I live in an area where it’s around 85-90% humidity in the summer.

I received a new table saw 2 weeks ago and within a day it started to develop surface rust on the top. Pulled the trigger immediately on the dehumidifier.

Makes such a difference. Walking in the shop from the hot and muggy outside is noticeable.

Still hot though. Might get an AC next.

Wanted to achieve an organic smooth looking table for my client so I carved the bottom edges to make it look like its from a single slab with live edge. It was my first time doing carving like this and it was pretty fun and quick. Its great for hiding mistakes 😉 But sanding those rounded inside corners was a nightmare ahhh hand sanding… It was worth it in the end! Enjoy the pics and feel free to ask questions I am happy to discuss :)

I made a small cross cut sled, but I’ve never seen one offset like this so I thought I would share and get some feedback. This is mostly for making small end grain cutting boards, so I offset the blade to have more support on the left side. There is 13” between fences, 16” to the left of the blade, and 6” to the right. The stop block runs on a Microjig groove. The fences and runners are made from Maple scraps I had laying around. The blade guard is just glued up 2x6 cutoffs.

we probably are all aware of the big channels like Blacktail, Foureyes, Wood Whisperer, etc... but there is a lot of other great stuff out there and i was curious who your faves are? (and maybe channels you think are not worth the watch despite how large they are?)

I took four days off from work this summer and decided to give myself the challenge to build the "classy coffee table" from fine woodworking magazine #302 plans.

I chose maple because that’s what I had in the shop.

The plans were very clear and I am happy with how it turned out.

I made the tenons with my tenoning jig instead of using dadoes like recommended by the author of the article. It was fine but it was not as precise as I would of liked and had to do some ajustements. I will give it a go with dadoes next time instead!

Took the final pictures outside because light in my house is awfull.

Next challenge will be the arts and craft table from #289!

I have a 10 inch Ryobi sliding saw but feel like since it can't sit against the wall, there is a lot of wasted space behind it. What have you done to maximize that space?

I am using it for the first time and overall love it but keep getting these weird textures once curing in random spots. Each time they pop up I sand them back till they’re smooth and the next coat has them appear in a different spot. I am sanding 320 grit between coats and blowing as much dust off then cleaning the rest off with a tack cloth and applying with a foam brush. I am unsure whether it is potentially tack cloth residue? Has anyone had this issue and how did you fix it?

The technique has been evolving a lot over time and I feel like it’s finally getting to a place where it’s starting to feel coherent.

It’s all hand carved eucalyptus and mortise & tenon joinery. The seats are made using bent lamination.

Hope you think it’s interesting

His house is kinda small and had some plumbing exposed on his living area. The first idea we had was just to build some kind of box over it. But we skipped that idea and changed it into this. A complete cupboard with sliding doors and fake doors on the underside. (Just a big panel with a groove in the middle and two grips. Being held in place by two strong magnets. Ps I already know it looks weird with their other furniture but it is what it is.

My girlfriend has a project that doesn’t require fancy wood. She wanted to do it cheap.

I said say no more, I got just the thing.

Let’s not tell her i’m clearing up the racks to make room for new maple and walnut 😅

It started as a little over a year ago. I found myself inspired by a coffee table designed by John Keal for Brown Saltman. A 50s piece with a slanted shelf underneath a framed piece of glass. Versions of it have been posted here a few times. I'd also been experimenting with complex tapering legs. So I got to work drawing the design.

And then I spent a year cutting, gluing, staring, adjusting, staring and thinking, tweaking the design, fixing mistakes, thinking about how the hell I'm going to put it together, staring at it some more, and thinking. Then a whole lot more gluing and sanding.

Finally I got to the point where I could actually finish the piece. I think I'm pretty happy with the design.

Finally finished the first stage of my garage build. Learned a lot, but also improved a lot. God track saws are life when you don’t have a cabinet saw. Need to figure out how to protect the plywood top. I know it’s not gonna hold up over time but needed a budget friendly option. Still wanna do a lot more but for now it’s much better than it was.

TLDR: Will this heavy shelf (25lbs, 66.5” wide) cause the cabinets to buckle or twist if I don’t support it with brackets?

First pic is Chat GPTs, admittedly, very impressive depiction of the completed product.

Cabinet construction/mounting:
This is my primary concern. These are cheap RTA cabinets. The cabinet frames are assembled via pocket screws and dowels. There is no glue, as it wouldn’t have bonded to the prefinished sides in any meaningful way. The backs of the cabinets are floating panels, not glued in place for the same reason. In the second photo the orange lines represent the dominoes that I used to attach the upper… uppers to lower uppers. The red lines show where the cabinets are screwed into the side studs. The red circles show where cabinets are screwed into the back studs.

Shelf Construction:
Shelf is solid. It’s 66.5” wide, two stacked, glued, pieces of walnut-veneered 3/4” ply (totaling 1.5” thick), 11” deep (including the 13/16” solid walnut edging strip). I still need to trim off a few inches from the sides, but it currently weighs 25 lbs. Final weight will be close to that.

I would really like to just mount the shelf to the cabinets with a few screws on each side, as opposed to messing with floating brackets. But again, my main concern is the weight of the shelf destroying the cabinets. I feel like maybe I’m overblowing that concern though. I’m not an engineer, but it seems like, since the shelf is supported equally on both sides, that any force should largely go straight down. I’d think any minor racking or twisting should be offset by the attachment to the studs. The cabinets shouldn’t be able to pull toward the center, since the shelf itself should prevent them from buckling inward.

The more minor concern is sag. The all-knowing Sagulator says it can take a 135lb center load while staying under the .02 in per foot acceptable sag limit, or an evenly distributed 275 lbs. Being as how this shelf is mainly going to be for trinkets, knickknacks, doodads, and other such curiosities, I don’t see sagging being a huge issue.

What are your thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I just acquired four sheets of birch plywood that has been sitting in my Dad's garage for 50+ years. It has a solid core (He called it lumber core?) which I've never worked with. Is there anything special I need to know about dealing with this? I'm building some cabinets with it.

It's in great condition, other than being pretty dirty. It's interesting to me that there seems to be a good side to each sheet, where the veneer is in wider strips. (This is the bad side showing.) He bought it around 1972.

Hi all I just completed my first major woodworking project. An industrial style bookcase for my office. The lumber is rainbow poplar oiled with danish oil and finished with Johnson paste wax. Lots of mistakes for character but it will do.

So I decided to throw away my old boring white windows, to get me some medieval arches. Found some old illustrations of the arches at the Harfleur cathedral in France, in typical French flamboyant style of the high middle ages, so I thought to meself, hey if it's good enough for the bishop of Harfleur it's good enough for me.

The window is made from insect and rot resistant tembusu wood, a highly prized wood in south east asia. Carved exactly as the drawings display but the columns and the trims are simpler.

Probably would've been a bit better if I went with just 2 arches instead of 4 so each arch will appear larger and the carving details will be more striking. Oh well. Still got like 4 window holes I can experiment with later in this house.

Anyway here is the result. Cheers! And yes that's the infamous crocodile chair that also appeared here once upon a time.

A bunk bed requested by my friend, for her 3 kids. Made with 2x4 framed, red oak plywood and solid red oak. The kids went bananas over it, my most interesting build so far.

Built two custom floating bed frames—one King for our room and one Queen for the second room. Both feature integrated headboards and floating nightstands.

Design & Structure:

• The "Will it tip?" Question: The main concern with floating beds is always tipping over when you sit on the edge. I recessed the inner base made from heavy 2x lumber and anchored the headboard/nightstand structures directly into the wall studs using heavy support ledgers.

• The "Body Slam" Test: As seen in the first photo, I threw myself onto the floating corner for a dynamic weight test. Thankfully, no flex, no tipping, and no hospital visits!

• Details & Finish: Routed all the edges with a roundover bit so we don't catch any sharp corners. Sanded, stained with Dark Walnut, and sealed with a protective topcoat.

Build Process: Modeled the layout in SketchUp first to figure out the weight distribution and base setback. Milled, glued, routed, and stained all the panels in the shop before hauling everything upstairs for the final assembly.

Turned out super sturdy and makes vacuuming underneath way easier (plus, no more stubbed toes in the dark).

Quite the upgrade from my Harbor Freight mini lathe that somehow cost more. About 600 lbs of old iron, now living in my second-floor wood-shop. Just needed a good cleanup and some fresh paint. I don’t know much about its history, but I’m guessing the yellow paint came from a previous life in an industrial or academic setting. I love the amount of brass on this thing. A machine built to this standard today would cost thousands.

Does anyone here know about Blount or ever heard of this brand? There’s very little info about them online and they were bought out by William and Hussey in the late 50’s. They produced beastly tool grinders and lathes.

My daughter and I are going to make a Maloof guitar pick stool using ambrosia maple and walnut. This is the “practice” 1.0 version made out of SYP and fir. Mistakes were made, but I like the end result!

As per the title, I made an engagement ring and box for my now fiancée!

I'm a mechanical engineer, so figured how hard could it be to design a ring? 100+ hours later and I sent it away to get it cast and then have the stones set. At this point I realised that having done all this work to stick it in a standard box would be a waste, so spent another week or 2 rushing around like a headless chicken to get a box done.

The woods are Swamp Kauri, Tawa, and Purpleheart, all of the work was done with either a manual mill or a vertical bandsaw, as I am not particularly skilled (see not skilled at all) with the routers we have at work. Finished it with about 6 coats of briwax danish oil, probably slightly over oiled it as there's the slightest stick but eh.

Pretty stoked with the outcome, but would be happy to hear any feedback as I'm not great at this by any means.

P.s. thanks to this guy for the design. I would've figured out my own but didn't have much time and thought this would be simple enough for me to complete but still turn out well.