Tag: Making

Small Display Case | A Dad & Son Project!

I absolutely love that my son Ian came to me with a project idea that he wanted to build with me.

While the negative is that he broke his wrist a few months ago, after getting signatures from us, the kids at school and his teachers, it turned into a bit of a badge of honor. He got the idea for this project after seeing a trophy case, and wanted to build a display case for his cast. And as usual when he joins me in the shop while the camera is on, he is “the goofball”!

This was definitely some good quality dad/son time where he had fun and hopefully learned a few things along the way!

by Jim Ashley

Simple Sawhorses

Sometimes everyone needs to do some shop builds. I used to have four of the plastic sawhorses, but I killed two of them when I built my workbench. I decided that my next set would be ones that I built.

For these ones, each sawhorse gets three pieces of 2×4 cut to 32″ for the “I beam” top and 4 pieces cut to 30″ for the legs. There are many ways to do sawhorses – this type I was introduced to by Paul Meyette. Some may recognize them as well as the type Jay Bates did a few years back. I’ve linked to both of them below.

Paul Meyette sawhorse video: https://youtu.be/YnMgYdXXLJY

Jay Bates sawhorse video: https://youtu.be/zxf6xMe_PKY

by Jim Ashley

Sushi Cutting Board from David Picciuto’s ‘Make Your Own Cutting Boards’

As a wedding gift, I recently made the Sushi cutting board from David Picciuto’s book Make Your Own Cutting Boards: Smart Projects and Stylish Designs for a Hands-On Kitchen.

This cutting board really has an elegant design with an Eastern feel. The hard maple and walnut contrast nicely on a smaller project like this.

Sometimes, when shop time is at a premium, you’re really itching to use a particular tool. In this case I used my #4 smooth plane. It’s a joy to use and I believe it cut down the amount of time required to get to a smooth surface as opposed to going through each grit of sanding. I also eased many of the edges using my low angle block plane.

Buy David’s book on Amazon! – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1940611458/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_G3ZdzbEH48A0A

Check out more of David’s work at Make Something:
https://makesomething.tv/
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrunkenWoodworker

 

by Jim Ashley