Studio711.com – Ben Martens

I’ve been talking about building an Adirondack chair for so long that it’s embarrassing. It’s been at least four years if not more. There always seemed to be other projects that were more pressing, and my excuse was that I still didn’t know exactly how I wanted to build it. Over the years, I sat in a lot of chairs trying to figure out what makes a comfortable Adirondack chair and I finally decided that a contoured seat makes a huge difference. Unfortunately that also ups the difficulty of the build and gave me another reason to put it off.

Finally I stumbled across some plans from Woodworkers Journal that looked like just what I wanted. Even better, they had done a refresher of the plans complete with a 15 minute video series showing all the steps. Bingo.

A couple weekends ago, I headed to Home Depot and picked up a bunch of cedar boards. The plans say pine but I decided to go with cedar as it seemed like something that would stand up to the weather better (not sure if that’s true.) Instead of trying to find the minimum sized boards that I needed, I bought a few bigger 8″ wide boards with the intention of trimming them down to size. The cost was about the same and it was a lot easier to find bigger boards without warping or cupping.

While I’ve done a lot of wood projects over the years, this is the most complicated plan I’ve ever followed and easily the nicest looking piece of furniture I’ve ever attempted. There were a couple new skills involved in the project. One was template routing. I spent a lot of time drawing out all the different pieces onto 1/4″ plywood and then I cut them out with a jigsaw and sanded them to perfect shape. To make the actual cedar pieces, I used double sided tape to stick the template onto the cedar and then used a flush trim bit in the router table. The top of the bit is a bearing that rides along the template and then underneath it’s cutting away the cedar allowing me to perfectly replicate the shape of the template on the cedar. Pretty cool!

The second new skill was cutting a taper into the back slats. I haven’t yet built a really nice tapering jig, but I was able to throw one together with some hold down clamps. It wasn’t pretty but it did the job well and gave me repeatable cuts at the right angle.

I was surprised at how well the whole thing went together. The only real hiccup was the upper back frame (part H) came out about an inch too narrow. It didn’t cover the entire top of the back legs. I checked my measurements over and over against the plans, couldn’t find the problem, and finally just cut a new piece that was a little wider. I don’t understand how there could be a bug in the plans after they made the video and didn’t catch it, but whatever. This works and it looks good.

There are a few things that look a little off if you are paying attention, but hey, most of the time you’re sitting in this chair you’ll be drinking a beer in the sun. It’s plenty good for that and very comfortable. Mission accomplished!

I still need to figure out how I’m going to finish this (or if I’ll just leave it bare). After that, the next step is to redo it all over again so that we have two. It should go MUCH faster this time since I already have all the templates. Plus, I feel confident that I can cut all the pieces first and then assemble them. The plan is very forgiving about pieces being off by an 1/8″ here or there and not having a huge effect on the outcome (for the most part.)

We have a bunch of boxes for the various sizes of plastic bags, ceran wrap, aluminum foil etc. They used to reside in a drawer but that drawer got taken over with safe toys for Elijah so he has something to pull out and mess around with. That moved all of our boxes to the top shelf in the pantry and it was difficult to find the one you wanted. We also ended up buying more when we already had some that were just too hard to find.

Tyla flipped around on Pinterest a bit and quickly found some ideas to solve this problem. I looked at the ideas and said “I could build that.” So then I kind of had to back it up. Luckily it’s a super simple project. Basically I just built what look like magazine boxes (open, sloped top) and screwed them to the wall.

While it’s a simple project, it’s incredibly convenient. I made six of them to hold the various types of bags and wraps. They work great! Some day I might paint them white but more likely they’ll probably just remain as-is.

For Elijah’s Christmas gift, I decided to build him a table and a couple chairs. The actual construction was pretty straightforward. I headed to one of my favorite woodworking sites: Ana White’s site. From there I pulled up the “Clara Table” and the “Four Dollar Stackable Chairs“. The total cost of the pine for two chairs and the table was less than $30. Hard to beat! I had them built pretty quickly.

The problem came when I tried to finish them. We decided to paint them with leftover white and blue paint that we had tine the garage. The painting was fine but I wanted to put a hard finish on them since he’ll be abusing them and eating off the table. I have always turned to polyurethane tin the past, but it failed me miserably on the table top. There were huge blemishes in the finish.Thankfully the table top is built out of solid pine boards so I was able to sand it down without worrying about damaging something like plywood. And sand it I did. I sanded it down FIVE TIMES. It took a couple weeks as I experimented with different finishes. (Special thanks to John F for giving me some tips.) I tried a bunch of different things but everything dried tacky or had terrible brush marks. I ended up with a coat of shellac to cover the latex paint and then four coats of spray lacquer. That has been holding up pretty well but for some reason, some of his wooden toys do feel like they stick a bit to the surface if they are left there for a couple days. I don’t understand what causes it.
This project took way more time than I thought it would, but I learned a lot (spray lacquer rocks!) and I smile every time I see Elijah use his table. Totally worth it.

I have a small work area, but I’ve often wished that I had a table I could walk around for easier assembly of projects. I’ve also felt like I should have an outfeed table for the table saw to aid in cutting large pieces of wood. I was able to accomplish both with a single project. The plans come from the November issue of Family Handyman (an excellent magazine!) It’s built out of a single 3/4” piece of plywood so it’s pretty economical. And the plans are cleverly made so that you can cut the plywood into three 32” strips. I had that done right at Home Depot so it was easy to get home and maneuver around on the table saw. Obviously a bigger table would be nice but this has already come in very handy!

I also attempted to make this into a downdraft table (think of an air hockey table in reverse.) it would help catch dust particles from sanding, etc. There are a little over one hunded 5/16” holes in the top (that adds up to the 2.5” hose size). I drilled a hole in the side for the shop vac, but it probably should have gone in the bottom. It turns out not to matter because the shop vac doesn’t move enough air to make this very useful. If I can find an old furnace motor I might try to hook that up. It wasn’t a big loss though. The modifications to the plans were minor to try this. The top was already a box to make it easier to clamp things to the surface.

I’ve been on a mission to get more dust into my shop vac and out of my garage. Previous projects have left a lot of dust on everything. The table saw is a pretty big culprit. I came up with a very simple solution. I cut a few pieces of 1/4” MDF and made a wedge-shaped box under the table saw. It’s all held together with tape until I’m convinced it works and then I’ll glue/screw it together. So far so good. I can use this without a shop vac attached and most of it stays in the box or I can use the shop vac while I’m cutting. A lot of dust still escapes upward from the blade but catching that requires a much more involved system. This is a good solution using parts that were already in my garage.

I don’t have room (or money) for full size woodworking equipment in my garage, so instead I buy the smaller versions. But there are lots of different things out there to spend your money on. Which tools do you really need?

Rockler has a nice article talking about the 8 basic tools you should consider for a small shop. I’m only missing the band saw and the thickness planer. Both are on my list but I’m still trying to figure out which one I’ll look at next.

Before I buy any more tools, I’m dreaming about redoing the shelves and the workbench so that I can use the full wall for a project bench. That would let me line up all my tools at the correct heights so that it’s easier to work with long pieces. That’s still very early in the design phase though.

I mentioned Tuesday that the videos on various YouTube channels are great educational experiences even if you don’t build the projects. Here are some of the things I’ve learned in the past couple months. Feel free to laugh at me if these are basic things you’ve known for a long time!

• Sandpaper gets clogged up well before the grit is actually gone. This is especially true for power sanders. Instead of throwing the sandpaper away before it’s used up, get a sandpaper eraser. It looks like magic the first time you use it! I recorded a quick video showing it in action.
• Bending wood or even something stiff like a very thick extension cord is a good way to draw curves. But holding the curve in place while you’re drawing the curve requires a third hand and you can’t always clamp it in place while you draw. It turns out there is a great tool just for this and it’s called a drawing bow.
• I don’t have a good photo of this, but I found myself needing to make a lot of repeat cuts at the same length using the chop saw. I had a 1×1 piece of oak that I cut around 4 feet long and then drilled two holes so it attached to my chop saw with some bolts. That sticks out the end and I can put a clamp on that at whatever distance I need, place my that I’m cutting up against that, and then get a repeatable cut every time. Until I have a table like this, the extension is a good solution that can be easily stored away.
• My last couple projects like the desk left my garage covered in sawdust. It was everywhere! Since then, I’ve been trying to collect more of it with the shop vac. The router table and belt/disc sander both have 2.5” ports that hook up easily to the shop vac. Others like the chop saw had an odder sized hole but this universal adapter worked great. One of my next projects is going to be building a box underneath the table saw with a hole for a shop vac hose at the bottom. That should help collect most of the dust from the saw. It will never be as good as a real dust collection system, but it’s much better than nothing. I might invest in a cyclone at some point too which helps pull most of the dust out before it reaches your shop vac. It’s a lot easier to empty a 5 gallon bucket than the shop vac and it keeps the filter clean.

Usually things like this aren’t the main point of the video or might not even be mentioned, but I regular spot solutions to problems that I have. You can learn a lot just by watching someone who knows what they are doing. You’ll either learn a new tip or find some new gadget to buy!

Yesterday’s post covered a couple good magazines, but YouTube has lots of excellent free content. Here are the series I follow every week:

• I Like To Make Stuff – This series generally has very quick projects and sometimes incorporates electronics.
• Jay Bates – He works out of his garage and builds a lot of things for his home. He puts a lot of effort into video editing and has a lot of it synced up to the beat of the music. Jay also posts videos of his design work using the free SketchUp tool. I’ve tried with limited success to use it to plan projects in the past, but by watching him work, I think I’ll get a lot more use out of Sketchup.
• The Wood Whisperer – Marc is the godfather of woodworking podcasts. He was the first and his podcast has a lot of polish. He has a very high end shop, but some of the projects he does are still within the more casual woodworker.
• Frank Howarth – I only recently started watching this. Frank has a nice shop and does lots of lathe work. I don’t have a lathe but I like his style and I still learn some things watching his projects. His montage scenes often have fun little timelapses where the wood pieces seem to move themselves around.
• Woodworking for Mere Mortals – This is the other new one in my list. He has a sense of humor to his videos, and, as the title suggests, he makes projects that most of us can relate to.

A lot of these videos have plans posted either for free or for purchase. It’s incredibly helpful to have a video to go along with the plans if you decide to build one of them. And even though I have yet to build anything that I’ve seen on these videos, I’ve learned a ton just by watching them work. It’s an excellent free education by osmosis. It’s hard to watch and not get inspired to go out and start building something.