Matt’s Weekly Shop Update – August 25, 2017

August 26, 2017
Matt's Weekly Shop Update

I’ve been busily tearing the bandsaw mill apart so I can finish up some minor things that I never felt like doing when I built it in the winter and to paint the remaining unpainted parts. In the shop, I finished the internals of the lower highboy case.

The Highboy Project

Upcoming Events

I will be at the Minnetonka Rocker Store on Sept 2 from 9-11
12995 Ridgedale Dr
Minnetonka, MN 55305

Yandles Show: http://www.yandles.co.uk/about-yandles/28-yandles-woodworking-show

Viewer Projects

Desk by Paul

Below are some photos of an ash desk with an blue epoxy inlay. At first I was gonna fill the space with walnut but I later decided to use epoxy and die it blue. That way it looks like a river on top and a waterfall on the sides. Of coarse I couldn’t leave it like that so I added some leds below the epoxy.

However as I was pouring epoxy over the leds I noticed that the leds were popping up well above the epoxy. Thankfully, my Dad saw me struggling and came up with the idea to drive an nail through a wedge and use the weight of that to keep the leds down, which worked. The finger joints are all hand cut, they are not perfect, but I’m happy with them. The drawers are maple, which I got from a maple tree that was in front of my house, and the corners are rabbited in to place. The desk took about a month and a half and was finished with three coats of wipe on poly. Using epoxy like that was the first time and I hope to incorporate more of that into future projects.

http://www.instagram.com/paulidzior

Sliding Bookends by Michael

It’s a sliding bookends holder made of curly maple, walnut and padouk.

The two uprights slide on six dovetail tracks cut in the base and can be removed my sliding them to the center where the dovetails have been enlarged.

It’s finished in six coats of hand applied Arm-R-Seal slurry sanded between coats.

Scrap Wood Mosaic Wall Art by Russell

Materials: Poplar strips adhered to a ¼” plywood substrate.

Overall dimensions: 20″x48″

Construction: Mosaic pieces cut to size on miter saw, then fine tuned to fit together with a LOT of block plane whittling. Mosaic pieces glued to plywood base with loctite CA glue (and hot glue when I ran out of loctite, haha). Frame rabbeted to overlap mosaic by ¼”, then screwed on from the back. Hangs by routed keyholes along the top portion of the frame.

Finish: Colors are acrylic paint – to get a washed-out effect, each piece of the mosaic was hand-painted with a wet-on-wet technique to make sure the grain remained visible. My wife helped out with the colors. Each piece was painted to try to create a visual texture similar to the piece’s subject – sweeping outward lines for the needles of the evergreen, vertical streaks of alternating greens and browns for grass, and so on. After the pieces were secured, a few coats of shellac were sprayed on for good measure.

Reflection: this was going to just be a very simple project to kill the dead time while waiting on a new tool to be delivered so I could finish my “serious” project, but ended up taking a couple of days. It’s not super fancy, but it is a good use of what I had just lying around the shop. I’m definitely going to do some more of these on a smaller scale to sell at craft shows.

If anyone wants to see more of my work, they can find me here:
Facebook.com/DenetteWoodworks
Etsy.com/shop/DenetteWoodworks
Instagram: RDenette

Sofa Table by Nathan

This table is for my mom’s 60th birthday. She’s never had a piece of new or nice furniture in her life, but has been very interested in the things I’ve made since I started woodworking last month….just kidding, 1.5 years.

I had a few quartersawn walnut boards with nice figure and color so I tried to build the theme around that. The top and bottom are both book matches. For the drawer front I wanted something not quartersawn, but still interesting visually, so I found a nice piece with the figure going diagonally which I think leads the eyes from top to bottom. For the inlay I choose butternut because it’s my favorite compliment woods with walnut. It also has a nice shimmer. Drawer is also butternut, which has to be the best dovetailing wood in the entire world-no mallet required.