Finished project: LEGO building tray + storage chest

Description:

This is of my own design, whether that's good or bad, I had fun making it. Two boys that love LEGOs had birthdays in July. So I decided to build a tray with green LEGO baseplates that attaches to a chest for some storage.


The tray is red oak, the case is ash. There are brass locking latches on the ends to protect special projects inside from destructive brothers.


I took the opportunity to pick up the Miller dowel miniX at Rockler & put walnut dowels in the tray butt joints to jazz it up a little. This was my first time using box joints in a project. They were made on the table saw with a stacked dado set & homemade jig. The finish is a few coats of gloss wipe-on poly.

Finished project: Craftsman style bookcase

Description

Here is a craftsman style bookcase I recently completed. The plans are from "The Complete Book of Woodworking" . The carcase and shelves are 3/4" white oak ply with the doors and base quartersawn white oak. Biscuits join the carcase and the door rails & stiles.

The top has solid edge banding with a chamfered edge. The other exposed ply edges have iron-on white oak veneer.

The finish is Minwax "Early American" stain with 3 coats "Tung Oil Finish", 0000 steel wool rubs between and a top coat of paste wax.

Inside the shelves are adjustable, supported by "paddle" shaped 1/4" pins. The first thing my wife asked is if I could add another shelf. Well, yes I could, but... it won't look as good with the shelves not aligned with the door muntin strips.

The doors have 1/8" tempered glass panes for child missile safety. I went with no-mortise brass hinges from Rockler instead of the standard butt hinges (and mortises).

Other than taking WAY longer than I wanted or expected, I totally enjoyed this project. (It's not a race...)


Lessons Learned

I got some significant chip out/tear out when planing the quartersawn white oak to final thickness, even with taking very shallow passes. Next time will try wetting the boards.

Always check measurements, joints, etc. on test pieces even when using published plans. The plan called for #20 biscuit slots to join the rails & stiles for the doors, but the joiner cut was wider than the 2 1/2" rail width, which would have left exposed biscuit on top & bottom of the rails. I switched to smaller biscuits in this instance.

My first attempt at hand routing the half-lap dados in the thin muntin strips did not go well. I switched to the table saw stacked dado for the 2nd batch... I need some more practice mastering the router.

1st post: Free cutlist planning SW

As my first post, a subject dear to my heart, free SW. Cutlist is a simple freeware program that takes measurements of your project parts and the materials you have available & outputs an "optimized" cutting solution. Here's an example from the author: