When my daughter first saw the Zebrawood And Ebony Box that I made a few months ago she asked if I would make her one too. She had never shown interest in any of my other woodworking projects so I happily said, “Yes!”. She then asked if I could make it with ‘brown wood instead of the black wood’ I again said, “Yes”. She then asked if I could make it larger, like a jewelry box. Once again I said, “Yes”. Finally she asked if she could also have a drawer in it. Well, by now you know my answer – “Yes!”. As any father knows, when ‘the princess’ asks for something she always gets it.

The box is made of Zebrawood and Nogal. Zebrawood is from West Africa, mostly from around Gabon and Cameroon. Nogal, also known as Peruvian Walnut, is from South America.

The box is approximately 11″ wide, 7″ deep and 5″ high with a hinged, segmented lid, a sliding drawer and a removal tray. It is finished with a wipe-on poly.

This project was definitely a labor of love and it offered a bonus of several new challenges. They incuded making the drawer appear seamless in the grain of the Zebawood, having the lid match accurately when the hinges were put on, making both the tray and the inner compartment. And of course there was the ‘secret’.

Here are some more photos of the jewelry box:

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My wife and I made a few Faerie Doors for some family and friends as Christmas gifts last year.

As the story goes, if Faeries build a door into or in your home it will be filled with love and happiness. I guess we were like the old cobbler’s Elves and just helped the Faeries along a bit.

Here is the Southwestern style door that we made my wife’s sister. We also made one of these ones for ourselves.

The doors are small (why would they need to be big?!) at about 8″ high and 7″ wide.

This one is finished in adobe and has leather hinges, a cool rug, cantina lights and cactus.

For easy access in and out of your home the Faeries usually ‘build’ their doors at the base of a wall like seen here:

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With a couple of members bringing in their latest projects and a great introduction to a bunch of new tools, this month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was a great way to start the year off right! The meeting was held in our home base, a local Home Depot.

Our guest speaker was our own AWA member Graham McCulloch who brought in and reviewed about a dozen new tools for us. Tools included a variety of hammers, a Milwaukee 12-volt drill/driver, a Milwaukee reciprocating saw, the Dremel Multi-Max multi-purpose tool, the A-Line-It Deluxe alignment system, Dremel’s 75th Anniversary Motor Tool Kit, the DeWalt DC608 18v cordless Brad Nailer and the Norton Multi-Oilstone.

Graham has over 60 years experience as a woodworker and has written four top selling books on woodworking including the recently released, “The Woodworker’s Illustrated Encyclopedia“. He has had feature articles in Canadian Woodworking and Canadian Contractor magazines and you can find some of his shop tips in the Family Handyman magazine. As well, Graham writes a weekly online article called Short Cuts where he reviews new tools and books. (Sign up for his newsletter, it’s an invaluable resource!)

This was a great presentation with Graham giving us his experienced, and professional, insight into these tools. He focused on what features and benefits each tool offered, or what it didn’t offer, to the home woodworker. Thanks, Graham!

For Show and Tell a couple of members brought in some examples of their fine woodworking. Here are a couple of photos:

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Well, here it is, The Craftsman Style Coffee Table, done, finally. As you can imagine it feels quite good to have this project finished. It certainly was a rewarding one!

Now, though it was started almost a year ago I estimate that even with the finishing it only took around 40 hours to complete. Considering that there was a lot of different techniques that I had never done before and a lot of time figuring on how to accomplish them I believe that all in all it went quite well.

This was the first ‘large’ project that I had done in years so taking it piecemeal like this worked out great. Although the finishing got to be a bit frustrating on the 3rd or 4th resand it still remained a ‘labor of love’.

Here are a few more photos of the finished table:

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