Woodworking

Conventional wisdom regarding finishing cutting boards and other food prep surfaces is to coat them heavily with mineral oil and/or a food safe paste wax to "seal" and/or "condition" them. Seri Robinson asserts otherwise, her research has shown that any finish applied to wood decreases its natural anti-microbial properties.

I'm still not quite happy with my current toolbox, so I’ve decided to design my own. I intend to follow the “first order retrievability” principle, meaning every tool should be accessible with one hand, without having to move anything else out of the way. I’ve made fixed tool holders from PVC pipe before - it’s a familiar, readily available material for me.

I haven’t settled on the final design yet - this sketch is just to get the idea across. My main issue is figuring out how to secure the pipes to the plywood frame. I can screw the first row into the sides and central divider, but the next row would either need to be attached to the surrounding pipes or mounted from the bottom. I’ve used screws thru the base before, and while it works, it tends to deform the pipe. I’m wondering if there’s an alternative I’m overlooking - ideally something that can also be disassembled later, since the design will probably go through several iterations.

I’m also open to any tips or ideas on what else to incorporate into the design. I’m a general handyman, so I’m carrying most of the common hand tools to jobs. For power tools, I have a separate bag.

I can try to find a picture of my current tool bag so you’ll have a better idea of the setup I’m aiming for.

Here are the parts it is built from

Took a few minutes to build, and in the end it is very stiff, light and long!

I'm making a box to store a pizza. The box itself is pretty straight forward, cherry wood, box joints and basically a groove in the bottom with a piece of plywood (cherry plywood) to act as the bottom. I'm pretty happy with how the bottom went together but for the top I'm having an issue....

So for the top I have a 3/8ths piece of roughly 10x10 with basically a dado around the edge so it insets slightly into the box. The problem I'm having is that when a pizza goes in, it bows a bit. I'm guessing it's the steam from the pizza but so far I've been able to put something heavy on it and it comes out but I want to prevent it in the future.

I'm thinking a couple strips on the underside (basically across to U that forms) might help (with some glue and a couple of screws). I've also "sealed" it with a food grade oil but I'm looking for thoughts if this will or won't help and any possible alternatives.

Could have sworn I had more 6" & 24" trigger clamps for stuff like this

I'm trying to do my very first table top out of hardwood but it proving to be quite the learning curve. I acquired a small benchtop jointer and a lunchbox type thickness planer and I've more or less successfully made my boards. What I'm struggling with now is getting a nice glue up without gaps. My first try turned out so so, and i was afraid i didn't use enough glue so I re ripped the joints with my tracksaw. I think my boards are evenly thick but they seem a bit hourglass shaped if that makes sense. They'reb about 170cm long and they join up on the ends, but there's about a 1mm gap towards the middle on some joints and its too much to squeeze all the gaps together on the panel. I first tried jointing on the benchtop jointer but got horrible results with the small bed. (Could also be lack of skill as this is all new to me). I then went with a tracksaw and parallel guides instead,which is better but still giving me a bit of a gap. So I guess im asking how more experienced woodworkers would proceed.

Would it help to glue up two boards at a time so there's maybe enough strength in the clamps to squeeze the gap shut. Or should i rip the bigger boards down so they all fit upright in the thickness planer and try to get two really parallel sides that way? I have rollers to extend the beds of both the thicknesser and the jointer but have had better results with the thicknesses. Is there something else I'm not thinking of?

Plywood for the main box (3/4" sides, 1/4" back, rabbet and dado joints). Cut the door 1" too narrow so I added a handle from cedar scrap. Shelves and sheet pan brackets are reclaimed bed slats, planed. Window hole is routed with plexiglass insert, my first time doing any significant router work.

First bake came out well:

The brackets for the baking sheet have a cutout to accommodate two bowls. My goal was either two bowls or two baking sheets.

An obvious improvement would be to install an under-counter outlet so the cord is less prominent.

Heating is from a 45W incandescent bulb (which was the hardest part to find). It's in the top of an old desk lamp. Adding an 8x8" pan of hot water kept the humidity high so I didn't have to cover the rising bread. Temperature/humidity logging is from an SHT30 (plus two DS18B20s) running Tasmota and reportig to HomeAssistant, viewed in Grafana. I expected to have to cycle the light, but just keeping it always on seems to give me the right temperature range.

Hi woodworkers

I've recently picked up a few tools to get into artisanal woodwork, and I want to do 1 or 2 projects that entails hollowing out natural branches.

The "perfect" outcome would be something similar to bamboo shoot, which have a narrow edge and hollow center. I'm not really expecting to be able to do this by hand with millimetric accuracy, but it gives you an idea of what I'm aiming for.

I own a high-speed rotary tool that is "technically" able to carve wood, but the bits I own atm are more of a finish toolkit. I successfully used a sanding head to carve out some wood, but I don't think it's remotely optimal for projects any bigger than what I was working on.

So all this context leads to this question: What would be the optimal tool to efficiently hollow out a branch? I can't reliably use a drill, because there's no certainty that the branches I'll work with will be remotely straight, I'm guessing that a mill file could get me some mileage but it sounds like a last resort kind of tool.

I’m thinking of making something similar to these stackable shelves. But I want to do it using hand tools only so it seems plywood is out of the question (searching online said it would damage my Japanese hand saw). So I’m looking at solid wood instead and getting pine hobby boards that I won’t have to plane seems to be the easiest and cheapest alternative. The shelves will mostly hold records and books and the largest will probably be 30x30x75cm but stacked on other shelves. Am I in for a bad time?

For a small musical instrument I need a thin sheet of spruce (1.5mm). Normally I'd just buy a guitar or lute top, but for this one I need the highest quality I can get, with very narrow rings. So my idea is to saw down a blank for a violin top (25mm at its thickest point). I need to do this with as little waste as possible, because a good spruce top can cost 100-300€.

Is there a way I can do this with hand tools?

I'm a renovation contractor that builds a lot of decks and I've been having the worst results trying to find a product to seal/stain cedar. It turns grey quite fast so most clients want it sealed and or stained. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

I’ve been using necessary tree pruning at my house as an opportunity to select ideal branches for walking sticks. My self-taught finishing process mostly consists of a bench top belt sander, hand scraper, and tung oil. It’s going pretty well, but I don’t yet know about the long term bark durability and adhesion.

I recently received an oak coffee table top that has been finished with 4 coats of Minwax Polycrylic (not MAX). My 3- and 5-year-olds still managed to ding and scratch it with toys/play within about 3 hours.

I'm considering trying a coat or two of Ultimate Floor Finish to toughen up the surface a bit more, but I realize it might be a lost cause when going up against preschool-aged boys. I'm also not 100% sure that using a different poly top coat on top of what's there is the right move.

Anyone care to speak to:

• Is using a different water-based poly finish on top of an existing one OK?

• Will using a "floor finish" product on furniture offer any noticeable improvement in durability/protection?

Y'all are great; thank you for your advice!

I had to remove a large limb from my pecan tree. Which meant I had some fodder for new kitchen spoons.

I've built up a pretty good pile of small scraps of wood I just can't bear to toss over the years: verawood, ebony, rosewood, mahogany, purpleheart, but even just some nice maple, sitka spruce, red cedar, walnut, etc. I started carving some into pendants this winter, and some look pretty good, but I'm looking for ideas for really small or weirdly shaped scrap -- everything from 1/2" lathe ends with a hole in them, to long 1/2" x 3/8" x 4', a small clip of the pile under the picture.

I've heard a few people just throw them into baggies and sell/give to crafty folks, which I might do in the end. But I figure if I can make stuff to give away as gifts or sell at a craft fair, all the better... but outside of jewellery, not sure what else to do. The are NOT big enough for endgrain cutting boards, and most have a couple rounded or uneven edges.

Just felt sharing.

"I recently learned my finishing mentor – likely he was yours, too – and friend Bob Flexner died at home on December 29, 2024 (read his obituary here). Bob was perhaps best-known for the book “Understanding Wood Finishing,” recognized by many as the bible of all things finishing, and as the long-time finishing columnist for Popular Woodworking Magazine."

I chose the picture that shows the fewest mistakes 😆

It's made from maple with a red oak cutting board from these plans

I didn't find out red oak isn't good for cutting boards until after it was made, so I'll have to remake it some day. The good news is that it will only be used for cutting bread, so I think any bacterial growth will be pretty minimal

Just cross posting this for those who may be interested. Enjoy!

What’s a decent blade for ripping accurately? I’m using an old Craftsman 113 belt-driven saw, which I understand isn’t very powerful. I’d like to get nice rips on some 3/4” thick oak. If I can rip thicker stock in the future, that would be great, but as long as I can at least rip thicker softwoods too I think I’ll be satisfied.

I don’t expect to do enough woodworking to worry about a blade made to last through many re-sharpenings; I just want nice rips. Is a $20-30 Diablo from a big box store going to do what I want, or do I really need to step up to the $70-80 range for cut quality? Thanks!

Started with a stair tread from Home Depot. Cut off the corners with the scroll saw. Routered the edges with the Roman Ogee bit. Then I printed out the letters and traced them on with transfer paper. Used a Dremel with a very small round bit to cut the letters. Filled with black acrylic paint. Sanded off the excess from the face. Finished with Amber colored Shellac from Bullseye.

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on a project which involves the pictured piece of driftwood. So far I have been cleaning the wood manually with sand paper, but this is quite slow and exhausting. What type of (preferably consumer grade) tools can I use to speed up the process?

I'm about to start putting together some simple furniture and one thing I want is to have the option to collapse it, if I need to move it out of a room.

I've looked into confirmat screws and those are incredibly strong but have the downside of requiring specialized drill bits to use. These screws I can get easily in my market, in 500 units boxes.

Are there other options I can look into?

Added information

Material to be used will either be OSB3 or plywood.