Projects by Fitz

Fitz is a friend of mine, who I talk to often on the net.  He claims that he has only recently has taken up woodworking.  (Really he has)  He lives in North Carolina with his family and is a student getting his advanced education.  He sent me a project that he has been working on and has come up with a unique idea (sorry it is a guarded secret right now).  Take a look at his fantastic lamp.

Projects by Jim

Jim, who lives in Texas sent me these 2 projects.  Can you identify what they started off as?  

Yep your right a penny and the Delaware Quarter.  According to Jim the hardest part of these projects was cutting the ring portion of the coins.  If you wish to try these I strongly encourage you to make yourself coin holders, that hold the coin while you scroll the coin.

Projects by Robert

Robert sent me an e-mail the other day that simply said "What do you think of this little project."  I must say that as I reviewed the Pictures I was blown away.  I think you will be as well.  Robert took his time with this project, taking about 3 1/2 month to design and 4 1/2 to build as he refined the design.  Robert calls his creation the "Toy Crane"  He built his Toy Crane using oak veneer plywood, solid oak, solid walnut and birch and maple dowels.  Robert has the true spirit of a woodworker, he designed and built this wondrous creation for terminally-ill children at one of his local children's hospitals.  

Robert Lives in the Portland Oregon area.  He has a design for a more advanced, more mechanical version.  If you would like to learn more about his "Toy Crane Design" please Contact me and place Toy Crane in the Subject line. 

Projects from Brian

Brian lives in Houston, TX where he works for a computer outsourcing company. He became serious about woodworking when he received numerous power tools for Christmas in December of 2002. His primary interests are in making medium to large sized furniture. 

Project 1: 
Date of completion: 7/02
I wanted to make a throne for my wife. As part of a medieval recreation group, we often find ourselves camping out; so to go with the theme of the event I wanted to make a portable throne that could withstand the
outdoor weather.  To accomplish this goal, I designed the throne out of plywood and 2x4s.
It comes apart into 4 pieces (2 sides, the seat and the back) and is held together with wooden pegs. The wood is stained with an oil based stain and then coated with 3 coats of an outdoor finish for protection
from inclement weather.

I also asked my mother-in-law to make a cushion for the seat. She is a weaver and made the cushion fabric on her loom and stuffed it to make the pillow.

This throne was made before I knew the first thing about proper woodworking techniques. In fact, this was my first project and was done without the benefit of reading any books and without any professional advice.
          

His prototype joints

The Back side and cushion

The sides of the throne and the completed Wife Throne.

Project 2:
Date of completion: 1/03
For Christmas I got a reciprocating saw, rotozip, table saw and a compound sliding miter saw. I didn't really have a work area at all and needed to be able to quickly and easily move my miter saw around to use it or to get it out of the way. My first project after having educated myself on some of the fundamentals of woodworking was to build this case for my miter saw. The plans for it came from http://www.plansnow.com/mitersaw.html. I learned a few critical things with this project.. Close is not good enough, and plans don't necessarily take into account your situation. My miter saw was bigger than the saw used by the original plan maker, so I had to modify the plans. But I didn't realize this until AFTER I had already cut all the wood according to the cut list. Oops!

Project 3:
Date of completion: 1/03
So now I had a case for my miter-saw. The existing workbench in my garage was useless to me. It was attached to the wall, is only 18 inches deep, and is a shoddily supported 1/2" piece of plywood with very
poorly secured 2x4's holding it up. Plus there is only about 16" from the edge of the table to a step down in my garage.. Not suitable at all for my use. So I made this workbench from the plans at http://www.plansnow.com/wwrkbnch.html. My daughter's decided she needs to help me sort my wood... Either that or she's sizing up my stock to see what type of playhouse she can build with it... :p

I would like to thank Brian for sending me his projects so that others could share them and hopefully give you ideas.

If you would like to submit your projects to be posted, please send JPEG pictures of your project, a short Bio of yourself, what you did to build your project, where you got your plans, and if you designed it yourself and would like to share your plans, your plans.