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!

Getting started in woodworking

I have a lot of hobbies. Some (including me) might say too many, since there's not nearly enough time in the [day|year|arbitrary amount of time] to enjoy all of them. So ,what have I done in the past few months on top of moving/preparing for a family visit/starting a new teaching position? Picked up another hobby, of course!

Yes, that's right. I haven't mentioned it yet in part because I've been so busy, but back in December I started trying my hand at woodworking. It's not entirely new to me – I did some woodworking in 4-H in my teens, and helped out with carpentry jobs around the house growing up – but it's certainly been a long time, and I had to relearn some of the fundamentals pretty quickly.

I also hadn't said anything about it yet because I wanted a few finished projects to show off. Between the aforementioned things keeping me busy my progress in getting things done has been somewhat uneven, and I wanted more to show than a bunch of in-progress photos. (Although having watched a number of woodworking videos now, I'm thinking it might be fun to make my own showing off the process of building something.)

My very first project, completed around mid-December, was this end table/nightstand piece. Following a plan I found online I built it out of pine with little but a circular saw, a power drill, and an impact driver. It was something of an achievement in ignorance; given what I've learned since then it's remarkable that I only ended up wasting one board while making it and that it came out as good at it did. There's a lot I would do differently now (especially now that I have more specialized tools), but for what it was it came out remarkably good.

Making that piece was sort of a trial-by-fire learning process, as I re-learned concepts like kerf (how much wood is removed when sawing), cutting straight lines, and joining wood pieces together. It was simultaneously confidence-boosting and confidence-draining, as I realized the extent of my ignorance. Thankfully, my brother Joel (who's been woodworking for years) shared an online course with me, The Weekend Woodworker, which introduces key concepts and techniques through a series of directed projects. I've been working through it since then and it's been really helpful as I learn and refine new skills.

The first thing I built from the course was this mobile workbench, which has been essential for everything since. For my first project up above I'd used two old sets of shelves which I found in the downstairs workshop as a working area, but this workbench (and its large surface) makes things so much easier. It's sturdy, and the ability to roll it around to wherever I need it is incredibly helpful. (I had to upgrade the lighting in the workshop as the bulbs down there when I moved in weren't really up to the task of illuminating it, and being able to move my working area around for better light is great.)

Using that workbench (and some new tools), I managed to get this little patio table finished before my family arrived at the end of December. This was an exercise in getting to know the miter saw, which makes cross cuts a whole lot easier than a circular saw! I used Douglas fir for this project, as I quite like the look of it, and chose to leave the table unpainted. Some people find softwoods undesirable to look at, but I think they can be quite beautiful when properly finished (though hardwoods have their own allure, too). Actually, writing this reminds me that I bought a dowel to use to add the look of some fake dowel joinery to the legs as part of an optional enhancement, which I should get back to one of these days (though functionally, it's finished).

The next project from the course was this bench, which is also made of fir and pine, but stained to look like hardwood. This was another lesson in precision and accuracy, since it's made of interleaved slats with spaces between them that all need to join precisely together. I started this project between when my family left and when I started teaching in early January…and it then took nearly a month to finish between how busy I was getting up to speed teaching and how many coats of pre-stain, stain, and finish it took. All of which were annoyingly difficult to apply, due to the large surface area of all those slats and the constrained volume between them. It came out looking pretty good, though! I was skeptical about the stain at first, but it's grown on me.

I have a few more projects I've completed (plus some on the way), but I need to cut this post short in order to head off to an observing run on the UH 2.2-m telescope tonight. I'll definitely have more to share in the future, though. I'm really enjoying the process of woodworking; it's a good fit for my 3D spatial reason capabilities, I love the smell of freshly-cut wood, and I love the idea of making things that are both beautiful and practical. I've felt the siren song of building practical things call to me in the past on the rare occasions I'd visit Home Depot, and being able to finally indulge it is an incredible feeling. A few friends have even expressed interest in commissions, so we'll see where this all goes in the future. A hui hou!