When asked what hobbies I have I often mention, in addition to woodworking, how I enjoy gardening. However, lately I realized that the majority of the gardening I do would be best termed as ‘yard work’. While gardening evokes images of kneeling in a bed of sweet-smelling, brightly colored flowers musing about the beauty of life, most of what I do involves a pick, a shovel, a wheelbarrow and large boulders.

However, one thing about gardening that I don’t consider work is when I get to combine woodworking with it. The way I do this is by building projects meant for the outdoors. One of my favorite projects is a fun one I call The Birdhouse Bench. Here’s a couple I made the other day:

Each one is about 30″ wide, 15″ deep, 40″ tall and made from scrap lumber. They only take a few hours to build and make a great addition to your garden.

Continue reading 'Building Benches Is For The Birds'

I had a great evening last night turning my first wine bottle stopper! This was a fun project allowing me to work on my spindle turning skills as well as learning the creation process. It is made of Cocobolo and turned from a piece of wood approximately 1/2″ square and 3″ long. I believe the Cocobolo really added to the finished product.

This was a project that I wanted to do since I started woodturning. But like a lot of things getting started is the hardest thing to do so I went to a woodturning course at Lee Valley and received instruction on how to turn one. These courses are always great.

Here are the steps I took to turn the stopper:

Continue reading 'Cocobolo Wine Bottle Stopper Topper'

The mood was right to turn a pen yesterday so I turned a European Round Top Pen made out of Zebrawood. The style I chose was similar to the Spalted Birch Pen I made back in November. It is a very pleasing shape, both to look at and to hold:

This pen came out extremely well. I am quite pleased with it. Here are the steps that I took to create this pen. First, you will need a pen blank and a pen kit:

Continue reading 'Zebrawood European Round Top Pen'

With the cold temperatures and the high winds whipping around the shop door the past few days it wasn’t very enjoyable to do much out in the shop. I don’t really think it was much colder than at other times throughout the winter but the howl of the wind made it seem that much more so.

However, I was able to get out there for a few hours and turn a small bowl out of walnut. The bowl is 5″ in diameter and 1 3/4″ tall with straight sides and a shallow curved bottom:

I found the walnut fairly easy to turn, in fact, quite enjoyable. It finished up well too. Walnut always finishes with a look of elegance, as confirmed by even my limited turning skills.

Here’s a sequence of photos showing the steps I took to create this bowl.

Continue reading 'Walnut Bowl From The Whipping Wind'