This was a fun, quick to build project. It was originally intended for our son to learn wholesome lessons in gardening, but I made it too big, so I gave it to my sister-in-law.
The legs are actually fir I had leftover, and the rest is cedar.
And you can never have too many clamps:
Here’s a simple mitered box to hold my wife’s jewelry:
It is a straightforward mitered box with butt hinges:
The bottom is lined with leather, under cherry dividers held in place only with friction:
The lid has a simple lip that I made with a rasp and then sanded smooth:
Here it is unfinished:
And here, finished with satin Arm-R-Seal:
After having sanding discs, squares and blocks loose in a drawer for a while — here, shown more organized than usual —
I decided to make up a quick box to organize the materials:
I made it from leftover 3/8″ plywood with 1/4″ dividers. They’re adjustable, but I don’t ever adjust them. And now the drawer looks like this:
Ahh.
Our cheap kitchen table was falling apart, so I undertook to make a new one that was better constructed and slightly bigger. After looking over a variety of woods, I chose vertical grain Douglas fir for its warm color, relatively simple grain pattern, and mid-range cost. I followed the plan from the book “Dining Tables.” Here is the result:
I began with the table top, milling the boards and clamping them with cauls:
Then the base. This would be my first attempt at mortise and tenons. Here’s the start of the aprons cut to length, without tenons:
And here is the start of mortising the legs – this was painful, even with a mortising machine:
Then, tapering the legs using a tapering jig on the table saw:
Then, making the corresponding tenons on the aprons – this was done with a regular blade on the table saw, and was less painful.
Here are the legs and aprons complete:
Table base assembled, with groove for the z-clips to hold the tabletop:
Installed corner blocks:
Testing out the table top:
Finished with about five coats of satin Arm-R-Seal:
Jared MacDonald Woodworking 