End table improvements

I have been doing things besides woodworking this year, but I did get into it rather heavily and still have several projects to show off. One I finished mid-March is another end table using the same pattern as the first one I made. I actually started this one back in December not long after finishing the first one, but got interrupted by my family arriving and wasn't able to finish it until March (which led to some interesting differences, as I improved both my skills and equipment in the meantime). 

Whereas for the first one I used all pine, for this one I used a mixture of pine (for the legs and stretchers), red oak (for large flat surfaces including the top, drawer, and bottom shelf), and fir (which…you can't actually see in these photos, but it's essentially trim on the sides). I was a little worried at first that the colors would clash and I might need to do some staining, but the oak and pine actually came out looking fairly well-matched in the end. (The fir's a little off, but, well, live and learn…)

Here you can see the first table (on the left) next to the second one. There's a definite improvement in my opinion. The first one is functional, and the proportions generally work, but it's not the prettiest thing I've ever made. I wasn't paying much attention to the wood I used in it, and while I personally like the look of pine the color and patterns are kind of a mess, and it's got screws visible all over (though they might be hard to see in the photo).

In the meantime between starting and finishing the second table, I made a few upgrades to my workshop. For one thing, I got a pocket hole jig, which allowed me to hide the screws holding it together away from sight (by screwing in at an angle rather than straight into a surface). I had to do a little trial-and-error to get that working, but I'm quite happy with how it came out. I also got both a miter saw and a table saw in the interim, which let me make much better cuts than with the circular saw I was using (though there are still a few wonky cuts from the early stages of construction which I couldn't fix without completely tearing it apart and starting over).

Overall it's a big improvement, and while I think I could do even better now it's satisfying to see my progress already. I still have a lot to learn, but it's nice to see that I'm getting better. I don't have any plans to make more of these at the moment (though being able to start out with a table saw would be a huge help), but the skills I've been honing transfer, and I've got plenty more ideas for things to make. A hui hou!

Farewell gifts (and geese)

In addition to the larger furniture pieces I showed off in my previous post, I've been making a number of smaller woodworking projects too. Two friends of mine are both moving away from Hawaii in the near future, so I put my newfound skills to the test to make them some farewell gifts.

For my friend Mark, I wanted to try an end-grain cutting board after watching a video on how to make them. Basically, you glue a bunch of strips of wood together (all cut along the grain, or “rip cut”), then cut them in strips across the grain (“cross cut”) and flip them up 90° so that the end face of the board is made up of the end grain faces of each piece (the end grain is where you can see the rings). I haven't been able to test it myself yet (for reasons of time), but from what I've heard this results in a more durable cutting board than simply leaving those strip glued together to make an edge grain cutting board, though it's also more work (and has more wood lost to kerf from making more cuts). Experienced woodworkers can make all kinds of fascinating patterns by the selection, arrangement, and cutting angles of various kinds of wood, but the basic premise is relatively simple.

After wetting it down to “raise the [wood] grain” to get a smoother sanded finish.

The project still took me over a week, since I discovered the miter gauge on my table saw isn't really accurate enough for repeated cross cuts like I needed to make. I ended up with a bunch of wood strips which, when glued together, weren't all quite the same thickness. There are some tools which could potentially solve this easily, but I don't have them, so I had to spend hours trying to sand down and smooth out the irregularities. (Going forward I intend to preemptively solve this by making a cross cut sled, a simple jig made using plywood and some screws which should make getting repeatable cross cuts much easier.)

And here it is after applying a protective mineral oil and wax finish.

Anyway, after a lot of sanding and small cosmetic fixes I got it to a state where I'm mostly happy with it. It should serve as a cutting board, at least, even if it's not perfect. I wanted to make something using local woods as a reminder of Hawaiʻi, so I used koa and ʻōhiʻa (plus some African padauk for a pop of orange contrast. The edges and center are koa, with ʻōhiʻa to either side of it down the middle and then padauk just inside the edges.) I haven't decided on whether it'd be better with things like a juice groove or edge handles, but since Mark's still got some time before he leaves I'll probably just ask him.

For my friend Josh, whom I worked with at my job with NEON last year, I decided to make a little coaster from some scraps of Phillipine mahagony I had from another project (which I'll reveal at some point). A few years ago I bought some novelty coasters designed to look like little wooden pallets, and I thought something like that would make a practical gift.

Raw materials after cutting them out, and the inspiration.

The strips of wood I had were slightly wider than in the original coasters, so I went for a solid flat face on the top. The result came out looking pretty good, in my opinion!

And since Josh enjoyed seeing the nēnē while we were working up in the natural area reserve, I pulled out my wood burning kit and doodled a quizzical nēnē from a photo I took while visiting the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge last year. This project was a lot quicker, and only took me a few hours over the course of a day.

The inspiration…

…and the (slightly off-center) result.

While the occasion of their creation is for less-than-happy reasons, it was a lot of fun to stretch my creative muscles for these projects and make something new. I like making practical furniture, but it's also nice to make smaller practical (and decorative) wood pieces. I've got more things to show off here at some point too, so stay tuned! A hui hou!