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Cut Kahlua bottle
Buying, drinking, cutting and polishing – several steps to get a perfect flower pot. Very unique and rare. A perfect gift for someone you care about. The first thing to do was to score a line with my homemade jig. Then the usual – cold and boiling water to crack the glass. Sanding the outside edges came next. First the top and when I used the 220 grit I sanded the bevel for the first time. Up to the 3000 grit. As always the next step was to install my drum sander. I used 240, 400 and 600-grit sanding bands.…
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Faux granite shelving unit
Made of aluminium, MDF and spruce. No fancy joinery, just rivets and screws. The project combines a modern approach and some Far East techniques. First I cut the MDF to size, did some light sanding (the edges) and then I prepared the aluminium legs. I wanted some chaotic pattern on the outside walls so I came up with the idea – to wrap the roller sleeve with some painter’s tape and apply old-fashioned, oil-based paint – white and graphite. I didn’t know what to expect but eventually, I liked what I got. I covered it with a couple of layers…
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Charred half log stand
It’s made from a single piece of hardwood, sycamore (maple) tree that I cut down last year in my backyard. It’s charred with shou sugi ban, it’s waxed and it has 3 legs. I had to make sure that the wood will char nicely before I started the project. It did so I set up my router flattening jig. Due to the height of the material I used my workbench legs as the rails. The top and the bottom are parallel to each other. Also, the legs are at 90º to the base. I removed some material with a router…
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Cylindrical tealight holders
A quite simple project that involved turning an old balustrade post, cracked and riddled and cutting wine bottles. I used my recently built router turning jig to turn one cylinder, slightly bigger in diameter as that was reduced later on by sanding. I noticed that there is actually no need to rotate the piece all the time, and what worked was to route it all the way through, from one end to another and then rotate it clockwise a little bit, do the pass and so on. That didn’t apply to the recesses at both ends. Once it was done…
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Quick bowl
To cut out the disc I used 1 flush trim router bit, 2 base plates and reversed parallel fence. The first cut was done halfway through to prepare the groove for the bearing, which was obviously the same size as the bit. Once I had the disc done I reversed the parallel fence to its original setup, I swapped the base plates and installed my bowl router bit. I took a couple of passes for the outside groove and then I used my plunge base to remove the centrepiece. I flipped the bowl over and used a round-over bit for…
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Burnt tote box
A piece of scrap wood was cut to size on my table saw. I then prepared the router table and the system of fences. It actually worked very well, but it was only set for a shallow, first pass, to route the recess for future processing. I then clamped the piece down and used another flush trim bit to deepen the groove. It looked quite nice at that stage, but I decided to round off all the edges with my round-over bit. It looked rudely before sanding, quite bad and I had second thoughts… But after sanding it got a…
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Router turning jig
Buying a lathe is not very expensive, but it takes space to store. That was the reason to build that jig. It’s easy to store, and it uses my router tabletop. The square log pictured below was another reason that I built this jig. I started with the metal elements. Cutting to length, drilling holes and countersinking them. 2 types of screws were used as this jig is fixed on one side and can be adjusted on the other side in the future. Larger screws had too big heads for this project, so I resized them down with some grinding.…
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Sandeman glass
It’s another Porto glass – slightly bigger than the last one and dedicated to a different use. Separating the bottom from the top is always a big question mark. It worked this time. The process of making a glass like this involves buying a bottle and emptying it – these steps are very satisfying too! I don’t like to use the word “sanding” for glass, but that’s what it is and it’s working well. Sharp edges from the top were sanded with 60, 80 and 220-grit sandpaper. Then I used 320 for both the top and side edges. Next, –…
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Where am I sign
I used an old toilet seat – yes … a toilet seat … to make the sign. The plan was simple: contact adhesive for the print and the smallest router bit for the lettering. Once the routing was finished I removed the paper and used black spray paint to cover the grooves. One, heavy, dripping coat did the job. Once sanded it looked a little better: I used my jigsaw to cut out the arrow shape and then moved to my sanding station to smooth out the edges. I also prepared the aluminium tube which involved cutting, grinding, drilling holes…
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Coffee table for one
It had to be easy to move and quite small, but big enough to accommodate a cup of coffee and a TV remote. I started up by cutting the timber to length. Then I cut dados using my table saw. Not too deep, as they will only prevent the parts from spinning around. Pocket holes were next. Once drilled, their edges were cleaned with little rasps and sandpaper. Every joint was reinforced with glue. Fixing the last one was a little tricky, I managed by using my ratchet spanner. I also used additional screws for the bottom pieces – having…
