Frontin'

With the hanging cabinet project, I saved the hardest part for the end - the drawers. Because the base is bowed, the drawer construction takes on an added element of difficulty. In this episode, I tackle fitting and shaping the drawer fronts from a single piece of mahogany. In many ways, I assumed that by doing a smaller project like this would actually make construction easier. But in reality, the diminutive size can actually make things a bit tricker in some cases, such as the drawer fronts. But why would I want to make thing easy on myself?

Making Lemonade

Moving along in my hanging wall cabinet project, I was really starting to feel like I was getting my groove back. In this next phase of the project, however, I needed to tackle some tricky joinery with some fairly thin stock. While this project originally seemed like a good way to ease myself back into woodworking game shape, I quickly realized the joinery I decided to use - stopped dados and sliding dovetails - wasn't going to be quite a easy as I hoped.

As it turns out, my biggest challenge actually had little to do with experience, technique, or materials. But rather a simple design flaw in a tool that can be found in almost every shop. In this episode, you can find out where I ran into trouble and how I plan to make lemons out of lemonade.

How Bois got his groove back...

Sometimes, despite your best intentions you just can't always find time to get into the shop. I hear it all the time from fellow woodworkers, but I was sure I was immune to this terrible condition. Well it finally happened to me - for about the last nine months. But I was not discouraged. I believe that in many ways woodworking is just like riding a bike - you hop back on and it all comes back. But when it comes to more refined techniques and skills, these are things you need to hone on a regular basis to stay in shape.

So with a big project looming in the future, I was a bit hesitant to just jump right back on the saddle. I decided to design something that would help me hone those skills again with a lower risk factor, while also resulting in something I could be proud of and share. You know, something to help me get my groove back. So this next episode is what I call my "groove" project. And as I'm finding out, this will take on a double meaning as you get into a few episodes. If nothing else, I hope I can inspire some folks who have been arm-chair quarterbacking to get back in the game. Or back it the saddle. Or whatever metaphor works best for you. Enjoy!

The Customer is Always Right

I had planned to start my tool chest build by now (in fact the SketchUp plans are already done). However, in the mean time I got a few paying commissions in that I couldn't pass up. So rather than going black on the blog until I get to the tool cabinet, I though I would share footage of a few customer projects. They are all very unique in one way or another, which is why commissions can be a nice change of pace. This first project is a media/speaker cabinet that a client came to me with. He did the design himself, and just handed me the specs to go ahead and build. This was specified as paint grade, so this will use different materials and joinery than you would see me use in some of my traditional furniture projects. My shop isn't exactly set up for sheet goods, so you'll see how I managed to get this monster started without doing any damage to myself or the shop. I also needed to build a dado jig for this project, as it has several dozen dados connecting the shelves and partitions. Thanks to Wood Magazine for providing a great set of plans for a great adjustable router jig.

QuickTime Version (Right click to download)