WOOD Magazine November 2020

Long-time readers may recall the winter my street-side mailbox got creamed by a snowplow (issue 218, May 2013). I vowed at the time that I would build a bigger, better, stronger mailbox and laugh in the face of city plows slinging sloppy slush. Never happened. But this year, the old mailbox came out of the winter season seriously listing to the north, and it was time to finally replace it. So I dug out issue 218 and headed for the shop. I have to admit, it was one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve built in a long time. Maybe it was because I had plenty of pandemic-provided free time, so I didn’t feel the need to rush through the build, which invariably leads to mistakes. Or perhaps it was because the project presented…

1. Dense and hard, bloodwood shares its vibrant red hue with several other crimson woods. Learn about them all. woodmagazine.com/bloodwood 2. Used as an accent, the bright red-orange color of padauk can be a double-edged sword when it bleeds onto lighter neighboring woods. Learn how to prevent it. woodmagazine.com/padauk 3. Call it bois d’arc (bow wood), hedge, or Osage orange, this durable wood was indispensable to the indigenous people of the plains and the settlers they encountered. woodmagazine.com/osageorange 4. The whitest known wood, holly is prized as an inlay and an ethical substitute for ivory. woodmagazine.com/holly 5. African ebony (woodmagazine.com/ebony) has been a rare treasure since Old Testament times (Ezekiel 27:15). If you can’t afford a price tag of biblical proportions, try these ebonizing techniques: woodmagazine.com/ebonize 6. Blueheart would be an interesting species if it existed. But this is dyed…

Rip, Rotate, Reassemble, Repeat The Multi-grain Table in issue 256 (October 2018) reminded me of these cutting boards I’ve been making for about 12 years. This one measures about 9×13" and contains more than 20 species of wood, including North American hardwoods, such as oak, walnut, and hickory, as well as more exotic woods, such as Caribbean cherry, Honduran rosewood, Brazilian blackheart, and goncolo alves. The cutting boards started as a way for me to use up smaller scraps of wood—I glue them up randomly into larger blocks that I rip square, then re-rip at a 45° bevel, then glue back together, again randomly. I do that a few more times, then crosscut them and assemble them into strips that I glue together to make an end-grain cutting board, like this one.…

Q Making sense of drawer slide weight ratings I need to order some drawer slides for a shop cabinet I’m building. There’s a pretty big price difference between the various types, and what’s the deal with weight ratings? How do I determine which ones to use? —Frank Headley, Millville, N.J. A Choosing the right hardware is one of the most important parts of any project, Frank, especially when you’re talking about load-bearing hardware, such as hinges or drawer slides. Most manufacturers classify their drawer slides as light-, medium-, or heavy-duty. These serve as general guidelines to help you select the slides that best match the intended use. For example, you’ll often find light-duty slides on drawers in bathroom vanities, while kitchen cabinets may use light-duty or medium-duty slides, depending on the size and…

Create totally tubular custom collection bins for mini-cyclones I use a mini-cyclone separator in-line with my shop vacuum for dust collection on some of my tools. But some tools generate so many chips that frequently emptying the 5-gallon bucket I was using to capture them became a chore. Then I realized I could make a “bucket” any size I wanted using the tube forms used for pouring concrete deck piers. They come in 8", 10", and 12" diameters from the home center and can be cut to any length. I made a removable-top adapter plate for attaching the mini-cyclone. Likewise, I closed the bottom with a plywood disc, and made a wide-stance mobile base for it, fastening it to the tube with a few screws. To empty the container, I simply remove…

From across the room, the simple lines of this clock allow your eye to linger on the spalted grain. When you get up for a closer look, the delicate banding outlining the case, combined with perfectly executed miter joints, suggests that this is a time-consuming and exacting project. In reality, it’s actually quite simple. The secret is gluing oversize bands to over-thickness panels and then planing and trimming the panel assemblies to size. To obtain crisp, gap-free miters, we formed them on a router table using a chamfer bit. Prepare the Panels 1 From a ⅜×6⅞×23" board (we used spalted maple), cut blanks for the top panel (A), front panel (B), and bottom panel (A) in sequence [Drawing 1, Materials List]. Label the parts to keep the grain pattern in order. 2 Cut…