My wife Adriana has a lot of costume jewelry as well as some nice fine jewelry. She asked me last year to make her a jewelry box that's big enough for everything. I, of course, went overboard. I've designed it and redesigned it about four times now. But I'm sort of committed to the latest design. This will be, by far, the most...

I began looking for design ideas and taking measurements in late November 2017. I created a basic Sketchup model at that time, and then worked on it through the holidays. I finished the overal structure of the design and finalized the dimensions in mid January. I went to purchase the plywood and secondary wood material january 20th, 2018...

Completed in two nights after work. I opted for a simple miter cut on each corner and I just reinforced the frame with metal corner brackets on the back. Quick and simple. I didn't want to mess around with any fancy miter joints due to the risk of attempting to outshine the artwork.  The piece itself is supposed to represent a crowd...

Update 10/8/2017 - Working on the face vice . . . and there is a problem.Update 9/4/2017 - Installed the wagon vice. Turned a set of bench dogs out of maple.Update 8/13/2017 - Pinned the top to the legs.Update 7/5/2017 - Just shy of the sixth anniversary of this project. Like some cathedrals, I suspect the world will have changed and the...

I got started in early September on this. I went and bought some plain clear pine at the local Home Depot. I didn't want anything difficult to work with, especially with all of my recent efforts to shape hard-as-hell maple.  I bought a set of  3/4" thick 6" wide boards and glued up a 24" by 24" square. No biscuits or dowels. It...

2/20/2016 -- Started designing the aviary. Ordered the cage material.2/25/2016 -- Received the cage material. 2/27/2016 -- Went out and bought construction-grade untreated lumber, southern yellow pine. Started cutting it down to 1 3/4" by 1 1/2"posts. (The Sketchup design shows 2"x2", but I need to maximize the lumber, so I just...

I had no router table in my workshop, and only a single 1 3/4hp fixed speed Porter Cable router to work with at the time.  So I decided to build one. This was one of my 'Quick and Dirty' projects. I didn't want anything fancy, just something sturdy.  In the woodworking world, there is almost nothing written about more when it...

My son Liam is now seven. He just joined the Cub Scouts this past August, and we've been going through the rituals of father-son bonding. Most of this has been driven by my wife, who recently read a book about how son's need their father to guide them at this critical age, taking them "across the bridge" to manhood. I've welcomed this...

As I mentioned in the Arduino timer project page, I've built a track so that my son Liam can test his Pinewood derby cars. Despite how obnoxious that sounds, I really did just want to do this to support his 2nd grade science fair project.  The idea here was to take lumber I had on hand and build something that could serve as a...