clair064

A Home for My Tools I spent all that money on nice quality hand tools, and they're sitting on a shelf in my basement. The problem here is that dust sits on them. Dust contains salt which attracts water which rusts tools. So I need to build a cabinet to keep them cozy. I had decided to make a wall hanging tool cabinet before I ever read The Anarchist's Tool Chest, and Schwarz's words

A wooden mallet. Hammer time! I had some quartersawn white oak leftover from Brandi's mirror so I laminated a couple bits of that together and made this in a couple hours. I wish I spent more time on the handle ergonomics, but it works fine and gets the job done.

Dovetail Markers and a Saddle Square Dovetail stuff In preparation for starting to cut dovetails by hand, I decided to make (instead of buy) dovetail markers. These little doohickies allow you to draw the angle for the pin or tail while also drawing the corresponding plum line without having to switch between a bevel and a square.  Since I wasn't sure which angle I preferred, I decided to

From left to right: Shooting Board, and two Bench Hooks Helpers Holding wood still while you work on it is step one. Bench hooks, holdfasts, vises, and clamps hold wood still. Making square cuts is step two. The shooting board has a 90 degree fence so you can plane the end of a board squarely. I had some scrap plywood so I whipped these up in a few minutes. They work. As that was all

English-style "Schwarzian" Saw Benches A couple saw benches I made these with some scrap Hem-Fir that was leftover from my workbench project. I followed Christopher Schwarz's plan from Popular Woodworking Magazine, though I'll admit I found the instructions confusing and the design lacking. Compared to the other stuff I've been building, these saw benches are pretty flimsy, and while I

Practice Practice Practice Schwarz wrote an article. I mulled it over. I waited until I had my workbench. I waited until I had my saw. I waited until I had some scrap wood. I waited until I had some free time. I even waited until I had a marking knife and a marking gauge.  It might seem like I waited too long, but I was busy.  I wanted to make sure I had enough room in my

Cape Cods Contain Characteristically Cozy Closets So we kicked in the wall in one of the eaves upstairs and built a 15 foot wide, 5 foot deep, 4.5 foot tall closet that can fit 10 huge rubbermaid tubs, my tall dresser, and 11 feet of clothes rod. The existing closet got turned into a glorified shoe closet with the addition of multiple full length shelves. I also added 3 large shelves

I got into handtools I'm not really sure where this idea came from. I've been reading a lot of woodworking magazines and books, watching entire backlogs of woodworking tv shows and instructional videos... Somewhere along the way I ended up adopting the notion that, for certain operations, hand tools are more efficient, safer, quieter, and more enjoyable than power tools. A

Blanket Chest a la Norm Abram I followed the plans in the New Yankee Workshop book as I was under strict instructions to make something fast and cheap.  Grandma didn't want me to go spending a lot of time and money on this thing. So pine, and Norm's frame and plywood panel plans it is. The pine was full of pitch and it got all over the tools.  What a pain to clean it off.  Other than

A wedding gift for Brandi... I told Brandi that I wanted to make her something for her wedding present and she got to pick. She said her father had a dressing mirror her whole life and that she always wanted one of her own. We looked through a few different styles and she picked the one made by Stickley - which worked out well for me as that's the one I wanted to make anyway. I took

So many parts... We remodeled the kitchen (again, but for real this time). We kept the base structure of the existing cabinets and I built 20 new cabinet doors, 12 drawer faces, an 8 foot kitchen peninsula/island/baking center, red oak hardwood floor, new ceilings, lights, electrical, heating ducts, knocked a wall down, paint, garage door, front door, shelves over the windows, etc. The