Outfeed Table - Day 1

I started working on the outfeed table today.  The basic design came from another Wood Whisperer video (which in turn came from a project from the New Yankee Workshop).  The idea is to build a simple table out of nothing but plywood.  The legs are made from two strips of plywood joined in an "L."  The table top is a single piece of plywood and the rest are just various supports.  I really liked the simple design especially since I wanted to get the majority done in a single weekend.

I made a few small variations with my design.  Instead of having the table top nest inside the legs as Marc did, I'm choosing to have it sit completely on top.  I like the idea of just a solid sheet on the top surface, less things wood could snag on.  The other thing I'm adding is a split fold down wing, more on that in a bit.

Dimensions of the table will be 60"x 42" not including the wing

Before I began cutting anything I set up a temporary outfeed table by stacking my small work bench on some cinder blocks.

A bit precariously perched

This illustrates an issue with the basic design of the outfeed table.  My table saw has a bracket used to attach the blade guard that sticks out about five inches from the back of table.  So the closest you can fit an outfeed table is five inches away.  That's a pretty big gap.

Blade guard bracket prevents the outfeed table from sitting flush

Blade guard installed

So my solution is to build a fold down wing with a cut-out for the blade guard.  Normally table extensions would fold out from the bottom, not down from the top.  However, because of the shape of the bracket, if the wing folded out from the bottom the cut-out would need to be about six inches wide.  A wing folding down from the top needs a cut-out of only about two inches wide.  The only time I would need to raise the wing would be for attaching and removing the blade guard.  I'm still working out exactly how I'm going to do this, finding the right hinge will be key.

Once I had the temporary outfeed table set up I got to work.  I was able to cut out the table top and build all four legs.  The table top was much too cumbersome to try to cut out with the table saw so I cut it on the ground using a circular saw.

Getting ready to cut out the table top

Big sheet of MDF used for a fence

While I was just planning on using glue and screws for the legs I ended up putting some dowel pins in too.  They made it much easier to line up the boards. I still used screws so that I didn't have to wait for the glue to dry before removing the clamps.

First leg all clamped up then screwed together

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get all of the remaining pieces cut out and to assemble the table frame.

Upcoming Projects

My next projects are all going to be a bit more involved than the last few.  I'm hoping to get back into documenting as I build instead of just a single post at the end.  I actually have three different projects lined up and I'm going to try to overlap the work between them. I realized that when I get to the sanding part of each project I have a tendency to lose patience and rush it (I'm betting this is a fairly common thing with woodworkers).  My hope is that by having another project to build I can sand until I get bored then switch to building a little of the next project then go back to sanding the next day.  We'll see how it works.

So the first project is an outfeed table for my table saw.  After just a little experience with the table saw I already know I need one of these.  Ripping wood and having it start to fall off the table towards the end of the cut is cumbersome and a bit scary.  Here's the initial design:

The goal of this project is to do it quickly.  Since it's just shop furniture I'll be focusing on fast construction and minimal finishing.  I'll probably be using screws and angle brackets instead of nice joinery and I'll probably just finish the top surface.

The next project is a pantry organizer.  We want to replace the shelves in our current pantry with slide out drawers.

Current Pantry

Sliding Drawer Design

In addition to being more convenient this should also almost double the usable space.  I'm hoping to try some dovetails for the drawer walls.

The final project is a toddler bed.  Our two year old is quickly outgrowing her crib and needs somewhere else to sleep.  My first draft is relatively simple, depending on how things go I may actually try to do some inlay work on the head and foot boards.

So the plan is to start this weekend.  I'm hoping I can get the majority of the outfeed table built in one weekend and move on to the other projects from there.

End Grain Cutting Board

After buying the table saw I wanted the next build I did to be something small that would help me get familiar with the table saw operation.  An end grain cutting board was a perfect project.

I didn't document the step by step build process, however, Marc Spagnuolo (the Wood Whisperer) has a great instructional video.  I just followed his directions.


For the wood I chose to use hard maple and walnut.  I really liked the contrast of the dark and light woods.  I ended up buying the lumber from a somewhat local supplier, definitely a different experience than Home Depot but another one of Marc's videos helped me with that too.

Here's the finished product:

I chose to use this offset checkerboard pattern.  I like that the design messes with your eyes so you end up staring at it trying to figure out how it was put together.

Instead of routing out the recesses as Marc did in his video I chose to route slots in the sides.  I wanted to have the option of using either side of the board and still be able to easily pick it up.

Overall the project was just as easy as Marc made it look in the video.  Sanding was the hardest part and only because it took a LONG time.  We've been using it for a few months now and it's holding up well.  So far much better than our other wooden cutting boards.

New Toys

I thought I'd write a quick post on some of the new tools I've acquired.  When I started I really only had the router, a circular saw and a drill.  Over the past year and a half I've purchased some power tools to open up more possibilities for future projects.

One of the most difficult things to do with just a router and circular saw is cross-cutting thin stock.  So my first purchase was a compound miter saw:

This made the trim work on the coat rack base much easier.

Next was a purchase I hadn't intended to make.  Unfortunately, my favorite tool, my router, broke mid way through building the coat rack.  I was unable to get it repaired so I decided to purchase a new one.

The new Bosch is great.  Pretty similar specs to my old Ryobi router but much more convenient for switching between hand held and table mounted operating.  It can also use 1/2" shank bits whereas the Ryobi only used 1/4" shank bits  Though I do like the plunge system of the Ryobi better and I preferred the Ryobi's trigger style power switch to the Bosch's toggle switch.

Then I made the big purchase.  The definitive wood working power tool, the table saw:

I had been eyeing used table saws for awhile, never really wanted to pull the trigger though.  Even used table saws are pricey.  Then my wife and I were at a tag sale and it just so happened the guy across the street was selling off his whole shop.  I was pretty happy with model, nothing too fancy but a step up from the bench top and contractor models, and of course within the price I wanted to spend.

I've already started working on a project to get familiar with the table saw operations which I'll post more on later this week.

Lastly was another purchase from the tag sale, a thickness planer.  I couldn't resist and the price was right.

I'm pretty excited about these last two purchases.  With the table saw and the thickness planer I can actually buy rough cut lumber from a lumbar yard instead of the pre-cut boards from Home Depot and the like.  This opens up a lot more options with hard wood.

Knife Block

The next problem I needed to solve involved our kitchen knives.  We have a set of Calphalon Katana knives.  The knives were all purchased individually, we didn't get a set with a knife block.  While looking for a knife block I discovered, despite being great knives, they have one drawback.

If you look at the picture above you'll notice the shape of the handle blends into the blade.  There's not a clearly defined end of the handle and start of the blade.  This actually makes it difficult for these knives to cleanly fit into a traditional knife block.

Our first solution to this problem was the Kapoosh knife block.

This knife block is made up of tiny plastic "fibers" that can hold any shaped knife you have.  In the beginning this seemed to work well.  The concept solved the problem with the knives.  The biggest issue, however, was that we couldn't fit all of our knives in the block.

So I decided I wanted to try to make a custom knife block that would fit all of our knives perfectly.  My original idea was to make a traditional knife block but instead of typical flat slots for the blades to cut a more "triangular" slot so the knives would fit cleanly.  Take a look at the knife block that comes with the set of Katana knives today to see what I mean:

(Side note:  You can't buy this block on its own)

As I was trying to design this block I realized cutting those slots was going to be really challenging.  I would have to create some kind of jig and find a router bit with the proper cutting angle and what if different knives had different angles?  I ended up abandoning the idea and looking for something else.

Then I found an episode on the Wood Whisperer where Marc makes a knife block.  The key to the design was using bamboo skewers to hold the knives.  This is the same concept as the Kapoosh but using something readily available.  This was an amazing idea and exactly what I was looking for.  The episode was great and had a lot of useful info, but the plans still required tools I didn't have.  I also had my own ideas of how I wanted the knife block to look.  So I begin a new design around this bamboo skewer concept.  Here were the requirements:

1. Must hold all of our knives including the sharpener and our food scissors
2. Have a separate section for our matching steak knifes
3. Have a low profile to minimize occupied counter space

Here's the design I came up with:

It's a pretty simple design.  Some of the angles where a challenge to cut.  This was also the first project where I glued up boards to get those wide panels rather than using plywood.  I ended up using poplar and dying it similar to the TV cabinet.

Here's how it turned out:

This ended up being a birthday present for my wife.  She loved it.  We've been using it for about six months now and it's worked great.  The one slight annoyance with it is that the skewers often come out with the knife.  In the video Marc actually glues the skewers down which would solve the problem.  I didn't end up doing that because I liked the idea of being able to replace skewers easily down the road.  So I'm still trying to find a solutions where the skewers would stay in place but could be replaced if needed.

Toddler Coat Rack

The first project I tackled after the TV cabinet was a toddler coat rack:

The idea for this project came out of a much simpler idea for trying to mount a baby monitor.  Our daughter was just born and we were trying to set up one of the popular baby accessories these days, a video monitor.  We couldn't find a place to mount the monitor that would get a full shot of the crib.  Finally I said I'll just build a simple pole with a base and we can mount the camera at the top.  As I thought more about the idea I was thinking it would be nice if I could turn this into something more than just a pole, something we might be able to use after we stop using the monitor.  That's when I thought of a coat rack.

Now I'm certainly not an expert with coat racks but from experience there were two issues I wanted to try to prevent as best as possible:

1. Coats/clothes failing off of the coat rack pegs
2. The entire coat rack falling over from too much weight on the pegs

The latter is obviously a safety concern with a little one running around, and by far the more important issue.  So to try to prevent this, there were three features I built into the design.  First, I made the base very wide, roughly a 15" square.  Next, I made the pegs short so they wouldn't extend out past the base.  Finally, I made the base heavy.  The base is made up of three layers of 3/4" plywood with solid maple trim.  In addition however, is this:

This 10 lb. barbell plate is embedded in the middle of the base.  This was a perfect way to increase the weight.  It's much heavier than the wood but it also conveniently has a nice hole through the center.  I was able to mount the post deep into the base, going right through the center of the weight.  I specifically chose a plate with a 2" hole for that reason, it was a bit more expensive but worth it.  Once the base was glued together the weight was completely hidden.

Now, to try to minimize clothes failing off of the pegs I wanted to avoid having the pegs come out exactly 90 degrees from the post.  In my experience clothes fall off easily when the peg is completely horizontal.  Getting these pegs right was the hardest challenge of this project.  

Using round dowels initially seemed like the obvious choice but drilling a half-inch hole on an angle resulted in a messy hole that was always bigger than the dowel.  

Then I tried to get fancy.  

I tried to steam bend the dowels.  The idea was, if I could bend the dowels I'd be able to drill a straight hole into the post but still have the peg end up at an angle.  It seemed like a pretty clever idea, and I'm sure there's experienced wood workers that would have no problem doing this.  For me, however, no matter what I tried I could not bend those dowels without breaking them.

Finally I found my solution.  It was a simpler concept and I could do it using the tools I had.  I purchased 3/4" square dowels.  I drilled holes in the ends of them and used 3/8" dowel pins to connect them to post.  This solved all of my problems.  I still had the messy hole problem but now, because the square dowel was bigger than the actual hole, any imperfections would be covered up.  Square dowels were key because they're easily to clamp, which made it possible to drill holes in the dowel ends.  Clamping a round dowel is very difficult.  Looking back on it now, square dowels seem obvious if for no other reason then they match the rest of the design.

The last little touch was to use alphabet blocks as the peg ends.  Walmart had an inexpensive set that was perfect for this.  I used dowel pins again to attach the blocks to the pegs.  I purposely did not glue them together though so that they could be replaced if we eventually move this out of the nursery.

So I'll end with just a few more pictures of the coat rack.  This project turned out to be bigger than my original, simple idea, of just a post for a monitor but it's been a great addition to our daughter's room.

Toddler-level pegs

Getting Back Into It

Hard to believe it's been well over a year since I last posted, time files as they say.  The TV cabinet has been holding up great.  It's been such an improvement over the previous stand. There's a few things I might one day try to improve, but for now we're really happy with it.

Over the past year there have been a few small projects that, unfortunately, I didn't document nearly as well as the TV cabinet.  So the next few posts will be about those smaller projects to catch us up to today.  I've got a fairly big project coming up so I wanted to make sure to get back into documenting the process before I really start working on it.

I'm hoping to get a bunch of posts done today so stay tuned.