I read Dan Cary’s story of building a custom dining room table. I especially enjoyed that his build was custom to a specific place and function.

I too had a special need. At our lake house the area for a table is limited. Plus at the lake everyone wants to eat with a view so no one wants their back to the water if you are inside. My special need was a dining table that was very narrow and long. The sliding glass door is a 9′ door with only 3′ sliding to go outside so I wanted a table only 24″ by 72″. This way I could put the the table against the windows and only sit on one side.

Basically the table only cost me $15 to make. I had to buy a quart of gloss polyurethane for the top. Polyurethane is something very hard that would resist water rings and food. Everything else was scraps I had from other projects that I cut down and glued up. Walnut, hickory, cherry, oak, purple heart and Brazilian cherry are the woods in the top outlined with 6/4 oak and breadboard ends. It fits us and the space perfectly.

The true advantage of woodworking is the ability to customize. Woodworkers can be ingenious without plans and only armed with an idea to solve a problem.

Ron Grover

This is my latest Kumiko project that I just finished.

-Russ Franken

Here is my latest Adirondack bench.

-Gary Mast

Here is a a King size bed I finished this past year. It was a gift to my wife of 39 years, Becky.

It was quite a project to complete. At times I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but with faith and patience, (both hers and mine,) it turned out fine. Thank you for letting me share and giving all of the woodworking community a chance to do so.

-Michael Yeary

This is my latest project. My wife requested a jewelry box. I asked her to draw a rough sketch of what she had in mind. Well, what she had in mind was a full jewelry CABINET. I selected air dried hickory from a tree that was removed from our small farmette property. The learning points for this project were building the T&G beadboard panels for the side cabinets and using dye to color just the sapwood variations in the hickory. The customer was pleased and pointed out the fact that she now had much more room for NEW jewelry!

Be well and be safe,

-Gregory Harmon
Pennsylvania

Here is what I did for part of the last two winters. This is not a kit or a CNC made project. It is all hand made from cut offs of 1 by and 2 by from other woodshop projects. Yes, just fire wood junk. It is my idea of a 1920s-style rail road station with second story meeting room . Everything is made to 1″ to 1′ scale. All of the studs, tables and benches So, the doors are 3″ wide by 6-3/4″ high. The size is 48″ long x 32″ wide x 37″ tall. The square end is the freight room, the multi-sided room is a coffee shop and the tall part is a three sided clock tower. The clock faces are 11 min. after 9 (911) , 7 min. after 11 (Nov. 7, 1941) and the other is my birthday 22 min after 7. All important dates  to me.

– Lowell Taylor
Cedaredge, CO

I repurposed a solar LED light array by housing it in a butternut box with a copper clad roof. After scroll sawing my house number and some nice flower designs into the front, I painted the inside of the box white to reflect the light, I filled the voids with epoxy, and then joined the sides together with finger joints. The bottom is just set in a groove, the top has some holes that align with dowel pins that sit proud of the top of the box for a snug fit. I made a cedar beveled strip for the back to match the slope of my steel lap siding on my house, and flush mounted 5 strong rare-earth magnets into that strip. Then I coated the box with a thin coat of pour-on epoxy inside and out because there’s just no easy way to make the box water tight. I set the light to dusk to dawn setting and set it into place with some persuasion from a dead blow mallet. It can be removed if I ever need to replace the 18650 batteries in it…I have several hundred salvaged from old laptop battery packs.

Thanks to the steel siding and magnetic mount, I can put the sign anywhere I want on the house (while sitting inside with no cell reception because I live in a Faraday cage).

It has really helped out the Door Dashers and Uber Eats drivers to find my house though.

-Michael Swenson

This is from a downed tree on my friends property. He also has me making tuna plugs for him out of the same tree!

Never thought I would be turning tuna lures!

-Wayne Greygor

Made from recycled cherry from an elevator for my grand daughter. Used nothing but five coats of General Finish’s semi gloss. Totally natural.

-Andy Borland
Severna Park, MD

This is a 9″, 11 course vase turned from canary wood.

Thank you again for these great projects! Join us again next week!

The post Your National Woodworking Month Projects – Part Four appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

“A mortise and tenon machine!” – William Cecil

“I would like to have a Shaper Origin. It might turn out to more of a toy than a tool, but it would be a lot of fun. I am a CNC programmer in the aerospace industry, so I always strive for perfection in my woodworking as well, and I find it frustrating when it is not perfect. The Shaper looks like it would let me dial in my joinery to be perfect. Or at least to strive for that perfect joint and have fun in the process.” – Randy Hays

“If I could have one tool added to my humble little shop to improve my joinery, it would be a dovetail/box joint jig.” – Ed DeMott

“I’m going to add an Axiom Elite 8 to my collection of tools and do dadoes with it, along with my two Festool Dominos!” – Dennis Young

“Right now I wish I had a Leigh Industries Pro Mortise Tenon Jig. I do own a Festool Domino machine, but I like the capabilities of the Leigh for the larger projects that I seem to be building more of lately.” – Jim Annino

“I had the answer to this before I knew the question. Just today I received a RIKON benchtop mortising machine. I’m working on a project that requires almost 100 mortises, and many of the pieces are too small for even the smallest domino. So facing the prospects of drilling and then hand-chiseling this many mortises convinced me that I needed a mortising machine. My wife, on the other hand, was not at all convinced and now I’m in the dog house. Hopefully it will have been worth it in the long run because I can see a revenge shopping trip in her future.” – Charley Robinson

“I’d have to say a Leigh RTJ400 router table jig for dovetails. I have been cutting dovetails by hand, or if I need to do a large quantity, I’ll use a combination of my router table and table saw. I cut the pins on the table saw and rout the tails. I need a better way to do production runs, and I think that the RTJ400 would help speed up my work. I use my router table a lot more than freehand routing, so most jigs do not interest me. The RTJ may be the answer. I know it technically isn’t a machine, but this will likely be my next addition.” – Randy Profeta

The post Joinery Machine Wishes appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.