered shorter length field pieces had me scratching my head about clamping and gluing. Also, I needed to consider the size of the top versus the capabilities of my shop equipment. My Dewalt 735 planer maxes out at around 13” wide and my little shop made drum sander can only handle very small work.
lew
  • lew

Part 1- the concept

The Pastor’s Table or I Think My Sister Is Trying To Buy My Way Into Heaven -  (borrowing a title concept from Rocky and Bullwinkle) Part 1: I think my sister believes my past transgression’s slate can be, at least in part, wiped clean by building furniture for the church she attends. The latest installment is a kitchen island/work table for the church’s kitchen. The pastor emailed me a picture of a table he thought would work but wanted something larger and with slightly di
lew
  • lew

Completed Veterans Awards

Well we left off with our veterans appreciation plaques sanded to 150 in the last blog, and here we are with some images that will bring us to the completion of the project. After I sanded all the awards to 150 I continued on through the grits up to 600, I was happy with the burnished sheen the plaques were developing. And I decided enough was enough, time for some finish! I would typically mix my own wipe on oil, but I had a can of Watco Danish Oil sitting around and decided to use it, and not
John Morris

Project Introduction

    My name is John Morris, and I am the founder of The Patriot Woodworker. Our community was founded on the principles of sharing, mentoring, and learning from fellow woodworkers, and above all, we have one thing in common, we all support the men and women who serve our nation. And we pretty much take on any task or challenge for our veterans that is asked of us, with the help of our sponsors. &
John Morris

Military Challenge Coin Display Build

Thank you for joining us. Below is the Military Challenge Coin Display as described by The Patriot Woodworker network. This is a design that we drew up with the help of designs seen all over the web, it is easy to build, most folks have the tools that are necessary to build it, and the finishing process is quite simple. If you don't have the tools that I am using, your sure to find a way around that, as this is as I said, very simple to build. This basic display is 12" long, 4 1/2" deep, 1 1/8"
Courtland

The Gun Case Final

The final installment of this project is just a little follow-up on the last details. My friend supplied the hardware and liner for me to install. The latches snap securely and installed easily, as did the hinges. The only caveat was that the sides of the case were 1/2" thick and the screws were a little longer. The difference isn't noticeable due to the type of liner he chose. The short protruding nibs actually help keep the foam in place.   I had never worked w
lew
  • lew

Part #5 Gluing, Drilling and Splitting

Once everything was properly fitted, the case was disassembled and prepped for gluing. I had previously sanded all of the pieces to 150 grit- except the top and bottom. Those two were sanded to 220 grit due to the difficulty of sanding them in place. I taped the locations where the dovetails intersected- on the inside of the box- to help eliminate a lot of glue squeeze out cleanup. Assembled one end and two sides. Dropped in the top and bottom. Then glued in the last end piece. Some clamps, chec
lew
  • lew

Part #4 The Top and Bottom

Having solved the problem of the non-supported dovetails in the lid, I made a dry fit of the sides and ends Most often, I like to make actual measurements rather than rely on what I calculated the size of the pieces I'll need. The good old Stanley Folder is my go-to tool for this type of measurement. Once the dimensions are taken, I can size and create the top and bottom. Both pieces were made from glue-ups. The top is 1/2" stock. The bottom is created from
lew
  • lew

Part #3 Oh No! I can't Believe I Did That

The sides and ends needed to have dados to accept the top and bottom. So as not to have the dados extend through the pins, stopped dados would do the trick. These were made on the router table. 1/4" wide and 5/16" deep. It was time for a little finessing of the joints to assure everything fit. Yes, there it was staring me right in the face! How could I not see what I did. Worse yet, how am I going to fix it now?!?!?!? I picked up the test piece and it finally hit me! I
lew
  • lew

Part #2 The Dovetails

After milling and sizing the sides and ends, it was time to layout the dovetails. I use a shop made angle layout jig for the tails. I'm a tails first dovetail person. I know there are folks who do the pins first and there are valid arguments to each procedure. This is how I learned to do them and it works for me. I use a marking knife for laying out the dovetails and a marking gauge to locate the dept of cuts. As for cutting the the dovetails, I really like the Japane
lew
  • lew

Part #1 The Starting Concept

While I was building the humidor, a friend mentioned he had acquired a shotgun. He wanted a protective case but not the typical soft sided type.  We measured his gun and calculated what size the case it would take. Not too large but enough room for a couple of accessories. Using Sketchup, we eventually came up with an appropriate design. While he hadn't decided on the hardware, I now had enough information to begin working. The box is solid walnut with inside dimension
lew
  • lew

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