Wend
Established Member
Hey all,
Thought you might be interested to see what passes for woodworking around these parts, so here's what I made for my first woodworking Christmas!
My goal was partly just to experiment with different things, so I started out with an advent calendar for my wife, made from various different styls of box:
6/10 was my first attempt at a bandsaw box, which I think went pretty well. The drawers are a little looser than I would have liked, probably because my cuts weren't as smooth as they could have been, and the glue lines aren't entirely invisible, but I think it's pretty respectable.
1/12 are simple butt-jointed boxes, but are easily strong enough for the task. They actually feel like sturdy, respectable boxes.
5/11 are sliding dovetails, which was barely a success. It probably doesn't help that I used the smallest dovetail bit that I could find to make them, or that the reclaimed wood isn't of the greatest quality, but they definitely don't slide easily. They are at least openable, though, which is the main thing!
The rest are largely butt-jointed and quickly made in order to get the thing finished for Dec 1st! I'd originally hoped to experiment with dovetails, finger joints etc, but in the end time got the better of me. I used forstner bits to hollow out the middles of a number of drawers, which again was a qualified success. Sometimes bits of the walls crumbled away, which again probably wasn't helped by being reclaimed pine, but I'd really like to find somewhere to fit a small drill press. I'm not sure, but I think that sharpening the forstners bits may also be helpful.
Overall, I found not having a workbench and vice much more restrictive than I'd expected, so I'll be trying to get one together sooner rather than later.
As a bandsaw owner, no surprises that some of the boxes contained bandsaw reindeer:
These turned out better than I could have hoped. I used a Dremel to smooth some or the sharper corners, but generally didn't sand/shape them as much as I ought, as I hate hand-sanding and the Dremel isn't small enough to reach the nooks and crannies! I guess if I'm going to do more like this then I should get some rasps or something.
Also some other random animals, for no particularly good reason:
The mouse and dog have the cross section of a cat when looked at from the other direction, but I don't think that that really worked well, in part because the cat image is much narrower than the other images.
Finally, I did a "diamond painting", so made a quick frame for it:
This was also subject to time pressure, so I just did the simplest thing that would possibly work: The 4 sides of the frame aren't glued to each other, but instead are just CA glued directly to the painting, which is in turn CA glued to a sheet that used to be the back of an Ikea cupboard or something.
All in all, it was fun, I learnt a lot, and my wife enjoyed opening it, so I think overall it's been a success! I'll be trying to finish the workbench before embarking on any more projects, as I think that'll make everything else a lot easier.
Thanks to everyone here for advice on various aspects!
Thought you might be interested to see what passes for woodworking around these parts, so here's what I made for my first woodworking Christmas!
My goal was partly just to experiment with different things, so I started out with an advent calendar for my wife, made from various different styls of box:
6/10 was my first attempt at a bandsaw box, which I think went pretty well. The drawers are a little looser than I would have liked, probably because my cuts weren't as smooth as they could have been, and the glue lines aren't entirely invisible, but I think it's pretty respectable.
1/12 are simple butt-jointed boxes, but are easily strong enough for the task. They actually feel like sturdy, respectable boxes.
5/11 are sliding dovetails, which was barely a success. It probably doesn't help that I used the smallest dovetail bit that I could find to make them, or that the reclaimed wood isn't of the greatest quality, but they definitely don't slide easily. They are at least openable, though, which is the main thing!
The rest are largely butt-jointed and quickly made in order to get the thing finished for Dec 1st! I'd originally hoped to experiment with dovetails, finger joints etc, but in the end time got the better of me. I used forstner bits to hollow out the middles of a number of drawers, which again was a qualified success. Sometimes bits of the walls crumbled away, which again probably wasn't helped by being reclaimed pine, but I'd really like to find somewhere to fit a small drill press. I'm not sure, but I think that sharpening the forstners bits may also be helpful.
Overall, I found not having a workbench and vice much more restrictive than I'd expected, so I'll be trying to get one together sooner rather than later.
As a bandsaw owner, no surprises that some of the boxes contained bandsaw reindeer:
These turned out better than I could have hoped. I used a Dremel to smooth some or the sharper corners, but generally didn't sand/shape them as much as I ought, as I hate hand-sanding and the Dremel isn't small enough to reach the nooks and crannies! I guess if I'm going to do more like this then I should get some rasps or something.
Also some other random animals, for no particularly good reason:
The mouse and dog have the cross section of a cat when looked at from the other direction, but I don't think that that really worked well, in part because the cat image is much narrower than the other images.
Finally, I did a "diamond painting", so made a quick frame for it:
This was also subject to time pressure, so I just did the simplest thing that would possibly work: The 4 sides of the frame aren't glued to each other, but instead are just CA glued directly to the painting, which is in turn CA glued to a sheet that used to be the back of an Ikea cupboard or something.
All in all, it was fun, I learnt a lot, and my wife enjoyed opening it, so I think overall it's been a success! I'll be trying to finish the workbench before embarking on any more projects, as I think that'll make everything else a lot easier.
Thanks to everyone here for advice on various aspects!
