Descending Ashtray

I found this pretty cool maple work bench down in the basement garage. One of the seams was starting to split apart, so I glued, clamped and let it sit over night.

I started sanding it down because I thought might be able to turn it into a butcher block table for the kitchen. But it has a lot of knicks and oil stains on the surface. I wish I had access to an industrial surface sander!

I thought about flipping it over and using the underside for the top but it has these big holes cut out for anchoring bolts. Maybe I could plug them with maple circles or just use the work bench for a work bench.

It is not just the picture, the clamp was really bending that much!

The kitchen is probably going to require the most amount of work. Right now it is really small and has this god aweful retro look going on. I want to rip all of these cabinents out and build new ones with an island counter top that will extend into the room on the left.

I can’t wait to finish this one. I think the contrast between the black of the burned cedar and the revealed raw wood will be incredible. The burning is, predictably, a lot of fun. I used a propane torch like you’d use for plumbing repair.

I took a class called “3 Simple Finishes” a couple of years ago, and though this was not one of the 3 covered in the title, it was mentioned in passing. When you mix vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar) and throw in some fine steel wool, it makes a kind of black stain for wood. Just paint it on. and let it set overnight.

Top left: tung oil on cedar
Top right: vinegar stain
Bottom left: more oil, 2 coats’ worth
Bottom right: vinegar stain, then oil

I tried this technique out on a cedar wall piece that also uses my homemade circle-cutting router jig.

The square field has been dyed, then oiled. I then used the router jig and a v-groove bit to cut concentric rings in the wood. This removed the dyed area. Then, I oiled the whole piece again. I actually think it would have looked better with no oil, and perhaps a less-red wood. Still, the cedar was from some dimensional lumber scraps I had around, so the price for this experiement was right. I do like this concentric idea a lot, though. Like growth rings on a tree, but still kind of graphic and vaguely primitive and aged-looking.

I think I might try burning the surface of the next one to a good char and skipping the oil on the newly exposed wood.

It’s 25 inches square.

Here it is, as promised - my new bandsaw, and the last fruit from my freelance business labors. In the interest of a more healthy mind, I decided to give up freelance work at long last. Now I have more time to spend with my tools. I have always said they were an investment in myself. Let’s see!

Hammer for scale.

Sarah and I (and my friends Dan and Andrew) built a pergola last summer in hopes of providing some much-needed shade from the summer sun. The picnic table was my first “all-by-myself” woodworking project when we moved to Portland in 2001. I had to buy a circular saw to build it, starting the tool-buying downward spiral.

Two weekends ago, Sarah and I laid a brick patio underneath it using a mixture of new bricks and some legacy bricks that came with our house. Sarah bought some outdoor lights to hang up underneath it - looks pretty nice. You can see my hops growing on the back. They just reached the top of the pergola, and seem to be coming in a lot thicker this year.

Note the shiny new vinyl fence our new neighbor just put up. Yuck. I plan to cover it with wood lattice and plant some evergreen vines, perhaps this weekend.