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'

Here is a table that I built about two years ago for just inside the entrance to our living room. It is made of red oak and stands 31″ tall X 34″ wide and 11″ deep. It is finished with a light stain and polyurethane.

The legs are tapered when viewed from the ends. They were tapered this way because of where the table is located the ends are seen when in the living room or either entering the front door or coming down the hall.

Continue reading 'A Red Oak Hall Table'

Although the guest speaker was unable to make it to tonight’s Atlantic Woodworkers Association meeting we had a great ’show and tell’ and Q and A session.

One of the members brought in a project he recently completed:

Continue reading 'Woodworking Show And Tell'

You should always saw with the widest blade possible for a particular cut. However, when cutting circles be aware that the width of the blade will determine the smallest radius that you will be able to cut. The smaller the blade width the smaller/tighter the radius.

Here is a list of different bandsaw blade widths and the minimum cut radius for each:

Back to the shop…

We had a special treat for this month’s Atlantic Woodworkers Association meeting - the guests were whirlygig masters Barry and Kara Coutts. Whirlygig masters, indeed!

Continue reading 'The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind'

I spent some time this past week creating a few cutting boards. Cutting boards make great gifts and are fairly easy to make. I used a variety of woods and edging to make each one different. Here they are:

The board below is approximately 10″ square and made of walnut and maple:

Continue reading 'Wooden Cutting Boards For Christmas'

The December meeting, also known as the Christmas meeting, of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was held tonight at Lee Valley.

The Christmas meeting has been the tradition among the AWA members to bring in (and show off :)) toys that they made. The toys are given later to the Salvation Army to distribute to underprivileged children. This year, as in the past, the toys were a varied mix and very professionally done. There were trains, trucks, games and hobby horses. I’m sure the children receiving them will be entertained for a long time with these! Take a look:

Continue reading 'Woodworking In Toyland'

I went to the wood show in Moncton, New Brunswick today. This show is one of a few that runs across Canada. Other locations include Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa and London. The show runs for 3 days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and offers the latest woodworking tools and accessories as well as demos, displays, seminars, carvings, turnings and more.

I didn’t get a chance to sit in on any of the seminars this year but it looked like there was a good selection to choose from including router techniques, tuning up your bandsaw, hotrodding your table saw and finishing techniques.
Continue reading 'The Moncton Wood Show 2007'

The Atlantic Woodworker’s Association meeting tonight was held at our ‘club house’, a local Home Depot and the theme was sharpening techniques.

One of the members demonstrated the Work Sharp 3000. It was nice to see this in action after having posted the announcement of this new tool last month. Several members brought in tools for sharpening which gave a wide array of samples, from plane blades to carving chisels. The Work Sharp performed well on all of them giving a quick and easy sharpening. Very impressive!

Another member spoke on hand sharpening and the trials and tribulations of such. There was also discussion on various sharpening and honing options.

I was hoping to have a sharpening competition between man and machine but it was not to be.

As always, it was a great meeting. It’s nice to meet others from time to time that share a similar interest in woodworking.

Back to the shop…

This evening I visited Halifax Specialty Hardwoods with the Atlantic Woodworkers Association for a shop tour and a demonstration on their milling process. The evening was hosted by owner Darrell Vallis and his sister Cheryl Borden.

The shop was opened in early 2006 and has since then has grown from a stock of 16 species to over 40 plus a large supply of plywoods including Baltic birch. They specialize in crown moulding, baseboards, wall trim and mantle mouldings and also stock burls, pen blanks, and preturned bowl blanks.

Continue reading 'Halifax Specialty Hardwoods Tour'