Saw Dust #2

if you are using wood glue or wood filler on a project mix sawdust into it to match the color of the wood you are using this will help hide it better

Lego Chess

I have buckets of legos that I've had since I was 3 and now that I don't get to play with them anymore I wanted to do something with them that I could use so I built a chess set

the king

the queen

the bishop

the knight

the rook

the pawn

the red side

the white side

of course Ethan was there to help he thought it was pretty cool

I built this in the middle of winter when it was to hot to go outside and work it took me over six hour to put it all together I actually have to go back and glue them all together but I'm in no hurry to do it

Eth and Lincs step stool

So I was going to make just a stool for Ethan at first but then my wife asked me what I was going to do when my soon to be new baby needed one, I said I'd make another but the she pointed out how little our bathroom is so I decided to make it for both of them

I through this together pretty fast so I didn't take any pictures til the end

Wedding Arbor

For those of you out there who do not know me here is a little story. I am the oldest of 6 kids. I love my siblings very much even the ones who drive me crazy. So I try and do what I can to help them with things in there lives. My little sister recently got engaged and married. She and her husband are like all young people I know and do not have a lot of money. So her wedding had to be small and cost efficeint. My wife helped her plan a lot of her wedding from things she needed how to get them ect...ect... At some point my sister decided she was not going to have any kind of alter, stand, or arbor to stand on, under or by when she got married because she was on a budget and to rent things like that cost to much. So my wife knowing how to soften my beat less bloodless heart asked me to make her an arbor. Never making on or anything that big I was a little overwhelmed but went to it any ways. This is what I got.

I knew this was going to take a long time and that I was going to have it after so I wanted to make sure I did it right

I cut all my top pieces out first because I knew that was going to take me the longest to make, I cut all the ends at 45degree angles and routed all the ends to make it look real nice

I then notches into the top pieces to attach them to the support beams

I used 2 kinds of glue for the legs

Gorilla glue and tite bond 2

Seeing that Traves and myself have never made something like this we ran into a few snags one being we didn't know how to put it together once it was ready

But we managed

At this point I was feeling pretty good about how it was going

At some point of this build Traves taut Ethan how to use his electric drill we set up some screws for him on his work table for him to take out and put in and he thought that was pretty awesome so after I had put the trellis on the side he found the screws and started taking them out, I only found out after he handed me a hand full of screws with a big grin and wanted me to put them back in so he could take them out again I laughed for a long time after that and let him help

I wanted to hide some screws so I drilled out the holes

then filled them with dowels then sanded them down I didn't get a picture of the sanded down but it hid very well

this is it ready for stain

Ethan helping

how can you get mad at someone who looks this cute

After one coat of stain

the top buttons have 2 coats the bottom has just one

so like all projects I do this took me longer than I thought it was going to but like I said I really wanted it to look nice, so when I stained the trellis I bought at the store and it looked awful I panicked because her wedding was a week away and I didn't know what to do, so i looked up a bunch online to see other ways people have made the sides saw one I liked and made a quick run to the lumber store

After 2 coats of stain

I was literally working on it the night before her wedding so I forgot to take pictures after my trellis problem happened so this is the only picture I have with it finished and by itself

This is my little sister and my new brother

Out of Order

So some of the next few post will be out of order I've been in the process of changing my shop around and I have forgotten to take step by step pictures of some projects so I've had to go back and take pictures of just finished products. On a good note my shop is 98% finished and I've started taking pictures again So enjoy and leave comments.

Honey Do List

For mother's day Ethan and myself made this honey do list box. We used some wood that I've had outside for over two years. It worked best with the weathered frame we bought at the store.

She actually had stuff written on this before I took this picture

I made the box bigger than it needed to be I was going to make it into something else but didn't have the right materials

Just has some chalk and note cards handy

Ethan thought doing this was the best part

In the end I didn't make it strong enough for the frame to hold the box so I had to buy some brackets to hold it up but she still likes it happy mothers day dear

Debbi's Birthday Bench

So I've started making these benches for people in my family this is the most recent one I have built two others. These are pretty easy and fast to build I plan on doing many more. Every time I do one I think of something better to do to it to make it look nicer.

My dad recently gave me a bundle of 2x4's so that is what I used

On this one I screwed 2 2x4's together instead of having every 2x4 by itself you will see on future post with my other benches

The process to level it seems to be the hardest but we are getting pretty good at it

My first benches I left the screw holes exposed like this and it drove me crazy but then I found something at the store

Wooden buttons they work perfectly I think it makes the bench

One prime coat and a couple layers of red paint later you get this little red garden bench