Last week Rob wondered if you’ve made good use of your shelter-in-place time to learn a new woodworking trick or two — or maybe completed a new project. – Editor
“I took advantage of the recent down time to use up some clock inserts and wood left over from previous projects. I enjoyed it so I bought more inserts. You can see the results in this photo. There is a story about the three clocks in the top tier. The father of one of my best friends was a professional woodworker. He was at it well into his eighties before he passed away. As we were cleaning out his shop, we came across several rough and irregular pieces of 5/4 stock that couldn’t be sold off at auction. When my friend and his wife heard I was making ‘isolation clocks’, they asked me to make one for each of their three granddaughters. It seemed natural, after milling and joining, to make them from this wood, which turned out to be cherry. The girls are quite young. I am sure that as they get older they will be happy to have these clocks made from wood that once belonged to their great grandfather. Now that the weather has turned nicer, I have turned my attention away from the shop. If it gets oppressively hot, maybe I will return.” – Tony Messina
“I saw some barn art marquetry that uses various geometric shapes, so I thought I would give it a try. I couldn’t find anything that just used ‘diamond’ shapes so I thought this would be a new challenge. I spent hours cutting small diamonds out of eight different species of scrap wood. I mostly assembled them and then tore them down until I found a design that was worthy of glue.” – Michael Riffel
“My time has been spent on a balance of shop and house projects. The house projects have been mainly repurposing. I converted a classic entertainment center into a bar cabinet and upcycled parts from a Mid-century Modern dining table into a quartz topped server. For the shop, I finally built a charging and storage center for my cordless tools and rough-turned a multitude of green bowls from the mass of tree trimmings and storm-downed trees this spring.” – Jay Simmons
“My wife has joined me in woodworking endeavors. Over the past two years we have built a king-sized platform bed for our guest room. We followed that up with a pair of side tables (I should note that the bed, though mostly beech and maple, has a natural-edge camphor slab headboard.) The side tables are also mostly camphor. After that, we completed a project I had begun earlier — a new trestle dining table. We just completed 12 picture frames as a gift and are now working on completion of a complex (for me) project I began five years ago. It is a replica campaign secretary (again, authentically constructed of camphor). We hope to have it completed this year while the weather allows us to work comfortably in our garage and driveway.” – Ralph
“I finished my Maloof-style rocker and was very pleased with the result. I donated it to a local hospice to use for a fundraiser.” – Charlie Franz
“In regards to what I’m doing during the pandemic, being a diabetic I’m high risk so we got out of Brooklyn (which is where the shop I use is) to our get-away place in the Poconos. Certainly a lot easier up here to get out and about without the danger of in coming within 10 ft. of somebody AND I have a garage. I inherited an old DeWALT Power Shop 1400 radial arm saw (RAS) awhile back and thought it a good time to set it up for actual woodworking use. In researching the best ways to true up a RAS (good-old YouTube) I discovered a DeWALT radial arm saw forum that has almost 15,000 members. Down the rabbit hole I went, and now I’ve got the saw completely dismantled down to the bearings. Cleaning has begun and repainting will also be done before reassembly. It’s certainly a big project to keep me busy, with the hopes of a beautifully restored machine that will be able to do precision work.” – Jonathan Eigen
“Here’s my ‘rocking doggie’ that I built for my grandson. I’m working on two more for children of family friends.” – Ervin Klein
