Thinking about building your own DIY Floating Wall Shelves? Look no further because in this project I’ll be showing you exactly how!

Do you have a boring wall that you just don’t know what to do with? Me too. Or, I did! Until I designed this custom floating shelf system for my wall and completely transformed it.

Check out the video above to see how I did it.

Things I Used in This DIY Floating Wall Shelves Project:

• Wagner FLEXiO 3500
• Wagner EZ Roller
• Washbox
• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)

Floating Hexagon Shelves | How To Build

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(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about doing your own DIY kitchen remodel? Check out this project where I did one in one day, and on a budget! Easy kitchen renovation.

In this video I show you how I completely updated the look of this kitchen in just 2 days by giving the cabinets a much needed makeover!

Check it all out in the video above.

Things I Used in This IY Kitchen Remodel Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Front and Center (use code APRIL for 20% off)

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Looking to add storage space to your kitchen with DIY toe kick drawers? In this project, I’m showing you how I turn my hollow toe kick area of my kitchen!

Turn cabinets into hidden drawer storage! This is a great way to find more storage space under your cabinets.

Things I Used in This DIY Toe Kick Drawers Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Triton Multi Tool
• DAP Weldwood Glue
• Brad Nailer
• Melamine Edge Banding
• DAP DynaGrip
• Felt Bottoms

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about doing some DIY Cabinet Painting? Check out this project where I took outdated bathroom cabinets and painted them for cheap!

Today I’m showing you how I easily and quickly painted some outdated cabinets on a bathroom vanity. This is an inexpensive, yet high quality fix! And can easily be done in a weekend.

Check out my other bathroom remodel video!

Things I Used In This DIY Cabinet Painting Project:

• ISOtunes Hearing Protection (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• DAP Premium Wood Filler
• Wagner Flexio 3500 Sprayer

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about doing your own DIY Bathroom Remodel? Before you do, check out this 2-part project where I walk you through how I did mine, with pro tips!

Today, and in Part 1, I’m bringing you along as I get started with my small DIY bathroom remodel, including taking out the old vanity, backsplash, removing the toilet (lessons learned!) and installing new flooring.

DIY Bathroom Remodel | Flooring, Vanity, Backsplash, and Toilet | Part 1

Check out Part 2 below where I’ll finish it with a new vanity, framed mirror and upgrading the old shower tile!

Pro Tip: First time laying hardwood floors? Watch my video on laying hardwood floors here!

Things I Used in This DIY Bathroom Remodel Project | Part 1:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Toughbuilt Scraper Knife
• Rubber Floor Roller
• Triton MultiTool

DIY Bathroom Remodel | Vanity, Mirror, and Shower Tile | Part 2

In this video I’m showing you how I installed a new toilet flange, framed a mirror, installed a vanity and new plumbing, fixed drywall, installed a new light fixture and added a new modern surface to a shower wall.

Things I Used in This DIY Bathroom Remodel Project | Part 2:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code APRIL for 10% off)
• Triton MultiTool
• DAP Dynaflex: https://amzn.to/3gyAal5
• Wilker Do’s Miter Saw Stand
• DAP Weldwood Wood Glue
• Stud Finder
• WetWall Panels
• Electric Caulk Gun

Thank you to WetWall for sponsoring this project! Check out this revolutionary Water-Proof Wall Panel System that delivers high-end style without the need for disruptive (and costly) demolitions.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Wondering how you can make your own DIY wall art? Check out this project where I 3D painted a wood mountain and turned it into accent wall art!

In this video I’m showing you how I made a 3D wall art mountain scene for my house using wood and paint. The top half is made of 3D wooden pieces and the bottom is a painted reflection. This is a wonderful DIY idea for a wall in your home or office!

Things I Used in This DIY Wall Art Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection (use code APRIL for $10 off)
• Scotch Blue Tape
• Scotch Delicate Surface Tape
• Armor Mobile Workbench
• Armor Dog Peg Clamps
• Triton Tracksaw
• Stealth Mask Respirator (use code April10 for 10% off)
• Stud Finder

Check out other mountain wall art scenes I’ve done here: Scrap Wood Art and here Custom Wall Art.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about making your own DIY serving tray? Check out this project where I built my own using a laser and epoxy! I lasered in a map!

In this video, I’m showing you how I built a wooden Serving Tray and added an element of art to it by cutting in a map with my Glowforge laser and adding blue epoxy. This was a fun project and I love the way it came out!

Serving Tray Templates (Digital)

$9.99

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Find the Serving Tray Templates here!

Things I Used in This DIY Serving Tray Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Glowforge
• TotalBoat Epoxy Resin
• Total Boat Slow Hardener
• Epoxy Pigments
• Triton Palm Sander
• Triton Oscillating Belt/Spindle Sander
• Stealth Mask (use code APRIL 10)
• Triton Router
• Triton SuperJaws
• Armor Mobile Workbench
• DAP Weldwood Wood Glue
• Bar Clamps

Serving Tray Templates (Digital)

$9.99

Shop now

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about building your own DIY pot & pan pullout, an easy kitchen cabinet organizer? Look no further, because in this project I’ll show you exactly how I built mine!

In this video I am finally tackling the issue of having all of my pots and pans stacked on top of one another. I’m going to show you how I made this very simple, but very organized, pull-out pot and pan rack to keep my pots and pans (and kitchen) organized.

Things I Used in This Easy Kitchen Cabinet Organizer Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Wilker Do’s DIY Plywood Workbench Plans
• Triton Planer
• Triton Oscillating Belt Sander
• Triton Spindle Sander
• Triton Superjaws
• StealthMask Respirator
• Armor Mobile Workbench
• Armor Dog Peg Clamps
• DAP Thread Locker
• Brad Nailer
• Rockler Beadlock Kit
• Rockler Glider Hardware
• Total Boat Halycon Finish

Pot and Pan Drawer Organizer Template

$0.00

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You can get a FREE template for these DIY Pot and Pan Drawer Organizers here!

Pot and Pan Storage Plans

$9.99

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You can get the FULL Pot and Pan Storage Plans here!

Be sure to check out the video above to see the build! It’s great to follow along while you build your own. Using my plans and templates makes this easy kitchen cabinet organizer project even easier!

I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about how to do things around your house more easily? Check out this video I made for 10 tips for everyday life!

In this video I cover 10 tips and hacks for any home and everyday life that I thought were incredibly clever but very simple. Need a quick workbench? Super easy way to keep a door open while carrying items inside?

Everyone knows that every house needs a little organized, right? It’s true—keeping your home tidy will not only make it a nicer place to live, but will also give you more time to focus on other things. Keeping your house clean and organized is easier when you have tips and tricks at hand. With a few simple tricks and useful advice, you can keep your home looking spic and span in no time.

Things I Used in This Tips For Everyday Life Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Sawhorses
• DAP Blue Stick
• Velcro
• Dry Lube
• Foam Pipe Insulation
• Glow Paint

Don’t forget to put things back where they belong. One of the easiest ways to avoid a mess is simply to put things back where you found them. Before you leave, make a point of putting away the items that you will not be using while you’re away. Make sure that you have the utensils, plates, paper products and anything else that you may have left out on the counter or table while you’ve been busy. If you have items lying around that you know that you will not need while you’re away, they can easily become forgotten. This can lead to clutter and mess when you return home. When you return home, make a point of putting away the items that you know are lying around. This will help you avoid clutter and keep your home looking neat and tidy.

Make a to-do list before you leave. Keeping a to-do list is one of the easiest ways to make sure that nothing gets missed. It takes a lot of the “what-if’s” out of the equation by giving you a written list of everything that you need to do—and nothing more. When you leave, your mind is open to new ideas and new solutions that you may have missed because you were too focused on the task at hand. If you’re planning to clean while you’re away, you might be tempted to leave your house a little messier than usual. If you use a to-do list, though, you can keep cleaning to a minimum and ensure that you don’t miss any important chores while you’re away.

Whether you’re trying to keep your house orderly and tidy, or you’re simply trying to make your daily life a little easier, there are several easy tricks and solutions that can help you. In addition to these, you can also make use of industrial products that are designed for other things, while also being functional and useful for things in your home.

Click here to see more tips and tricks!

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(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Wondering how to install sliding glass doors? Check out this project where I show you the easiest way to knock out old sliding glass doors!

This week I am finally tackling the issue these double doors have frustrated me with since buying this house.

The function of double doors is wonderful but they are notorious for causing problems for me. The reliability of this door opening or staying closed is all dependent on how much rain we’ve had. Meaning, sometimes it will open easily. Other times it won’t open at all.

I finally had my fill and I’m replacing it with a more reliable door, which is the classic sliding door.

In case you have the same issue, let me show you the process and shorten your learning curve, as it’s really quite simple and an easy fix that will save a ton of headache.

The first thing I needed to do was to remove the outside trim. I used a box blade to score a line on the inside and outside of the trim to cut through the caulking joints.

Next I used a variety of prying tools to pry up the trim. On each side, I was attempting to remove the trim in a single piece because the trim will have to be reinstalled after the new doors go in. But if it’s easier to break it in pieces then alternatively you can just put down a new board in the end.

The main thing is to not chip the siding as that’s a bummer and isn’t an easy fix.

Okay next step is to remove the doors. This is simple enough now without the trim. I just had to take out all of the screws holding the hinges to the doorway.

I just set mine aside but I recommend donating your old doors to habitat restore so that they don’t have to go to a dump. Or you can always up cycle them to another structure you have like a shed.

Next I moved to the inside and repeated the scoring action on the inside trim. My goal is to try and leave the inside trim in place because looking at my doors i don’t think I’ll have to remove it. But if you have to remove yours it’s the same process as the outside.

Next I looked for screws. sometimes installers hide screw under the weather stripping which is a great install tip actually. But if you were taking a door out, remove the stripping to see if there are any. I only had one. Since I wasn’t able to get it out, I just cut it off with the trim joint cut.

I next cut a line with my putty knife through the spray foam along the outside. In my case, I only have it along the top. But if you had a better builder, you might have it around all three.

Finally I used my same prying tools to slightly pry up without removing the inside trim.

The trim nails attaching the trim to the door are the last things holding the door in place. I used a multi-tool to cut through the nails then a pry bar to work the door completely out and hauled away.

Perfect. Now I have a great big opening to work with.

Now I do recommend looking at the weather before tackling this project as you will have your whole house open for at least an hour, if not a few.

Once I removed my door, i noticed that my builder didn’t do any flashing around the perimeter I do have a large overhang. But since i’m down to bare, I went ahead and applied the correct protection.

I started by applying a strip of flexible flashing tape to the bottom lip, then folding the excess up and over the threshold.

Next I came back with door wrap that went from the corner to corner, only peeling back a little bit of paper backing at a time and applying a good amount of pressure as I went.

Once the entire piece is laid down, I came back with a roller to apply more firm pressure and work out any creases.

Now corners are the tricky part. This huge roll of flex flashing is $18 but a roll of this special flexible wrap made for corners is closer to $180.

That’s because instead of making choice cuts in order to get it to form around an inside corner, you literally just stretch it down and out to fit. It’s magic and worth the money. However, a tip here is to use the cheaper stuff on the long bottom stretch of the doorway than the expensive stuff just on the corners.

Okay, and now continue with flashing. Working upwards, I repeated the process to flash the sides going from the inside corner to inside corner.

Now bring in the door.

First thing to do is to apply a continuous bead of caulking around the back side of the nail flange, just right inside the screw holes. I did this on the left top and right but not the bottom. This is so that if water does find a way in it has a way to get out.

I’m using Dap’s Dynaflex 230 here. This is a premium interior or exterior sealant that is 100 waterproof. The sealant combines durability adhesion and flexibility plus cure sealant is mold and mildew resistant.

With that applied, you just need to find a strong friend and set the door in place. We aim to get the bottom end first then tilt the top of the door in.

Now the door can be attached with a few screws all along the nail flange. I first made sure the door was level and it was. However if it wasn’t, then I would have used shims to make it so.

Next, I plumbed the door. And it’s actually just plumbing the side of the frame as it’s pretty flexible.

I held up a level as a straight edge reference and made sure that the frame was touching everywhere along the line before screwing it down.

The next step is adding back trim. These doors aren’t as deep as the french doors so the inside this left a blank space. I simply put in some trim to fill it in after popping it in place. I reattached the inside trim to it first then I came back and attached the fill trim to the header.

I repeated that on both the left and right and bottom now to make it go away and look seamless. I caulked all of the seams and i’m using Dap’s Alex Fast Dry here. This stuff is ready to paint in 20 minutes so it’s great for projects where you don’t want a lot of downtime.

Next I move to the outside and button that side up since I broke most of my trim boards on the tear down, I just reinstalled new ones. this is simple enough.

After getting them installed then I caulked all of the seams. Then also applied some wood filler. I used Dap’s Premium Wood Filler that will be very durable over time, regardless if it’s inside or outside. This isn’t so pressing on the outside but it does really clean up the inside trim so that once you paint everything blends together and looks wonderful

Know that there are adjustments on the bottom of the door. You can turn the bottom bolt clockwise to raise the door up which pushes down the wheels. So if your door is difficult to open you can make adjustments here.

You can also open the door just slightly to quickly check how straight it’s sitting in the bottom of the track.

I really hope that if you have a sliding door on your to-do list that this shortens your learning curve and kind of prepares you for what you can expect from the project. I personally think the effort was 100 worth it. I love these doors.

I’ll see you on whatever i’m working on next!

Things I Used In This How To Install Sliding Glass Door Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Flashing Tape
• Door Wrap
• Stretch Tape
• DAP Dynaflex 230 Sealant
• DAP Alex Fast Dry Caulk
• DAP Premium Wood Filler

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Learn how to install subway tile backsplash with this easy to follow step-by-step guide. Plus, watch the accompanying video for even more tips.

I’m Tackling My First Tiling Job Which Is How To Install Subway Tile Backsplash In My Kitchen

Like every process, there are some things to know before jumping into this project but overall I was shocked at how straight forward and easy this project was. Let me show you what I learned incase you’re looking to do subway tile backsplash of your own.

In preparation for this project, I painted my wall down to the lower cabinet area. I killed the breaker for these outlets then unscrewed them from the wall and left them protruding.

If you missed my last video, I actually took this opportunity to install under cabinet lighting and to switch out the outlets from beige to white. Check out that video HERE if you want to watch that process. 

To start tiling, the first thing I did was hold up a sheet of my tiles on the far left, right, and roughly center of my area. Then made a mark at the top.

I made sure to leave a space at the bottom here that matched the tiles contrasting grout color line. Now I could measure up from my counter top back splash and get a gauge on how level everything is to start.

I got lucky and only had about an 1/8th difference. Next I used a chalk line to pop a top line across the space. 

When getting to the microwave, I used the second tile of the sheet to make a mark on both the left and right of the unit so that a separate line could be chalked for this space. 

The success of this project mostly comes down to straight lines and a chalk line will always be a straighter reference than any counter top. I ended up still using mostly my counter top but it’s better to have too many lines and not use them. 

Ok and now for the step that fluctuates the most from job to job because it’s based on your exact setup….where to start. A lot of people say to find your center point and work out from there. For my kitchen subway tile backsplash, the center of my window makes the most sense as my starting point. Be sure to watch the video above for more information on why I chose this point.

Since I chose my window as the starting point, I used a piece of tape on the sill to mark exact center.

I then dropped this line down to the dry wall so that I could hold up my first sheet, center the contrasting grout color lines to my pencil mark, then stick it in place.

….well that wasn’t hard. : ) Lets continue. 

There are a few things to pay attention to, so let me just rattle them off. Keeping the pattern. The pattern is very simple, and these sheets makes it really easy to lay multiples at once. Use a box blade to simple cut off whatever tiles don’t fit within the space. Or cut off any tiles in the sheet that will need to be cut in order to fit.

On this sheet I cut off the tiles that would hit the sill, the outlet to the left, and the tiles that would terminate into the window. This way I could lay all the whole tiles before filling in the patches. 

Spacing: When placing your next sheet or next tile, pay attention to the spacing and try to match the pre determined spacing of the sheet you bought. Note: they make spacers you can buy and use to take all the thinking out of this job, but I chose to do it by eye instead.

Make sure to also leave an even space at the bottom of the tile instead of resting it on the counter. This will later be a caulk joint instead of grout so if you have some compensating to do for keeping things level then you have some room here to play.

When working around outlets, remember that a face plate will later be installed so you don’t have to get these lines perfect. With that, place the factory edge out, in the visible area, and the cut line in where it will be covered up. 

Now lets talk about cutting. You can get fancy with tools here but I used a $40 snap cutter which is perfect for most jobs unless you’re using special material or have really small tiles. There is no dust, very little noise, and doesn’t require water.

A second tool is nippers. These are handy for tidying up lines the snap cutter isn’t able to cut cleanly, such as inside corners. So if investing in expensive tools for one job is stopping you from doing this project, know there are alternatives. 

David here gave me the run down on what to do and two) acted as my cut person so I could just mark and stick. Having a two person set up for this job really keeps it moving along.

I’m sure you can figure out marking on your own but I would simply hold up a tile to the area it needed to go and mark the obstacle that needed to be cut out. Make sure to compensate for the contrasting grout color line. Also a spare tile itself is a wonderful marking tool instead of having to pull in a square. 

I skipped over talking about how to stick the tiles to the wall because I wanted to wait until I got to this open area to show you more clearly. But now that I’m here, lets talk about mastic. This is the adhesive I went with to stick the tiles to my wall.

I first apply it to the area by just slopping it on, going heavy is just fine because the next step is to use a trowel to remove the excess. I use the notched side at a steep angle to scrap across and create lines.

Once there are no heavy spots, you’re ready to start sticking tile to it. You want to push the tile in strongly so that it seats evenly which  smushes the rows of mastic into an even coating on the back. Mastic is easily cleaned up with water, so if you make a mess along the way, use a sponge, rag, or even a foam brush to do some quick clean up. 

An alternative to mastic is thin set. Thin set should be used for anything that will be around a lot of water, such as a shower or floor. You could use thin set for back splash but it has a shorter open time and for such a small area. Mastic is widely acceptable and much easier to work with. 

Oh, getting to the stove area. I screwed a ledger board (just a scrap piece of wood) to the wall to keep the tile from slipping down. 

Ok, and now lets talk about check ins. All along the way you want to be checking your lines. It’s very easy to get off slightly but it look ok from the front. Every few sheets you can hold a level up to your lines and easily see if you’re getting off and need to adjust.

Or another way is to look down the side, if your set up has one available. David would look down and call out which one needed to be adjusted and in which direction. 

When getting to the end of the big sheets and patches, the last fill in were the slivers at the very top right under the cabinets.

I wanted to keep the fullest tiles at the most seen, which is the bottom and middle. The small slivers like these were stuck in place by applying the mastic directly to the back of the tile. Pros call this back buttering which I think is a fun term. So I would back butter the tile then insert it into position. 

What a big difference that alone makes. Mastic has such a good long open time that you have a good amount of time to move things around, but once things are as you like, then that needs to sit over night to fully dry before moving on to the next step which is adding grout to the lines in between all the tiles. 

Know that grout comes in different colors but the process is the same regardless. On grout, you can go cheap but I would recommend buying quality here.

The lower cost ones often have inconsistent coloring that will be very visible once you’re done and you don’t want to get this far and not love the final look. Also look for something that is stain resistant, especially if you’re going with a lighter color like me. 

For the process it’s just a lot of smushing in then wiping away! I switched out my tool from a trowel which has a hard metal bottom to a rubber float which has a soft bottom.

You can scope out the grout after following the mixing instructions then smash it into the cracks and lines. You can go in any direction here, you just want to make sure to pack it in.

Once the lines are filled now you can use the float to wipe away the majority of grout on the face of the tiles. You don’t have to get it 100% here, but the more you remove with the float, the less you have to remove with the sponge. Which is the next step.

I bought these sponges in a pack of three and I recommend using them all. Dip the sponge in a bucket of water then wring it out as much as you can then start wiping. I would use both sides of the sponge for the clean up, and even the edges.

Then I would swipe to my second sponge and repeat before cleaning both and repeating again. If you have a second person then one can be cleaning sponges while one wipes and cleans the tile. 

You want to work in small sections so to not get ahead of how quickly you can clean off the tiles. If you see runs of water on the wall when you’re wiping then your sponge is too wet. If you can’t wring it out enough by hand then use a towel to dry it slightly. Emptying out and refreshing your buckets of water will go a long way on this step. 

Even after wiping really good, it’s common after letting it sit and dry to see a white haze develop on the surface. This is called Hazing, and if you don’t get it off now, it will be a nightmare later on.

To get it off, I used my third sponge that was untouched at this point and used fresh water to make several passes to wipe the faces once again. Then after letting that dry, I came back with a dry sponge to do a final pass. 

This is a game of patience. I probably made 9 or 10 passes. Wipe clean then wait and watch and repeat. Just remember if you get frustrated that it’s part of the process and it will be worth it in the end. 

After letting it dry and not seeing any haze develop, I started the final step of caulking.

When you purchase the grout for your tile, be sure to pick up the matching caulking color. All the major brands have a variety of colors in both. I recommend cutting a tiny hole and applying a thin line. You want to apply caulk anywhere you don’t have contrasting grout color. For me, this was all along the bottom where the tile meets the counter subway tile backsplash, around the window sill, and also on the top of the tile where it meets the bottom of the cabinet. 

Ok, now I just screwed back on the faceplates, and called this project a wrap. Wow, what a difference! This is a project I’ve been meaning to do for years and now that I’ve finished, I can’t believe I waited this long. It was easy, it was fun, and I love how much it helped this space come to life. 

I really hope this video helped you out if you have back splash on your to do list.

If you’re tackling kitchen subway tile backsplash projects then be sure to watch other videos I’ve made in this space such as the under cabinet lighting and even easy upgrades such as this live edge wine rack.

I’ll see you on whatever I’m working on next. 

Things I Used in This How To Install Subway Tile Backsplash Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Chalk Line
• Tile Snap Cutter
• Tile Nippers
• Rubber Float
• Sponges

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about trying to install under cabinet lighting? Check out this project where I walk you through how I installed my own in my kitchen!

I really want to add backsplash to my kitchen. However, it is the perfect opportunity, before adding backsplash, while you still have open walls, to add under the cabinet lighting. That way you can run the wires and hide them. So, i’m going to be showing you how to do that in this video.

For wiring, i’m going to be coming up from this switch here.

I’m going to use this switch to turn on and off all of my under cabinet lighting at once.

Also just a tip if you want to protect your countertops an easy solution there is to cut up cardboard around the faucets and lay it over the entire thing. This way you don’t even have to worry about it.

So what i’m going to do is increase this to a two switch double gang so that one will operate the light above the sink. And then the second switch will operate the under cabinet lighting independently.

I used a level to make some rough lines. I kind of changed my mind a few times on where to do it because you don’t want to leave too thin of a strip at the bottom because that’ll make it more difficult whenever you go to patch things back up.

After having my line situated i next used a multi-tool to make my cut if you don’t have a multi-tool no sweat you can also use a hand saw it’s just going to take you a little bit more time. Also just a tip from me if you want to keep your space a little bit tidier as you’re doing this then i recommend using a shop vac to run along as you’re making your cut so that it can be sucking up the dust as you’re creating.

it also another really good tip is as you’re pulling out the pieces you can label them so that you know exactly where they go when you’re trying to patch it back up.

Next i started running romex. Since the lights are mounted to the underside of the cabinets i drilled a hole in the back then ran the wire from the hole to the switch.

At this point i’m leaving all my wires long and just getting them in place.

To get to the next bay of cabinets I needed to go through a few studs, so I used an auger bed and a drill to punch some holes. When you’re cutting into your wall, you only need an opening big enough to get a drill in there. For this step i stubbed out a new line at each bay of cabinets i wanted a light fixture.

Bare studs are simple to go through. But studs with an outlet on them you need to consider the following:

I need to get wiring from the left side of the studs to the right.

Whenever i’m choosing whether i go over the outlet and angle my bed up, or angle it down, I look inside of this blue box to see where the wires are coming in at. On this one they’re coming in from the top side.

So I don’t want to drill up like this because i could possibly hit the wiring inside and that would be a whole problem. So instead i’m going to angle my drill down and get through this stud this way.

Now that we have a gateway over to this stud bay, I’m just going to cut an access hole so that I’ll have room in order to fish the wire up and then over here on the bottom side of the cabinet.

This is the trickiest part of the project: making a pathway and then fishing the wire through. But you can see that it is very achievable. Going from the light switch, through the bare studs, down under the outlet, then up to the cabinet where I’ll next mount the fixture.

Before closing it back up I added in another switch. The first switch will remain for the light above my sink. While the second switch will be for all of the cabinet lights.

When all the wiring is done, next was to close it all back up. For me this job doesn’t have to be perfect as next I’m going to be adding backsplash and covering up all of this drywall.

I would place the pieces that i cut earlier back in the position and reattach them with screws.

So the next step is to patch up the cracks. You can do this with some drywall repair tape. And this stuff here is self-adhesive on the back where you literally just kind of peel and stick it.

Next you can apply mud to the tape. I don’t have a lot of experience in mudding, but the great thing again about this job is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re just trying to get a good foundation for the backsplash.

Oh one tip though: I would recommend is getting a fast setting drywall mud so that you don’t have a big down time once you apply the mud. I ended up getting a 90 minute. So during that 90 minutes, I then switched over to installing the lights.

They have a keyhole slot where you can trace with a pencil on the underside of the cabinet. And they do recommend that the light be placed towards the front of the cabinet.

This way you know where to pre-drill and attach with screws.

Then, all three of your wires your black neutral and green all come with quick connectors. Once you strip back the wires coming out of the wall, you just slip them right into their connectors shove them back into the housing. And now you have a light fixture.

now it should become quite clear on why this is the perfect project to do before tackling backsplash. None of this has to be perfect or prettied or all of this drywall perfectly patched back up. It just needs to be strong enough to hold up tile.

Now something else i did on my exact setup is I added this wood wood trim. And that’s just because the thickness of my cabinet bottom didn’t completely hide the light. So know that if your situation is the same this is a very quick and easy solution to where it just adds some nice wooden trim and then stain it to match.

In this way whenever I flip them on i still get the functionality of the light shining down but I don’t actually have to look right into the bulbs.

Having a switch dedicated to operating all of the lights as one complete unit is definitely worth the time. Especially if you already have a switch and you just have to upgrade it to a two game instead.

I really hope that this video has helped you out. It was 100 worth the effort to me. And then of course backsplash will be my next video. So if this is on your to-do list then hopefully I’ve shortened your learning curve and gave you a little bit better of an idea on what you can anticipate from the project.

I will see you on my next project!

Things I Used in This Install Under Cabinet Lighting Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Triton Multitool
• Lights
• Drywall Joint Tape

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about building your own DIY floating hexagon shelves? Check out this project where I built my own floating shelving! Easy DIY project!

In this tutorial, I turned this bare and non functional space above my tub into something decorative and also functional. I now have a place to put candles, bath amenities, and also just decor to bring a little life to this area.

Let me show you the process. 

With my walls being a darker color, I planned on going for a raw wood look for my final project and chose maple as I think it will contrast nicely with the gray wall and I already had it on hand. My board is quite long and wide, so I first started off by cutting it to rough length at the DIY miter saw stand. 

My boards were around 3/4” thick which would have been fine, but I wanted mine closer to 1/2” so next I wheeled my Triton planer to my shop’s porch and knocked my boards down to thickness. These boards will make up the three hexagon shelves I’m wanting for the space. 

Know that everything about these shelves is flexible and up to personal preference.

Next I set up my table saw to rip my board into 4” strips. I measured the items I have around my tub and 4” deep comfortably housed everything of mine. However, if you wanted to store, lets say towels, then you could also make this cut wider, which would make the finished shelf, deeper. 

If you’d like a cut list for the ones I made, I have a Free Hexagonal Shelves Plans Download available here.

After cutting the strips to width, next was to cut them into pieces. The key to making the hexagon work is to get 6 identical pieces and the best way to do that is to set up a stop block. When using the miter gauge, you never want to butt your piece directly up against the fence. That leaves the cut off held tight between the fence and blade, which is what causes kickback.

Instead, I place a scrap board and clamp at the front of my fence so that I can start my piece off resting on the stop block. But then, as I push the miter gauge forward and the piece contacts the blade, there is a gap between the end and the fence which will get rid of the possibility of it binding and kicking back. 

I first start by beveling one end of my board, then flipping it over and resting it up against my stop block before pushing it forward to bevel the second end. I repeated flipping and cutting the board until I had all six pieces to make up a hexagon.

When I got to my last cut, I didn’t have enough cut off to hold it onto the miter gauge. To make an extension I simply grabbed a scrap of wood and used two screws to secure it to my miter gauge. This gave me plenty of length to safety keep my fingers out of the way but still get my straight reference from the miter gauge. 

If you don’t have a table saw, another method for cutting these pieces is to use a miter saw with a stop block. 

Ok, now for glueing them together. I don’t know why I chose to work on this make shift workbench instead of my Ultimate DIY Workbench (with PDF Plans) right behind me, but lets just go with it. I placed all my pieces upside down and butted them up to each other.

I used two strips of tape to connect them together. I typically use painters tape for this but couldn’t find any so duct tape it is.

After getting the pieces joined, I flipped it all over so that I could apply some DAP Weldwood glue in each one of the joints. This is a yellow wood glue that is for interior projects and I really like that it’s both sandable and also paintable. I applied a liberal amount in each joint so that when I rolled it up, I could see squeeze out along the entire area.

Woodworkers have been replying on Weldwood for several decades but they also make contact cement and spray adhesive so look for Weldwood the next time you’re needing adhesive. 

With these being simple shelves that won’t see a lot of movement or loads, I don’t plan on reinforcing any of the joints. Instead I made sure I had good coverage of WeldWood and I’ll go ahead and tell you that I tried breaking one and it took throwing it on the ground a few times before it busted, so I think it’s good for the goal here. 

After taping the rest of the sets up, I used a little bit of water on a rag to clean up each joint of most of the squeeze out. Weldwood is an easy clean up with water. 

While those were setting up, I started making the straight floating shelves that will accompany them. These are very simple as it just required ripping them to width at the table saw then cutting them to length at the miter.

By the time I wad done, I was ready to take the tape off the hex shelves and start the sanding process with my Palm ROS. My boards were already pretty smooth from processing them so here I just had to clean up any of my glue squeeze out. Which was mostly the outside areas as the tape prevented me from getting after it with a rag and water.

Now on to finishing them. I chose maple for this project so that I could apply a clear coat finish and leave it looking almost like raw wood. I suppose I probably could have left it raw, but applying a finish is simple and will protect it should I get any water or wax on it.

I let that sit over night then started the hanging process the next day. 

For the hexagons I hammered in a saw tooth hanger on the top back of each unit, then used a sheet rock anchor to get it exactly on my desired location. If you are going to be housing something heavy on these, then there are plenty of other hanging options. 

On the straight shelves, I went with the easy but strong Rockler floating shelf hardware. On these, a base plate is screwed into the wall first, then a metal rod can be screwed into the last hole then the shelf can be slipped on. 

Last thing to do is to decorate. I looked up candle flame safety and it looks like 12” above a flame is considered safe. So make sure the area you place a candle has the needed room to not be a hazard.

I know I’m bias, but I think this looks drastically better than it did before. Now I can put a few candles around, a few bath bombs, and even a few plants.

Be sure and watch the video above for an even better tutorial.

For the third wall, I plan to utilize it as storage for all the containers of things I need but don’t want all around my tubs perimeter. However, instead of building a cabinet on the wall, I plan to build a cabinet IN the wall. Stay tuned for my next video where I show how to go into the walls and magically open up more storage for any room. 

Things I Used in This DIY Floating Hexagon Shelves Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Wilker Do’s Miter Saw Stand
• Triton Planer
• Wilker Do’s Plywood Workbench
• DAP Weldwood Glue
• Triton Palm ROS
• Floating Shelf Hardware

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about building your own tabletop Christmas tree? Check out this DIY project where I show you how to build a wooden Christmas tree for a table!

This year I am getting into the Holiday Spirit by making a reusable Christmas Tree!

I typically don’t get around to buying a tree. Time slips away from me and before I know it, it’s already Christmas but this year I was set on it…I was going to put up a tree. The thing I like about this wooden version is I can reuse it year after year and when I’m not using it, it can flat pack away. 

The pieces are tiny…and cute. ; ) But that means tiny hardware. No problem though, I’ve been using a tool kit from IFIXIT which has a huge assortment of quality drivers and bits.

I first laid out my magnetic project mat which keeps all my hardware accessible but from rolling away or getting lost, then started assembling. The base has a threaded insert where two small screws hold them in place. 

Then the snowflake layers are set in place by putting in a set screw half way on each side, creating a shelf for the snowflake to rest on. 

How stinking cute. I almost wish I still worked in an office so I could have this on my desk…the key word there is almost. 

While playing with it, lets go ahead and see what a scaled up version would look like!

With this one being larger, it was easier to take out some of the needed hardware on the mini version. The steam could just snap together with a nice friction fit then the snowflakes could be slipped on in their correct order.

Each snowflake is staggered so that the long side of the previous snowflake is off set with the next one. This way, when it’s all painted and done, ornaments can be added without bumping the below layer.

To keep the layers from tipping up and down just slightly once added, I predrilled then added in one screw per side to keep the snowflake in place. 

Big thank you to IFIXIT for sponsoring this video. This company is amazing not only their tools which I do highly recommend, but also the mindset their spreading. They’re a company that empathizes and enables people to fix things instead of just throwing them away.

Their website is full of wonderful tutorials showing you how to fix items instead of adding them to the landfill. Their motto of “Never take broken for an answer” is proudly placed on my shop fridge as a reminder.

If you looking for a great for anybody holiday gift then check out the giveaway on Instagram I’m hosting where three people will be getting the IFIXIT Manta set (**giveaway ends on Friday 12/11/20)

If you can’t wait and want to get your own iFixit kit, you can buy one during their Holiday sale, just head to iFixit.com/aprilwilkerson to see all of iFixit’s awesome tools. 

I recommend the Minnow Precision set for a perfect stocking stuff, the Moray Precision set for a keep around the house set…so any home owner you need an Ace idea for, then the Pro Tech ToolKit for the person in your life with a shop or love of building/fixing things. 

I guarantee if you add any of these sets to your person’s tool kit, they will thank you. 

It might not be typical, but I love my wooden Christmas tree. If you’re interested in one for the holidays or as a gift, then I am selling two different sizes of the trees for the holiday season here.

Be sure to check out the video for even more Christmas cheer and a better glimpse of these going together

Happy Holidays!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

Wondering how I built my own giant wooden tree rings? Check out this project where I walk you through exactly how I put together this DIY wood project!

I made oversized tree rings for my Wood Shed walls. And when I saw oversized… I mean giant!

I have been dreaming of this project since March of 2020. So to see it complete, literally makes my heart flutter.

Things I Used In This Giant Wooden Tree Rings Project:

• ISOtunes Link
• Laguna CNC
• Triton Track Saw
• Dewalt Brad Nailer

To see how they all came together, check out the video above!

Hope you enjoy this build!

See you on whatever I’m building next.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Wondering how to make prints from a tree ring? Check out this DIY project where I show you how I took a tree stump and turned it into a tree ring print!

I made some custom artwork for my house by turning a tree stump into a stamp and imprinting the growth rings on a sheet of paper. Let me show you how I did it.

Things I Used in This Prints From A Tree Ring Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Triton Belt Sander
• Triton Mini Planer
• Triton 7” Mini Planer
• Black Acrylic Paint

I first grabbed a tree from my property. This is mesquite. It had been cut with a chainsaw. And while not too rough, the surface wasn’t perfectly flat. So I used my Triton Belt Sander to work on getting it flat. However, while it was working, it was taking a bit too long.

So I decided to take down the bulk of the unevenness with my Triton Electric Planer instead. I originally used my small planer to hit the high spots. Then after getting the surface roughly down to the same level, I switched to using my larger Triton 7″ Planer.

Then, after a few passes with the belt sander again, I had a smooth surface that was nice and flat. It’s important to get a nice flat surface so that your paper can hit everywhere on the stump and transfer the ring pattern.

So now the stump is nice and smooth. But in order to make the print work, you need high and low spots. When looking at a tree ring there are portions that are soft wood and hard wood. The idea to make a stump into a stamp is to use heat to slightly burn away the soft wood so that the harder rings are pronounced.

I decided to upgrade to my propane bottle torch to speed up the process. I was aiming to get a nice and even burn without charing the surface.

Afterwards, I used a wire brush to remove the debris I created. If you can run your fingers over the surface and feel the distinct tree rings, then you’ve done enough.

Then I let the stump fully cool down because up next is applying ink and you dont want the stump to be hot when doing so.

I’d first use a spray bottle and wet down the surface of the stump. This will help the paint from soaking in and instead remain on the surface. I’m using acrylic ink and applied it using a foam roller.

After making sure the entire surface was coated, I lined up my paper and set it in place, being careful not to shift it side to side once it was down.

I would then carefully peel the paper up from the stump to reveal the outcome. Pretty neat!

I was having so much fun with the process that I decided to make some more, playing with the amount of ink I used. I found that if you used too much ink, the image came out smudged looking. And if you don’t apply too much, the image comes out faded and the paper sticks to the stump.

Once I had the process down, I started playing with color. I used water to rinse in between colors. Then I’d apply a new color and play.

Then, after the prints were fully dry, I placed them in a frame and hung them up. Now I have some custom artwork in my house that I absolutely love.

Be sure to watch the video for an even better tutorial. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this one. I will see you on my next project!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Thinking about building your own live edge floating shelves? Check out this project where I show you how I built my own, using my own tree!

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how I made these floating live edge wood shelves. It’s a very simple process but can turn any wall space into something visually unique but also functional. Lets get into the process. 

Things I Used In This Live Edge Floating Shelves Project:

• ISOtunes Ear Protection
• Total Boat Epoxy (Use code APRILW for 15% off!)
• Rockler Bench Cookies
• Wilker Do’s Ultimate Workbench
• Wilker Do’s Dust Collection Cart
• Triton ROS
• Triton Palm ROS
• Walrus Oil
• Triton Track Saw
• Rockler Cross Cut Sled
• Rockler Blind Shelf Supports
• Rockler Heavy Duty Shelf Supports
• Triton Superjaws
• Rockler Drill Guide

I’m starting off with a walnut slab that had a good amount of bug tracks on one end and a deep but beautiful bark inclusion on the other. I think features like these give the shelves character so I intentionally chose a board that wasn’t flawless. 

However, since there are so many cavities I went ahead and starting the process by first filling them with clear epoxy. I flipped the board over to what will be the bottom of the shelves then started taping off any and all cracks or holes I saw.

After getting a good amount of coverage over any, I used a pencil to press the tape down firmly. Leaking epoxy is not fun, however you also see I laid down some cardboard on my workbench before getting starting. 

Now for the end I went with something a little bit more thick than painters tape, I did four layers of duct tape to try and build up a dam on this side. I just need something to keep the epoxy from spilling over once I start pouring it in the voids.

Even after a few layers of tape though, I knew it wouldn’t hold so I next grabbed a thin scrap that had some flex to it and screwed it into the end. Making sure it took the curve of the slab. Then the last thing I did before pouring was clear out all the dust and dreby from the voids. 

If you don’t want to go through all this work of pouring epoxy then know you can skip this step. With these being shelves, there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with leaving them as is. I just like the look that clear epoxy gives the surface. 

Before pouring, I like to raise the slab off the workbench so I can check for leaks along the way.  I grabbed a few bench cookies from my dispenser and set them on either end of my slab. 

For epoxy I’m going with my go to brand of epoxy which is Total Boat. Here I’m using Total Boat High Performance. This stuff is crystal clear, is a simple 2:1 ratio, and dries pretty quick.

I poured this in the morning, let it sit overnight, then was ready to start sanding the next morning.

Be sure to read the mixing time and stick to it when using epoxy and also make sure to have a flame on hand so after you pour, you can use the heat to remove all the air bubbles. I typically keep a small torch in my shop for this reason but couldn’t find it and tried using a regular lighter. It makes the fingers a little toasty since it’s so close so I went with the only other heat option I had around which was my mega torch. : ) Ha, it’s overkill but a quick spritz and all the bubbles were gone. 

Be sure to overfill any voids because in the next step you sand it, and you want the surface of the epoxy to come out flush with the surrounding wood after.

Also if you’re needing epoxy remember I have a 15% off coupon code on anything Total Boat if you use the code AprilW at checkout. 

Ok after letting that sit up overnight it was sanding time. I wheeled my shop vac and separator cart into place, hooked up my Triton ROS and started the process. I always start with 60 grit sand paper to take down the bulk of dried epoxy. I also prefer to use my larger ROS since I have one but a belt sander would also take it down quickly. 

After getting it flush, I switched over to my palm ROS and then ran through the grits, going over  the entire slab at the same time.

As I ran through the grits, going from 60 to 100, to 150, to 220, to 320, to 400……I would really focus on hitting the epoxy portions to remove as many scratches as possible so that in the end it would be crystal clear in the ending results. I like to use a little mineral spirits to get a sense on how it will look with finish on it. 

When I’m happy with the results, I move on! Hitting the entire edge with my sander, then wiping it all down to prep to applying finish. I’m testing out a new finish called walrus oil on this project and found it very simple. Of course it makes the walnut just absolutely pop as soon as it’s spread on. I always start off with finishing the bottom of projects first then flip them over to do the show face before letting the entire thing set up to dry. 

BTW: even though these will be five separate shelves, it’s much easier to do all of these steps with the board as one big unit rather than working with five smaller pieces. 

So after letting the finish dry, I then started marking out my shelves boundaries on the slab. I’m using a soapstone pencil and my track saw guide to draw out where I think the shelves should be so I can make sure I like the visual of them before actually making a cut. I wanted the shelves that will be most at visual level to be the ones with the most character in them, so the large bark inclusion and the bug tracks.

Once I was happy with the layout, I hopped up on my workbench and used my Triton track saw to start making some cuts.

The track saw is great to get straight cuts on a natural shape like this that doesn’t have a straight edge reference to start. However, I’m using almost every inch of this slab and couldn’t over cut my lines so I would sneak up to the corner with the saw as close as I could, then finish it off with a hand saw. 

Once I broke down the slab a bit using that method, I was then able to take the remaining slab and pieces to the table saw and use my Rockler Cross cut sled to finish it off.

Oh yeah, that’s gonna be cool I think. I not only cut up the rest of the slab but I also used my sled to get all of the edges at a perfect 90 and the shelves to final length. 

The Shelf Hardware I’m going with can be found at Rockler.

It comes with a rectangular mounting bracket that will butt up to the back of the shelf. I like to cut in a small recess on the shelf so the back will sit flush up again the wall when it’s mounted. After marking off the placement of the two brackets, I used a straight bit in my router table to carve this recess out. Test fitting the bracket afterwards to make sure it would comfortably fit. 

With the bracket cavity cut in, now I just needed to drill the holes for the hardware. With it being a live edge and so tall, using a drill press isn’t an option so instead I’m using a new drilling guide from Rockler.

It’s pretty much a portable drill press and has quickly gone up the list of one of my favorite things. This quill here can be chucked up in a drill and travel up and down. There are two stops that can be placed anywhere in order to regulate the desired depth. It has onboard storage for a chuck key, and even a tilting feature so you can drill straight but at an angle. Tell me that isn’t cool.

There are also two pins that have on board storage at the top that can be screwed into the bottom. These can be set on the edge of any piece of wood to help you quickly find center of that edge.

I could have used this feature to drill my holes, but instead I used the mounting holes in the drilling guides deck to secure it horizontally to my armor tool workbench. I locked all four casters to keep it from moving around on me, and just felt like this was a bit more secure for the depth of hole I was going after. 

I would line up the shelf so that the center of the mounting bracket recess was in line with the center of the drilling guide’s bit, then plunge. After drilling the depth needed for the first, I would move the shelf over and repeat on the second. After knocking out one shelf, I repeated on the remaining four. 

Hanging the shelves is very easy. I started off by first measuring out the height I wanted each shelf then used a level to draw a straight line across.

Now the mounting bracket can be held up into place and the first screw sunk to secure it. After getting the first screw set, I used the level again to make sure it was level before driving in the second screw. Once the first bracket was attached, I used the level to make sure the second bracket went in the same. 

The top two holes are for mounting the bracket, the third is for a set screw to be inserted so that a metal rod can be threaded on. This is what will go into the holes I drilled in the back of the shelves.

Rockler has two versions of this mounting hardware: this one that is rated at 50lbs (which is still a lot), or Heavy Duty Supports that can support up to 125lbs.  

For my shelves, I went with a staggered look. I don’t know what I’ll end up storing here in the end but no matter what it is, the shelves definitely took this bare space and turned it into something more interesting and beautiful. All from a slab I grabbed from The Wood Shed as well. 

I was about to call this project done when I decided to add in a hidden feature….just for you loyal viewers. I quickly grabbed a few more scraps and threw together a simple and tiny drawer to mount on the bottom side of the lower most shelf.

In this drawer, I will always keep a few stickers and if you ever come to The Wood Shed in person, please feel free to help yourself to this secret stash. 

Ok, and that really does wrap up this project. Big thank you to Rockler for sponsoring this video and supporting what I do.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Live Edge Floating Shelf project. Be sure and watch the video for an even better tutorial! And I’ll see you on whatever I’m working on next. 

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Want to learn how to paint furniture using real milk paint? Check out this DIY project where I learned how to paint using real milk paint on this chair!

In this project I am going to cover the process of painting a piece of furniture with Real Milk Paint. If you want to watch the process on how I built this chair then that video is linked for you HERE.

Now of course I’ll be showing how to use Real Milk Paint to go on raw wood, but this will also stick to drywall stone, and unsealed brick and concrete. If you have a piece that has latex paint already on it, then the steps will be the same except you need to start with a a coat of Ultra Bond. You won’t need to get it back to bare wood but you should remove any peeling up bits.

I was heading to Nashville to help my friend Greg Pennington build a large porch. He is actually the master chair maker who taught me how to build this chair. He is very experienced with using Real Milk Paint and offered to show me the process. 

Let start off with product, I spent forever deciding on the color I wanted my chair because there are soooo many beautiful colors to pick from. However, I ended up going with Barn Red from the brand Real Milk Paint company.

Now in the chair making world, it’s traditional for chair makers to paint their chairs red first then black on top. This way, as spots naturally get wore down the red will slightly show through.

So I know painting it red and leaving it at that will causes traditionals to lower their brows but I’m happy with my decision. 

Real Milk Paint comes in powder form which means it doesn’t have a shelf life. It won’t go bad. To mix up the powder into a paint, it takes a 1 to 1 ratio of powder and water. Meaning you take a scoop of powder and add the exact same amount of water. Every container comes with a marble so you can drop it into your mixing container (here we’re using a washed out yogurt container) then add a drop of the anti foaming agent….then just shake it up.

After getting it a good rattle, you need to let it sit for at least 15 mins. With Real Milk Paint, you can’t let it sit for too long, but you can let it sit for too little. So just make sure has a least 15 mins to sit and mix together before you start to use it. 

While that’s setting up, I’m going to spend the time prepping my chair. Greg does this thing where he will tape off the underside of a chair so he has a spot to sign and date it. So I taped off a square then used a blade to cut some arches around each one of the legs.

By this time, it had been more than 15 mins so I went back to my paint and stirred the mixture by spinning that marble inside around in circles. You don’t need to go crazy, just a little bit, then it’s painting time. 

When painting, there is nothing crazy about the step. The main thing to watch out for is drips because if you try to paint it too heavy on one coat, and over look where it runs then it will form dried up tear streaks. They can be removed but it’s more work and it’s simple to avoid if you do light coats instead.

I would dip my paint brush, then use the edge of the container to wipe off some of the excess. Then of course be watchful as I was moving around and applying paint, that no area was getting too heavy and running. 

After getting everything on the bottom side of the chair, I then flipped it around and started painting the rest. While I’m doing that let me tell you a few features of Real Milk Paint that make them stand out. First, they have over 56 paint colors and focus on antique color palette, based on traditional furniture. It’s water based so it cleans up incredibly quick and easy. It’s  non toxic and no VOCs so painting inside is just fine. It also dries very fast, in just about 30 mins. 

It was morning when I applied my first coat of paint, then I let it sit all day while Greg and I worked on something else in his shop. Then that evening I quickly threw on another coat of paint, but I stopped at just two coats. It looked 100% covered so I moved on to buffing after that. Which isn’t that fun, but it’s necessary if you want a good looking finish. 

I used some very fine steel wool and went over the entire chair to take it from the very flat and chalky texture to more of a sheen finish. Don’t be afraid of pushing too hard as it does take some pressure to get it where it needs to be.

It might be hard to distinguish here in the footage but look at this front edge of the seat vs the side and the top. The top still look chalky and darker, whereas that front edge I buffed is lighter and has a shinyness in it.

I stopped after buffing half the seat so you could hopefully see the difference better. The right is the shine you’re going for, and the left is still waiting for me to tackle. 

Before moving on to the next step which is to apply a protective finish, I flipped the chair over and signed the bottom with my name and also the year I built it. : )

Ok now as I mentioned, it was time to apply a protective finish for me. However if you wanted a two tone paint color scheme like traditional chair makers do, then next you would apply the top color of your choice. But since I was sticking with the one, I moved on. 

Milk Paint is very easy to apply but needs some sort of top coat to be durable. Greg has his own custom mixture of mineral spirits, linseed oil, and spar varnish so that’s what I used. However if you don’t want to create your own, Real Milk Paint company sells a few options of protection top coats you can order with your paint.

For my finish, I used a chip brush and just slopped it on. Not really slopped, but definitely went heavier on it than I did with the painting step. And that’s because you don’t have to worry about runs here. You just want to hit the entire surface so it can absorb the finish.

Then any excess will get wiped away with a clean rag afterwards. Take your time on the wiping down step to make sure you don’t miss any areas, or it will dry with a different sheen than the rest of the chair.

After going over the entire piece, let it dry for 24 hours before applying another coat. However, before you sit it and forget it…..after your first wipe down, check on it after 10 mins or so and see if you need to give it another wipe down. Sometimes the surface will slowly spit out more finish after you’ve wiped it, and this also needs to be removed. If you check on it, and it doesn’t look like it has done that, then you’re good to forget it until the 24 hours has expired. 

So I put on two coats of paint then three coats of top coat. Since I had to wait 24 hours in between each coat, I would leave my chair out on the workbench then apply a new coat every morning before we got to work on Greg’s porch.

I would use the steel wool to quickly hit every surface of the chair, before applying another coat. This you don’t need to apply as much pressure as the buffing stage….you’re just removing any slightly raised particles that got into the finish and come through when you run your hand over it. It truly very simple, it takes less than 20 mins each coat.

I know a lot of woodworkers will automatically respond negatively when a piece of furniture is painted instead of stained or clear coated. But Greg is a master chair maker and paints most of his chairs with a red under coat and black top coat, as it’s the traditional Windsor chair style to do so. See a lot of chairs are made up of two or three different species of wood, each part of the chair focusing on utilizing a wood that suits it function or level of strength needed instead of making it all match. So if you’re about to leave me a comment (or probably already have) on how I shouldn’t have painted it in the first place….well there is simply nothing wrong with it. 

If you’re watching this video because you hav a piece of furniture you want to refinish or finish, then I hope this has helped you out. I wish you luck on picking out a color because there are so many beautiful ones, that is really is the hardest part of the process. Everything else is very straight forward and easy, so don’t put it off if it’s on your todo list. 

Be sure and watch the video to see the tutorial in much more detail!

Find Real Milk Paint here.

Find Greg Pennington here.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Looking for the best DIY Face Mask Tutorial? Check out this project where I give you the best options for how to make your own DIY face masks!

In this tutorial I’m going to be showing you how I made a face mask. Now I’m not a seamstress and this is my first time sewing, but I was able to do this. So if you are interested in making some for yourself, friends, family or medical care workers in your area that are needing masks, I hope this tutorial can help you out.

Check out the video above for the full tutorial…. and laughs from my mom and I!

Visit Filti and use code april to receive 10% off your order. You can make 50-80 face masks with one roll then donate them to your local community in need.

Some helpful Tutorials (if your local organization doesn’t have a requested pattern):

• Unity Point PDF
• Hopkins Medicine PDF

Hospitals requesting masks (created by some amazing public health graduate students)!

Thinking about building your own toddler rocker? Check out this project where I show you how I built a DIY toddler rocker and walking kangaroo!

This week I’m focused on the kiddos and built two projects designed just for them. The first is this super cute toddler rocking elephant…

… and the second is a really fun self walking kangaroo.

While I don’t have kids, my newest nephew will hopefully love the elephant rocker and the self walking kangaroo is an easy thing to pack for any gathering where little ones will need some entertainment. Lets get into how to build both. 

Things I Used In This Toddler Rocker Project:

• ISOTunes Ear Protection
• Triton Router
• Rockler Downdraft Panels
• Triton Palm ROS
• Triton Spindle Sander
• Infinity Round Over Bit
• Wilker Do’s Mallet
• Titebond Quick & Thick
• Bessey Clamps
• Brad Nailer
• Hot Glue Gun
• Wilker Do’s Miter Saw Stand
• Triton Belt Sander

Adjustable Push Stick Video

Lets start with the elephant rocker, this one is sized to fit a 1-3 year old and I started off by sketching out the elephant in my 3D modeling software called SketchUp. In the program you can import in a vector or an image and trace it then refine it from there. Keep that in mind if you would like to do a different animal shape for the body of yours.

After refining the shape, I used my CNC to cut out templates for the different parts.

In addition to the main body outline, the template also has some locating holes because I’ll be using dowels to help locate each part correctly on the elephants body. So I first use a drill bit in my drill to punch these locating holes out.

Now I can use some doubled sided tape to stick the template to my 3/4” plywood and use a flush trim bit in my router to cut the body out. Now I’m using plywood but you could very well place the template on a solid wood as well and make everything thicker. 

After making a complete pass around the template, I used a shop chisel to pry the template off the top of the ply then repeated for the other parts of the elephant. This part is the most time consuming but a way to cut that down is to stack two boards on top of each other and cut every part that needs a pair, at the same time. 

Once all the parts are cut out I did a little bit of clean up before moving on to assembly. Even though I’m using plywood that was already sanded on one side, I went over every face as well as edge with my Triton Palm ROS. I also used my down draft table I built into my main workbench last year, that’s a handy feature.

For the body with all it’s concaved curves, I put in the second to largest spindle and used the spindle sander to clean up the edges. 

Then to soften the overall look but also the feel for those cute little hands, I stuck a round over bit in my router table and went over all the edges. For this I’m using the 1/4” Infinity round over bit, and if you’re curious I used the Infinity Mega Flush Trim bit for the pattern cutting. 

Now of course there are a million ways of finishing the rocker to make it adorable but I decided to leave the body of the elephant as ply and paint the other parts. Note: I only painted the front side of any part that will glued on the body. So the legs, ears, have a raw back so to not interfere with the quality of bond when assembling in the next step. 

Assembly is very simple. As I mentioned before I used dowels to locate the parts exactly where they needed to go. This ensure the ears and bottom of the feet line up perfect with their pair. I would first cut a small piece of dowel that’s just long enough to go through the body and stick part ways into he counter bore hole in the joining part. Using a mallet when needed to make sure it sat flat.

I’m using a fast setting wood glue on the back of each part then two ways of securing it….you can either use a brad nailer to hold it in place while the glue cures, or you can set it in clamps until dry. I went with using a brad nail then just used a little putty and touch up paint to fill in the tiny holes it leaves behind.

Once the body was put together, I set it aside and started putting together the rocker. This is the only section where I used screws. I first put down some wood glue then inserted the rocker’s slats. The fit is pretty tight so I used a Bessey clamp to squeeze down on it and compress it into place, then used a countersink and two screws. This is another area you can use putty and touch up paint to cover things up afterwards if you’d like. 

Next I flipped the whole thing over and centered the elephant to the center of the rocker then again use a counter sink and two screws to secure things annnnd that’s it.

My newest little nephew is too many states away to trial this out for me, but I was able to round up a toddler of a friend to give it a good sit and rockin.

If you’re interested in building your own I do have animal rocker templates available here! On top of the elephant I also have a few other animals available. 

Ok moving on to project number 2!

Look how cool this self walking Kangaroo is!?

I saw this on Instagram and was blown away by how it propels itself forward and was dying to try to replicate it. It is very finicky to get it working correctly, but I have a free download walking kangaroo template of the shape to try and help things out. 

I started by cutting out the paper template and using a little bit of spray adhesive to attach it to a 1×8 pine board.

Once the body and leg are in place, I used the miter saw to cut the board up in pieces so that I could stack them on top of each other and make multiples at the same time. 

After getting that length down, I ripped them at the table saw, using the first one with the template on top to set up the cut.

Next I used some hot glue to temporarily stick all the leg pieces on top of each other, and the same with the body pieces. So that I could make one profile cut at the bandsaw but end up with enough parts to make three roos. 

Now before taking apart the pieces, I cleaned up the shape over at the sanders, using the spindle sander to clean up all the concaved curves and the belt sander, turned upside down on the convexed curves.

Then it was over to the drill press to punch all the needed holes before prying the built up layers a part.

The legs pivot on the body by way of a dowel and you want this to be just a tad bit oversize from the dowel size you’re using so that the legs will be able to move freely. I recommend having your dowel on hand when you’re drilling this hole, to test fit it and make sure the part can spin easily. While here you can also punch through to make the eye hole. 

With everything cleaned up, next was assembling which is pretty straight forward but one thing to pay attention to is the dowel needs to be glued in place without gluing the legs down to the body. If the legs can pivot freely, your roo won’t walk.

I would apply a little glue to the dowel then I would apply a dab of wood glue to the inside of the leg hole.

Then place an over cut dowel inside, I would wipe off the excess glue if any came came out, then place a washer over the dowel before applying a dab to the body hole and placing the dowel into the body. Next a small washer can be placed on the other side of the body then the other leg can be threaded on, also with a small dab of glue in the leg hole. At this point wipe off any excess glue on the outside. 

That pivot point will allow the legs to move forward and backwards to walk. There is a second, much smaller hole near the heel of the roo where a much smaller dowel needs to be glued into place. You can see I left it long on both sides at this point. This small wooden bar will be a stop block for the walking action. It limits how far forward the legs are able to move. 

I’m not sure who came up with this, but it sure is clever.  

After letting it dry, lets give it a go. In order to work the roo has to be placed on an incline and the degree of this slope is something else to play around with.

I grabbed some scrap boards and containers to make my ramp. If the ramp isn’t steep enough then the roo won’t have enough forward falling momtium to keep the cycle going. However if it’s too steep, then it will just fall on it’s face. You’ll see that after a practice run, I changed the height by a pencil’s width and that made all the difference. 

Maybe it would be a fun game for kids to play with the different heights until it works, but to prevent them from having to fuss with it, I recommend building a simple ramp that would accompany the toy so that when they want to play with the roo, they bring out both. Oh my gosh I not even a kid but I think this toy is amazing. 

I hope you enjoyed both of these projects, and of course I would love to hear your thoughts on them in the comments section down below.

Animal Rocker Templates

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Don’t forget I have templates for both, if you would like to make your own!

• Animal Rocker Templates
• Walking Kangaroo Templates

Walking Kangaroo Template

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I also have other templates available for a wide variety of other projects here if you’d like to look around and support what I do!

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for supporting me in this way.)

Looking for last minute Christmas present ideas? Check out these easy DIY Christmas presents I built incredibly quickly! Your family will love these!

Every year I tell myself I’m going start making Christmas presents in October so I don’t wait until the last min and put myself in a bind. Never happens, but I always say it……

If you’re in the same boat and would like to give the people around you handmade items but are running short on time then here are five ideas for projects that are not only quick and easy but also utilize scrap wood. Lets jump right into the first one. 

Wine Holders 

I feel like wine related gifts are a really good coverall since so many people enjoy wine so here are two different holders for those people on your list. The holder goes over the wine bottle neck and rests on top then has four openings for also carrying glasses.

I personally pulled out a nice wide piece of purple heart for this one and started off by cutting it square. You want the size on this one to be sort of large so the glasses don’t bump into the bottle itself so I made mine 8” x 8”.

Mark off all the dimensions before cutting out any openings and if you would like a free wine glass template then you can find that here.

Wine Glass Holder

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I took the part to my router table. You could put a round over over the entire edge but I decided to put a round over on the top edge and a chamfer on the bottom edge. 

Now to punch out holes. I clamped the part on my workbench using my Armor Tool clamps then used a 5/8” forstner bit at the ends of all the glasses slots.

You can reduce tear out on the backside of the piece if you drill most of the way through on one side, but then flip the part over, and complete the last bit from the other side.

I did the same with the larger center hole but then moved to the bandsaw and cut along my pencil marks in a straight line. Pretty easy huh? 

I gave the entire thing a good sanding then also a quick coat of finish.

Now to use it, it slips right over the bottle and rests on the neck so that when you are carrying out a bottle of wine you can also carry up to four glasses. You can also leave it on the counter when not in use and utilize it to hold glasses instead of your cabinets. 

On the same notion, another more cozy option is a two glass holder version. The YouTube channel Make Something designed this one and has an excellent template so that is linked for you down below if you’re interested.

Again, it’s a perfect project to utilize some of those smaller or thinner scraps you can’t make yourself throw away. You can see I’m using a mix of walnut and maple for mine but you could also keep it as simple as the last and make it from one piece of wood. 

Bath Caddy

Moving to project number 2 which is a bath caddy.

It’s so simple but a wonderful gift for anybody who enjoys baths.

Grab a solid piece of wood. It doesn’t have to be a live edge, but I had a slab of walnut so that’s what I used. Plane it down to the thickness you like then also cut it down so that it will span across a tub and rest on either edge. I’m using my track saw to cut the slab to length.

Now you could sand it and throw a coat of oil on it as is, buuuut if you want a few special touches on it you can also add in a simple wine holder and a few candle holders.

On the wine holder I grabbed some scrap maple to contrast but looking back, I think it would have looked nicer made from walnut. Either way, this is one flat piece that has a slit cut in it large enough to fit a wine glass stem, then a few blocks that will act as standoffs for this piece.

Once the assembly dries it can be glued to the top of the bath caddy. I used Titebond Original here.

You could just cut a slit into the slab itself for the glass to be inserted into but then you have a portion of the glass that hangs below the caddy. By placing it on top like this one, knees won’t have anything to bump into. 

For some candle holders, I wanted some slight recesses in the slab. To make these easily, I first made a round template so I could use my router.

Tracing out a candle, cutting it out over at the bandsaw, then using the spindle sander to clean up the cut right to my line. Now I have a template where I can use a flush trim bit in my router to follow.

In order to use the bit of mine, I had to laminate another piece of scrap to the bottom. To stick it to the slab I used a few pieces of masking down on the slab as well as the template then a few drops of Titebond’s Instant Bond CA glue. This will temporarily hold the template down but leave no mess after the job is finished.

I started off with my bit high on the part then used the plunge feature to drop it down. How deep you carve the recess is completely up to you, but I was only going for a slight indent. If a person doesn’t drink wine, you could repeat this process to make a regular glass holder somewhere else on the slab. 

And that’s it. Now it can be placed across the bath and enjoyed. 

Button Coasters

I’m not a seamstress but I love these button looking coasters!

I just think they are so cute and they are dead simple to batch out. In fact you can use the same template set up from the bath caddy candle circle maker because the first step is to make a circle recess that will be the inside of the coaster.

You can use the CA glue/masking tape trick, doubled side tape….or you can make your template extra long so you can clamp it down on either side of the board you are carving a circle out of.

After carving out four insides (or however many you want to make), use a round object in the shop to draw an outside permeter circle then cut it out at the bandsaw. Now tape all of the coasters together and punch four holes in the center. I used the drill press to make these but you can also use a hand drill.

Ha, and that’s all that one takes. Grab some twine to really make presenting these to somebody ultra cute.

Tie Holder

Project number 4 is a tie holder….or as my mom kindly pointed out, it could also be used for scarfs as well.

I once again pulled out a piece of walnut for this one because this one piece of mine had some beautiful coloring in it I thought would look nice under finish. You could plane it down to size or you can resaw it over at the bandsaw, which is what I did. Then I got two holders from his one piece of wood.

Once it was down to thickness, I used my jointer to get one face flat, then used my thickness planer to get the other face flat.

Next it was time to measure out and mark the portion to be cut away. I just made up my own numbers here but do have a free tie holder DIY plan download here if you would like a template. 

Tie Holder

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Now it was the tedious part of making all the cuts. This really isn’t too bad, I think it took me about 10 mins per holder to cut all the slots. If you don’t have a bandsaw, another alternative would be to use a jigsaw.

I dont know if you can see but I left a small lip on each one of my slots. And after finishing the project, I don’t think this is needed. The tie’s don’t want to fall off. So on my DIY tie holder templates, I simplified this project even further and just knocked off those lips so it is just two straight lines.

Tie Holder

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Some more sanding and a coat of finish and now this is ready to hold up to 13 ties or scarfs by simply placing the tie or scarf in one of the slots then hanging up the entire holder. 

Salad Tongs

And on to the final project, which is my favorite. Salad Tongs.

I’m really on a mesquite kick right now so I once again cut into my life edge slab to cut off a chunk long enough to make my tongs.

I used a little bit of spare adhesive to temporarily attach a template for the profile of the tongs (you can find that template here). Then I cut it out over at the bandsaw.

After getting the main shape, I resawed it into two. 

Now to get some shape into the side profile of the tongs I brought out my spindle sander. I used a kinda medium sized spindle to cut in a curved shape at the base of each tong, then bumped up to the largest spindle to cut in a rounded shape on the tong portion of each one.

After getting the front concave shape down I used my 4” belt sander turned upside down to add a slight curve that matched it, but on the back. Then to get in between each one of the fingers of the tongs, I stuck it in my super jaws and did a little bit of sanding by hand. 

Since this one will be in contact with food, be sure to use a food safe finish. Let it dry then this gift is ready to be given. You could easily knock out a few of these from a few different wood species and let the family fight over which one they get. 

You’ve still got some time to knock out some handmade, unique gifts for your friends and family. I hope this will give you at least one good idea.

Don’t forget that there are a few templates here:

• 4 Wine Glass Holder Template
• 2 Glass Wine Holder Template
• Tie Holder Template
• Salad Tongs: (I reduced this template to 70% before printing, then cut off some of the rounded shape)

Things I Used In This Last Minute Christmas Present Ideas Project:

• ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
• Wilker Do’s DIY Plywood Workbench
• Wilker Do’s DIY Miter Saw Stand
• Triton Thickness Planer
• Armor Tool Workbench
• Armor Tool Clamps
• Triton Router Table
• Infinity Round Over Bit
• Infinity Chamfer Bit
• Infinity Flush Trim Bit
• Triton Palm ROS
• Walnut Push Stick
• Titebond Original
• Titebond Quick and Thick
• Titebond Instant Bond
• Bessey Trigger Clamps
• Triton Tracksaw
• Triton Spindle Sander
• Triton Router
• Wilker Do’s DIY Mobile Planer Stand
• Triton Jigsaw
• Triton 4″ Belt Sander
• Triton SuperJaws

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!

See you on my next project!

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

Thinking about building your own custom guitar body? Check out this DIY project where I built my own guitar with a cool bow tie customization!

If you missed the first video in this series where I went into detail on how I made the guitar neck, click HERE and get caught up.

In this video, I’ll be making the body and joining the two together. 

Crimson makes tons of customs guitars and one of their body styles is called The Descendent, which is the shape I went with for mine.

I intentionally picked out a piece of wood with a crack running through it so I could incorporate bowties in the design. This is a functional woodworking method that spans over a crack to stabilize it and prevent it from separating further.

After tracing on my body shape I roughly figured out where I could place the bowties and how large they could be, without interfering with any of the guitar components but still in positions to do their job of holding together the crack. I’m a visual person so I used a few pencils to get an idea on how it would look. 

Once direction and general size was sorted, I drew the bowtie out on a piece of roasted sycamore, which is the same wood as the neck of my guitar, then cut it out at the bandsaw.

Next I spent a good bit of time using a file and getting this one bowtie as perfect as possible because the plan was to use it as a template for my other two bowties that would be needed. I stuck the bowtie in the bench vise then used a file to flatten each side straight and square. Using a small machinist square to check my progress. When held on the edge, I could easily see high spots that I could mark then remove. 

After getting it perfect, I temporarily attached it to a scrap piece of wood which will act as a handle to keep my hands safely out of the way when I take these small parts to the router table. Then I stuck on another bowtie that I cut out to be just slightly oversized on all sides. This will be my second bowtie that I’ll make identical to the first with a flush trim bit in the router table.

And you can see in this shot just how difficult and dangerous handling these parts would be at the table, without some sort of handle. 

After making one copy, I pealed it off then used some more masking tape and CA glue to stick on another to make a third. 

I was a little worried about the bowties blending in too much to my light alder body so Chris suggested outlining each one in black stained holly. Yes please.

This was a time consuming step but definitely worth it in my opinion. I would use a scalpel to cut a length of holly just slightly oversized then attach it using some CA glue.

This is what I love about working with other people, these little nuggets of information or a different way of thinking… they are gold to me. I never would have thought about outlining them, or putting on a temporary handle, or even just realizing how versatile CA glue is.

I used some snips to cut down the bulk of overhanging holly then a machinist block, which is perfectly flat, to sand flush. Of course repeating with all my bowties. 

Noooow to cut in the recess into the guitar body for these bowties to be inserted into. When I’ve done bowties before I would lay the parts down, traced around, then cut each one individually. This time, Chris suggested I spend the time making one template from MDF that would allow me to use a router to cut all three in pretty quickly.

So I stuck one of my ties on a scrap (doesn’t matter which one since all are identical), scribed around it with a scalpel…

used a forester bit in the drill press to remove the bulk of material in the center…

then cleaned up the perimeter with a chisel. 

Oook, and now to cut them in. I first placed my completed bowties on my body in the position I wanted them. I tried to make them all at the same angle and of course also made sure they weren’t being placed where they would interfere with any of the electronics that would be added later.

I traced around them with a pencil then one by one, stuck my template in place with masking tape and CA glue. 

From here it was the same process as it was with making the template. I started with removing the bulk of wood from the center of the bowtie with a forstner bit at the drill press…

Then a flush trim bit in a router is next which removes all the wood to make the cavity identical to my template… except for the sharp corners which the round bit can’t make sharp.

I then next a chisel is used to square these corners off and complete one bowtie.

I would keep my bowtie on hand when on this chiseling step to continuously test fit it until it was a good fit. After completing one, I repeated on the other three. 

Even though these made up an entire days worth of work, I love them. I love having a guitar that almost pays homage to the woodworking side of it.

Before inserting them in the body, I quickly used a chisel to cut the edges off the bottom side of all the edges. This chamfer will make inserting them a little bit easier. 

Now it’s the easy part (well, if I did everything right). Popping them in. I applied a good amount of wood glue to the bottom of the cavity as well as all of the side walls. Then lined the bowtie up and hammered it down until it seated all the way.

You can see I used a scrap piece of wood that spans the entire bow tie and tried to knock it in evenly.

You can see Triton’s as well as Crimson’s videographers here in this photo above. Don’t forget that both Triton and Crimson have put out videos over on their channels of this experience. Not only of my guitar build, but also of Matt’s (which he is calling Sharktar, as it resembles a shark) and the guitar Ben got inspired to make. You can find Triton’s channel HERE and Crimson’s HERE

Once all the bowties were seated, I clamped three boards spanning the distance of the body, over each bowtie to sit for a bit until cured.

With the detail of the bowties done, I moved on to the actual body work. If you don’t have bowties then this is the starting point. I already have my body outline traced on so I took it to the bandsaw and cut it out. Just cutting right outside of the line at this point.

Oh, everybody say hi to Matt. Haha. 

Next, I ran the bottom of the body over a jointer to get it nice and flat, then ran it through the thickness planer to get the top to match it.

Now I could go to the disc sander and carefully work right up to my lines and get the shape of the body perfect.

Oh my gosh, I love how that sycamore bowtie with black stain holly pops but also blends so well with the coloring of the alder and it’s crack. 

The disc sander can take care of all of the convexed curves then the spindle sander was used to clean up all the concave curves. Using two different spindle sizes for the different sized openings. 

I’ll come back later to do some more shaping on the body but for now we moved to a pretty important step, which is cutting a cavity or a pocket, that will later be used to attach the neck to the body.

It’s very important that the neck be attached straight. To ensure we were doing this, I first found center of the body and of the neck then made some pencil marks as references to line up the two.

Once the neck lines were lined up to the body lines, I clamped the neck in place. The next step was to make a template, for lack of a better word, for cutting the pocket to hold the neck to the body. We did this by projecting out the two lines of the neck by butting a straight edge up to either side and tracing the inside face. This line indicates where a straight piece of scrap needs to be temporarily attached to the body. This will be the left and right guide for the router in the next step.

Then, before unclamping, another scrap is placed against the back of the neck. This will be the router’s guide to dictate the depth. 

I used the router and a flush trim bit to carve out this pocket. The bearing on the flush trim bit hit those guides I set up and cut everything out inside of them. I took three or maybe even four passes for such a deep pocket.

Now, when I remove the guides you can see I have a nicely fitting spot for the neck of my guitar to later be glued into. 

We held off gluing it in place for the mean time though, because a few things need to happen on the body first. Attaching the bridge being the next thing on the list. This is where the strings will later pop through before heading up to the head stock of the guitar.

After making a few guide lines with the protector and setting it in place, I used an awl to mark the location of each hole. This is to keep the drill bit from wondering around when drilling it to size in the next step.

After each one was marked, I used a drill press to punch these holes nice and straight. 

Next was to cut in the cavities for the two pick ups. These have a specific placement. Since their location was indicated on the template I used in the first step, I placed the bowties so they wouldn’t be in the way.

I hogged way the majority of the wood with a forestner bit then finished it off with a router.

I repeated the process with the body template of mine to cut out the two large cavities in the back of the body that will later hold the electronics. 

For these two back cavities, two lids needed to be made to cap them off.

I stuck with my roasted sycamore for these parts and after doing a rough cut over at the bandsaw, I used the disc sander to refine the shape.

These need to be a pretty good fit because if there are any gaps, you will always be able to see it. So while I did a lot of the tuning with the disc sander after getting it close, I moved back to the workbench and Chris stuck a piece of sand paper to a straight edge so that I could whittle away at the high spots and just sneak up slowly on them until both of these teardrop caps fit perfectly. 

Alrighty, quick tea break then it was time to drill a hole for the output jack. Which I thought was a pretty serious moment, but apparently I was the only one. If you can’t tell, we were having fun. 

Oh yeah, at some point before this, I put a chamfer around the perimeter, but I don’t seem to have any footage of it. Sorry bout that, but it’s just a simple chamfer around the edges. 

Ok time to drill more holes! A few holes are needed to connect the different cavities to each other so that when we run the wire, they can feed from one section to the other.

Even though punching holes in my beautiful new body wasn’t my favorite, I didn’t think any of them were particularly scary. Nothing like punching into the truss rod cavity in the last video. 

Annnnd I believe that is just about it for the body.

We really wanted to get our necks glued up to our bodies before calling it a night so we spent a good amount of time doing all of the finish sanding. Starting off with the Palm ROS and running through the grits on the large flat surfaces. Then switching over to sandpaper and card scrapers to get the inside edges as well as the chamfer. 

Ok lets glue the neck into place shall we? I feel like this was a huge moment. Both components, the neck and the body had taken so much time to get to this point, but there was nothing to be nervous about as the operation to join the two was simple.

Wood glue smeared all along the bottom and side walls of the pocket in the body, then clamps on stand by to apply downward pressure.

The main thing to pay attention to here, is that the neck is seated all the way inside it’s cavity. Oh and also to have some sort of material on hand to protect the neck from the clamps. This piece I’m using has a cove cut into it that matches the curve of the neck and is also lined with cork and I also have the body template on the underside to protect that surface as well. 

Before calling it a night, I got mine in clamps, Matt got his, and Ben even got his.

We let those sit up over night then unclamped them to admire them as a full guitar for the first time. 

At this point the guitars are ready for finish. Crimson has an in house spray finisher so Matt and I picked out the type of finish we wanted.

While Josh took the guitars to apply the finish, we went off with Triton Tools to explore the local saw mill/lumber yard called Yandles.  Which I highly recommend if you’re ever near Somerset. By the time we got back the guitars weren’t only coated, but they were also dry.

My my my. I know I’m bias but I’m absolutely in love with this guitar. The bowties, the flame in the neck. The mother of pearl inlay against that ebony. Just all of it, I love it. 

Ok enough gawking! Lets finish her off.

Up to this point I had been pretty strict about people keeping their hands off and letting me do the work on my own guitar, but Matt and I were determined to finish the guitars before calling it a night. So I welcomed the help of James and Chris to quickly throw in the electronics, route the wires, attach the tuning and volume knobs, string and tune the guitar, attach the two pick ups, then flip it over and mount the two back plates. 

If I had been drifting off before, I was wide awake now. After four days of extreme fun but detailed work, I got to plug my guitar in and make some noise with her.

I can not express how amazing this experience was and it has my full recommendation if you’re thinking about taking a class. If you want to check Crimson’s schedule, you can check that out HERE.

If you’re a maker but not a guitarist (like Matt and I) I still recommend it. If you’re a guitarist but not a maker, I still recommend it. The luthiers at Crimson can be as hands on or off as your skill level needs them to be. I learned so much, I laughed more in that one week than I have all year I think, and I have this amazing handcrafted guitar that I’ll keep for the rest of my life. 

Be sure and check out the video at the top of this page if you’d like to see more details on this build.

I really hope that you guys enjoyed this project. Be sure to follow Crimson Guitars, Matt Cremona and Triton Tools on YouTube, if you aren’t already. We all have different versions of the build story and how much fun we had.

Rock on, and see you on the next one!

Things I Used in This Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Spindle Sander
Router Table
Thickness Planer
Router
CA Glue
Bessey Inline Handle Clamps
Palm ROS

Triton Tools Video
Triton Tools Website
Crimson Guitars YouTube
Crimson Guitars Website
Matt Cremona YouTube

Thinking about building your own fully custom guitar? Check out this awesome DIY project where I literally built a cool custom guitar for myself!

Triton Tools surprised Matt Cremona and I with a trip to the UK to build a custom electric guitar in the brand new school of Crimson Guitars. Ben runs his own channel covering everything to do with guitar making but also has a school, which just expanded to holding 13 students at a time. It was such a memorable week…fun, educational, and I walked away with a build that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life. It’s fascinating just how much goes into guitar building and over the next two videos, I’m going to cover the process.

Ok, lets get started….

Things I Used In This Custom Guitar Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Spindle Sander
Router Table
Thickness Planer
Router
CA Glue
Bessey Inline Handle Clamps

I started off by picking out the wood for all the components of my guitar. I have roasted sycamore for the neck, Ebony for the fret board, then a cracked piece of alder for the body.

I didn’t know a thing about guitars before going into this build but I knew I wanted a body with a crack so I could incorporate some bow ties. 

Setting the body aside, I started with the neck.

Now, I don’t know a thing about guitar making.…so while I did the work, I had a luthier named Chris working along side me through the build, explaining what to do and making sure I didn’t mess up. So note you don’t have to be a woodworker to build your own guitar. Crimson has plenty of people take the course who have never used tools before. 

After temporarily attaching the neck template to my sycamore, I walked it back to the wood shop at the back of the classroom to cut it out. Or at least do a rough cut out where I removed the bulk of the material.

Matt was working on the start of his body whileI was working on my neck. Be sure to check out Triton Tools videos HERE which shows Matts build as well as plenty of behind the scenes that I don’t cover. 

After finishing off the final shape to the template with a flush trim bit in the Triton Workcenter, I pulled the template off and cut down the neck to roughly the thickness needed. You can see it’s a rather thick chunk of wood to start. After resewing it at the bandsaw, I threw it through the Thickness Planer for a few passes to get it to final thickness.

Oh and you see Ben there working, he was inspired watching Matt and I and started on his own guitar. You can see that build over on his channel HERE. 

Getting back to the workbench, I made a few marks to find center on the neck because next was attaching a jig to cut in a slot to fit in the truss rod. 

The jig not only dictates the width of the truss rod cavity for the router but we set a screw to act as a stop for the exact length of my particular rod.

This way, when over at the Router, I can start off with the bit high, use the plunge feature to sink into the wood, push the router forward and it stop up against that screw.

The Router leaves a rounded slot so some slight clean up work is needed with a chisel to square things off, until that truss rod can slip in. 

Next was to temporarily attach the fret board to a fret board making template of Crimson’s and this attaching method is one of the most handy tricks I’ve picked up this year! You place masking tape on your work piece and also whatever you want to stick it to. Burnish it by using anything around, then run a thin line of CA glue down the center of the tape. Apply pressure for a few seconds and you’re ready to rock.

Afterwards, you peal the two apart and there is no messy residue to clean up because it’s all left on the tape which you just peal off and throw away. 

So Crimson’s template has the spacing for the frets already lined out with a notch. Then they have a pin placed on the deck of the saw for this notch so you can just move your fret board along, notch by notch, until the frets are cut in. 

It incredible how heavy such this thin piece of wood was. Up next cutting in a slot that will later hold a small piece of bone inlay.

I did this by using a hand saw to cut in the boundary of the bone’s position, then a tiiiiiny little chisel to hollow it out. If you’re interested in guitar making, note that Crimson makes and sells a ton of specialized tools to make the job easier. 

Now it was time to attach the fret board to the neck. I first drew a few center lines on both pieces so that when I set the two on top of one another, I could use these lines to center the two to each other. And while I’m just giving you an overview of the steps, it’s worth noting that a lot of these steps took a decent amount of time. 

The holes I drilled are used to place locating pins into so that after some wood glue is applied I could place the fret board on the neck until the pins found their holes, then use a curved scrap board and clamps to squish it all together until the glue dried. 

Now the fret board can be trimmed and cut to final size to match the neck before moving on to one of my favorite parts of the build which was shaping the neck.

It’s a multi step process to go from a square block of wood to the nice flowing/round feel of a guitar neck.

The first being to resaw out a lot of the bulk waste at the bandsaw.

The second being to use a rasp to round over the back of the neck. I’ve never used one of these rasps but it was easy enough to pick up right away.

Before coming back to the shop to start shaping Cremona and I drew some guide lines on the neck so we could knock the edges down to create a nice and even bevel the entire length of the neck. Here you can see the bevel I just created on that side, then I flipped it over and repeated.

The rasp makes quick work of removing the wood, but the reason I think I liked it so much is the drastic effect it had on the feel, it was really taking shape.  

After getting both of those bevels, we drew on more guide lines then knocked down more wood to give the neck it’s final shape.

While here, we also shaped the head stock of the guitars.

BTW: can we just gawk for a moment at all that flame in this Sycamore?

Now this shape wasn’t as easy to get, as the neck. It’s more much windy and free flowing but again, Chris was nearby and made me feel confident that I wasn’t messing it up.

After getting this shape cut in, it was a bunch of hand sanding to remove all the big scratches.

Now on to the head stock.

First was to attach a template for my style of guitar (Cremona chose a different style) and drill in the tuning holes then using the bandsaw to remove the bulk of waste before refining it.

Now this was another cool trick I took away from the week…using a Spindle Sander as a thickness planer. I think that’s so clever! They set up a fence (scrap piece of wood, clamped to the deck) set to the thickness the headstock needed to be. This way I could run it until it was all the same thickness annnnnd it gave me that nice curved bit going into the frets. 

Oh goodness, this is taking shape guys! But still more shaping to go. You know, I never really paid attention to how many different areas of the guitar are shaped differently. Once you hand cut or sand those shapes in, you’ll always notice.

Next thing to shape was our fret boards. Taking them from a square flat piece of wood, to a rounded curved surface. This is done by using a piece of wood that has a cove cut into it and just going back and forth…..back and forth……back and forth. 

Now a nerve wracking step! Remember that truss rod I put in the neck earlier? Well now was to drill an access hole to tighten or loosen it which in turns bends the neck to straighten it out. I was terrified that I would mess up my beautiful neck, but the operation went very smoothly. Matt and I were joking that even in guitar building I managed to work a pocket hole in. 

Up next was inlays. Typically some sort of marker is placed on the 12th fret because this is where the octave changes (Check that fact). Chris gave me some mother of pearl to first cover in tape then draw out the shape I wanted.

Another new tool for me to use was an inlay jig. Chris gave me a quick run down then I went to town. This is a really handy tool. The saw can turn on a dime and actually eats through material quickly, the only tricky part is you need to keep the handle straight up and down. You can see as I’m using it, I keep pulling the handle back towards my body. I suppose just like everything else, it takes practice to get it. Either way, I got both my bowties cut out in no time, so the next step was to cut in the matching shape into my fret board where they will be inserted.

I first traced around them using a scalpel then used a rotary tool mounted on a base that controls the depth and cut as close to my markings as possible, without going over.

This hogged away the majority of the material where I just had to come back to do the final bit with a chisel. Then I could glue the bowties in. : ) That’s my first inlay. And I like it. 

Now was sanding it down flush! There is a lot of sanding in guitar making. But having friends around to cut up with makes it very enjoyable. 

Ah! You ready to see this ebony under finish?? This isn’t the final finish but next we put on a coat of protective oil that crimson makes. This gives the frets a coat of protection from the super glue that we’ll be applying the frets with in the next step. 

Alright hold onto your patience because the next major step was the fret work and this was an entire day step. It is tedious but honestly, I didn’t mind it. The first thing was to use a hand saw to clear out each and every fret. Goes quick enough. 

Next was to enlarge the top of the fret slots with a triangle file. A few swipe a piece is all this takes. 

Now to cut each fret, just slightly long at this point, from a reel of fret material.

To glue them in, a small amount of CA glue was placed on the underside of each fret then frimly hammered into place.

You can kind of see that I hit the top then the bottom then in center and the fret not only compresses into the slot but also flattens out. You can also see that I’m using a curved holder lined with cork under my neck to protect it during this process. Matt was joking with me about how aggressively I hammered these in, but it paid off! 

After going through and snipping off the bulk of overhanging material on both sides, I came back with a file. First with the file at a 90 to the neck, then once flush, again at a slight angle. Little details like that are small, but in the end result they actually make a difference. 

Right now I have frets that are round, well we need to sand the tops so they are flat….but then we end up rounded them back out later. ….I know luthiers have a good reason for this, I just can’t remember what it is. 

First, I placed black sharpie over the tops then got to sanding until all the sharpie marks were gone. Notice I’m not taking big sweeping back and forth motions with the sanding block. Instead I’m trying to keep the majority of the block on the neck to ensure it stays nice and flat. 

Next was to go through and use a Crimson specialty tool to find any high frets. This spans three frets at a time and indicates rocks. When you find one that rocks, you need to sand it down more. However, apparently I did such a great job at setting my frets, that I didn’t have a single high fret : ) This drastically cut down on the amount of sanding I had to do. And I got to tell Cremona Ha! Because he had lots of sanding to get his level : )

But not done with sanding yet. Now was to tape off a small back portion of the frets and sand them down to be slightly lower than the front ones.

And now to file the frets back to round. I went to each fret individually and placed this protected covering with a slot in it over each fret. Then used a hand file to get each side back to round. This protective cover of course protects the fret board, which in my case is ebony. I recommend you go ahead and pull up a chair to rest your feet while you work, because this doesn’t go quick.

Next was to still use the protective cover but change out the file to sandpaper.

Instead of leaving the ends at the same angle I filed in earlier with the block file, now was to come back with a small rat file and round the corners, so four per fret, to eliminate all sharp edges. Again, a small thing. But gliding a hand up and down the frets before and after, does actually make a difference. Go ahead and pull up a chair because while I’m skimming though these steps for you guys, it’s a time consuming process. 

Unless I’m misremembering, that’s it for the fret shaping!

Next was to clean up the fret board and get rid of all the smeared CA glue or scratches, or anything else. This was done with a razor blade, which I had never seen before but it worked very well. I just moved the blade portion back and forth across the frets to scrap the surface in between each fret.

After the obvious stuff was scrapped then I came back with sand paper rolled over a finger then ran through the grits.

And with that, we are getting closer to the end of fret work guys!

Next was to apply another coat of finish to clean off the fret board wood then tape off the wood so the neck could be taken over to a grinder wheel and all the frets can be buffed and polished.

Now don’t get me wrong, even though it is a tremendous amount of tedious steps to get these frets tip top, I was having a great time. You’ll notice in lots of the clips, I’m smiling or laughing and that’s because we were all chatting and laughing throughout this process. So don’t let the heavy detail work sway you from this. It honestly is just fine and it makes taking off that tape to reveal such beautifully shaped and shiny frets even more rewarding since I know I put in every single detail to get it there. 

On to one of the last additions to the neck is the fret markers. I drilled a small hole at the center of each fret, slightly beveled the tip of a white synthetic material, dabbed the end in CA glue then inserted it in. After all were placed, each one was cut as close to flush as possible then filed down to be perfectly flush. 

Whew, and that’s it! Other than the final sanding of course.

Ben taught me how to use a card scraper then Cremona and I spent the last remaining bit of the day getting out any and all scratches in the neck until they were flawless.

This was an incredible experience on so many levels. I learned so so much during this build, even during this neck building portion alone I learned a pocket full of tricks that I’ll always carry.

If you enjoyed this stay tuned for my next video which cover the body making portion of the guitar and joining the neck to the body of course.

I also highly encourage you to check out Triton Tool’s videos where they cover day by day, which was five days of our experience. Then also the Crimson Guitar’s channel, as they are the resource to watch in the guitar building world. And my buddy Matt Cremona’s channel is here.

Big thank you to Triton and Crimson Guitars for this experience.

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new.

I’ll see you guys on Part 2!

Wondering how to mold and cast your hand? Check out this fun DIY project where I made hand signals and molded casted my own hand!

The first thing I always grab when walking into my shop is my hearing protection. I personal wear bluetooth OSHA compliant ISOtunes. I have two models I toggled back and forth between, the Pro version with a memory wire, and the Xtra version without. Both hang around my neck when not in use but then at the end of the day I normally just toss them down on whatever surface I’m closest to. Which means in the morning I have to go on a hunt to find them. The best way to fix constantly loosing something is to make a home for it so in today’s video I’m going to be doing just that. 

I could have just put a hook on the wall, but how boring. Instead, I thought it would be funny to have a hand coming out the wall in the classic Rock On hand symbol (since my ISOtunes allow me to jam to music while in my shop). This is a casting of my actual hand and it’s called livecasting. Let me show you the process.  

Things I Used In This How To Mold and Cast Your Hand Project:

ISOtunes Pro
ISOtunes Xtra
Perfect Mold Alginate
Perfect Cast
Titebond Thick & Quick
Krylon Spray Paint Stone
Chrome Spray Paint
Portable Workbench

This project does make a mess and since I anticipated that, I set up a workstation of two plastic portable workbench tables. I grabbed a pail of water, some small plastic trash cans and some mixers to throw in a drill. However, lesson learned! Don’t use the mixers. They must mix the ingredients together too quickly as the mixers ruined my first batch.

I went with these trashcans because of the hand shape I was going after. I wanted a bent wrist on my cast. I needed something that gave my hand room at the angle I wanted it to cast. So figure out the hand shape you’re going with first, then find a container that fits. 

Now there are two common mold materials. One is silicone and the other is alginate, which uses algae as its main ingredient. Alginate the one I’m using.

I followed the mixing instructions to mix together an amount that I thought would cover my hand in the container. The ingredients are the powder of the alginate and water. I measured out the water first, then poured the powder in on top then stirred really well. 

When I formed my hand shape, I made sure not to leave any space between my fingers and my palm. I tucked my fingers and this will make the cast stronger. 

I plunged my hand all the way in until I touched the bottom of the can and then pulled my hand back up about 1/2”. Then I just sat and let it start hardening.

One benefit to using Alginate is its fast set time. You only have to wait about 5 mins before the contents are ready for your hand to be removed. When it was time to pull out my hand, I started to gentle wiggle my hand and fingers until I felt the mold material letting loose. Then I just pulled my hand out. 

Now you can’t see really, but at this point I have a mold of my rock on hand shape and it’s time to pour in the plaster to make a cast.

You’ll want to immediately start the process for pouring in your plaster. It’s just as simple as the alginate mixing, where you follow the mixing ratios of the provided powder with water.

I once again started off with the measured amount of water then stired in the powder. Make sure you mix this together enough to get the lumps out.

Once it had a good consistancy, I poured some into the alginate mold.

I didn’t fill it up immediately though, I poured in just enough to get into the fingers, then I rotated the container around to try and make sure the plaster was coating all the fingers without getting an air bubble trapped. Then I filled it up the rest of the way. 

The next step is to try and get as many of the air bubbles out a possible. You can kinda shake the container, but I grabbed my small sawzall without a blade, and used it to gently vibrate out the bubbles. 

Then last thing I did before leaving it alone to set up was to grab a lag bolt and insert it into the wrist, threads facing out. When it drys I’ll have a way to thread it into my wall. You can see I just threaded it into a piece of wood, centered it, then rested it across the top of the mold. 

Skip ahead one hour and the mold and cast are ready!

I flipped my container upside down to drop the mold then used a knife to tear into it and release my hand. Alginate is used for one time molds, so I wasn’t worried about preserving the mold. 

I found it insane how much detail the cast had in it. Wrinkles, veins, and finger prints. It’s really crazy.

Now you can see on the top of mine that I have small holes from not getting out all the little air bubbles. I did it a few times and was never able to 100% get rid of these, so my fix was to fill them in before painting.

For the small ones on top I used a thick and quick setting glue from Titebone called Thick and Quick. I chose this one because it’s a white glue and not yellow. You can see that it takes just a small amount to fill in all those small little holes.

Then for other imperfections, like where the bolt head was slightly poking through, I covered with joint compound then blended in with some sanding. Also, if you have a few bumps of plaster on your cast, they are simple enough to pop off with a razor blade. 

Not only is this a fun project, but it’s also incredibly quick to complete. I let my hands set up over night before applying a coat of paint to them. You can of course leave them raw or pick any color of your liking but I went with a stone color on one, and a chrome metal color on another. The stone color is my favorite but it does hide a lot of the details such as the finger prints. The chrome definitely highlights them so just consider what you want when choosing your paint. 

To hang the hands I predrilled into my wall then threaded them on. Now something I would recommend changing: I would use an eyelet instead of a lag bolt so the plaster has more surface to grab hold of the hardware. I noticed that the bolt easily broke loose from the plaster after a bit of turning. 

And there we are! A pretty cool, maybe a little freaky, but dedicated spot I can hang my ISOtunes at the end of the day and go right to them at the start of the next. 

Even if you don’t want a rock on hand ISOtunes holder, you can take this idea and do so many other things with it… such as a funny drill holder…

Or a backpack hanger…

Or even a sweet cast of holding hands with somebody you love, which is what my parents asked to do when they saw my project on Instagram. Can they get any cuter? 

That’s it for this one guys, I hope that you enjoyed learning about the process and you have fun casting if you tackle this project.

I’ll see you on the next project! 

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)

Thinking about building some custom wall art into your shop wall? Check out this shop wall mountain mural DIY project where I built wall art right into the wall!

Hey guys, in this video I’ll be showing you how I made this built in wall art for my shop. I did an abstract mountain scene but this concept can easily be adapted to anything that personally appeals to you. 

Members of Triton Tools were hanging out with me in my shop. We ended up with an extra day so we decided to do another project.

Since my walls are made from full sheets of plywood I started by moving things off the wall space where I wanted my mountain range to be. I picked a sheet at the center of my partition wall but if I ever want to move it to another location, I can easily swap it out for another sheet. I quickly unscrewed it from the studs then laid it flat on my workbench to get started. 

Because I like to game plan beforehand, I took the time to model the scene I would be going after in a 3D modeling software. This allowed me to get a good visual and to make lots of changes before making any cuts. It also allowed me to quickly pencil out the scene on my sheet of plywood as I was able to use difference references, such as the edge of the plywood, to pull measurements for the start and stoping point of each line.

You can see I’m using the track from my track saw as my main straight edge for this. However I did pull in a variety of straight edges to use for this. 

I first thought to make these lines using the track saw on the track, but the problem with the round blade is it would leave a sloped cut and mating up two lines, such as all the peaks, would not come out cleanly. So instead I used my router with a router adaptor for the track saw. This is an adaptor that is attached to the base of the router and that mates to track saw track so that you can use the track to make straight lines with your router. That’s cool! 

Mark from Triton acted as my pit crew as I called it : ) And I do recommend having a second person on hand if you take this route. Having two people to clamp and unclamp, move and reclamp, made this project go really quick.

For cutting in the lines, I’m using a 1/4” Infinity spiral up cut bit, which left a really clean cut through the veneer. Meaning I didn’t have a lot of messy tear out to deal with later on. As for depth, I cut down about 3/8”.  

After getting the second mountain completely cut out I stopped to vacuum out and maaaan….hehehehe I was so excited that this was working out.

For the sun, I wanted to cut in the circle portion first so I could then connect the straight lines of the rays into it. To do this I swapped out the router adaptor to the edge guide that comes with the router. You can use this not only as a regular edge guide but also as a circle cutting jig. It attaches to the base of the router in the same fashion, then I found center, stick a brad nail in as a pin point, then make my cut.

Quick and easy, now back to the track adaptor to finish making the straight line cuts and we can move on to coloring it. 

Oh, and I also had to fix a mistake I made on my very first cut. I overshot my stop point and by the time I realized it I was too far past to really do anything about it. Filling it was pretty simple. I just cut a strip from a scrap piece of ply that fit into the grove. I left it long then used a chisel to cut it where I needed it.

Once everything was cut we had to throw it up on the wall to see how it looked. Which absolutely called for high fives!

Ok lets throw some color on it! To prep the sheet I first sanded all the grooves. This was minimal since I was using a high quality bit but I did wrap a carpenters pencil and sand paper and run through each line to knock down the fuzzies.

Then I used my palm ROS on the entire sheet. I started off using 220 grit here to make sure I didn’t go through that very thin veneer of the plywood.

Then I played around on a scrap piece of the plywood with a few color options before getting going on the real thing. I am using paint for this but I didn’t want to 100% cover the grain of the ply so I’m using the whitewashing technique where I add water to thin it out and make it appear more like a stain. I’m using a 2:1 ratio so two part water to one part paint.

Once I had my colors sorted and I knew which one was going where, I started applying with a foam brush. 

I decided to leave the grooves raw for the mean time.

I worked in small sections where I would apply it, then quickly wipe off the excess using a paper towel. It was easy with a foam brush to not go onto another section with the coloring but I made a mess a few times when it came time to wipe it off. But, I also discovered that 220 sand paper removes these spots easy enough without going through the veneer so it’s nothing to freak out about either way. : ) 

Then it was the same process for the snow caps and the sun then I let it set up for about an hour to really dry before throwing it up on the wall. 

: D Yay! Its funny how much I love it. This is why it’s fun to work with other people or participate in things that give you parameters sometimes.

So? What do you think?! If you did a mural what would you choose it to be of? Leave me a comment down below and let me know.

Also be sure to follow me on all my social media platforms if you want to follow my builds in real time. I’ll see you on the next one! 

Things I Used In This Shop Wall Mountain Mural Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Triton Tracks
Plywood Mallet
Woodpeckers Precision T Square
Infinity Spiral Bit
Triton Router Track Adaptor
Palm ROS

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Check out Triton’s video here

My Instagram

My Facebook

Thinking about making your own DIY walnut whiskey top display? Check out this cool DIY project where I built own myself, using walnut!

Do we have any Whiskey drinkers watching?? 

In Texas, we have a whiskey brand that uses scrap leather and materials from boot makers and such to customize their whiskey tops. You get everything from snake skin, leather, ostrich, to fun little holiday ones… people have started keep their caps and starting a collection and some good friends of mine asked if I could make them a Texas shaped display.

I don’t normally take on commission but this sounded like a fun project so I agreed. So far they have around 90 caps and I wanted the display to not only hold what they currently have but also give them some room to grow and fill it in. 

I started by first modeling the whiskey top so I could figure out how big I needed to make the Texas to get them all to fit. I measured the cork that would be stuck in the Texas shape, then also the larger top. This allowed me to populate the state with a layout that looked nice and not cluttered…and it also gave me something to export and take to the printers and get an image printed off. If you ever need a large scale print like this, Office Depot, Staples, Fed Ex….all those places are great resources. 

Now just my personal system when I’m making a template from a print off, I always use packing tape to first cover the entire image. This not only gives it some rigidity but will also protect the stencil from getting damaged. It’s kind of hard on larger stencils like this one to keep it flat while applying the tape. So you don’t want to create and tape in creases and folds whiles you’re laying down this tape. So try and keep the paper tight and straight as you’re laying it down. You can stop after the front but if I plan to use a stencil again I also take the time to mask off the back. Then I take an exacto knife to the shape to cut it out. 

If you’re interested, I now have templates for all 50 states available. So if you have any sort of state related project in mind, click here to check them out. 

With my shape and now size determined, I picked out some wood to make this project from. I went back and forth between maple and walnut but ended up on walnut. I only had two boards so I spent a little bit of time planning out a cut list to make sure I wouldn’t run out.Tthen I jointed the boards to get a nice flat edge then also one face.

To get the second face flat I moved my thickness planer outside to my shop porch and ran each board through. Now that they were flat, I flipped out the wings on my miter saw and cut the boards to their needed length.

Next, I arranged them so that the shape of Texas would fit, of course using that stencil as a guide on how I needed to line up the boards to each other. I used a sharpie to make some marks on the alignment then moved things out of the way to get some clamps laid down.

With the project being an indoor one, I used TItebond original on all the joints, applying a good amount to the inside edges of all the boards. After getting all the glue applied, I made sure to pay attention to my sharpie marks and adjust the position of the boards as needed. If you aren’t working with a limited stock then you can always cut the boards to the same length and just have excess on each length then you can avoid the slight hassle of this step. 

I left that to dry in a few Bessey parallel clamps and quick clamps on the smaller portions then went to work on a “T” and an “X” that I wanted to add to the state of Texas. Which entailed me making a stencil of them then using them as a reference on how big of a glue up I needed to make. See the State would end up holding 105 tops but with them already having 90 tops, I didn’t want them to run out of room so quickly. Instead of making the state bigger, I wanted to make some add ons for them and the logo for the brand of whiskey was perfect since it is a T and X. 

I got the blanks for the TX portion in clamps drying while I moved back to the now dried state shape. This blank is too large to run through my planer so I clamped it down using a few quick clamps then started sanding.

I removed the bulk of material first with my 3” belt sander, then did some final rough sanding with my larger ROS Sander and 100 grit paper. Once things looked even and flat I brought my stencil back in, laid it on top of the blank and traced around it using a sharpie. 

: ) Cool. 

Now to cut! Easy enough, I took mine to my bandsaw but if you don’t have one then a jigsaw would also make quick work of it. In fact, because of the wide and crazy shape of Texas there were some nooks and crannies I couldn’t get with the bandsaw and had to get with my jigsaw instead. Nice…man I wouldn’t mind even hanging just a walnut Texas up on my wall now that I’m seeing this. Haha. 

Ok now back to sanding. I started refining the face with my smaller palm ROS using 120 grit then working down to 220. I made sure to remove all the left over sharpie marks and get all the edges nice and smooth. For the spots where my palm sander couldn’t reach I quick got with my spindle sander.

Alrighty, at this point things were all sanded with the state shape so I once again brought out my stencil. This time I was going to use it to mark where the hole pattern needed to be. To do this, I first taped the stencil to my shape using painters tape. Then I used a mallet and a transfer punch to find center on each circle then make a small indent in the wood underneath. I made sure to mark the center of my circles on my print off just for making this task easy. 

Now, when I placed a forester bit in my drill, I could get the center point of the bit right in that indent and take off drilling. Since I didn’t want to drill into my workbench, I placed a few boards under it just to lift it up enough so when I punched through I wouldn’t get into the plywood. However, I actually tried to stop right before I punched though completely so I could bore almost the entire way through, but then flip it over and finish the hole from the other side. This minimized the tear out to almost nothing. Although I’m using these Rockler Forstner bits and they cut really clean anyway. 

Before you say it yes, I have a CNC so I could have done all this cutting and hole punching on there….but that doesn’t make an interesting video. However, if you do want a template to make your own or a finished one to display your tops (I have them for beer bottle tops as well) then those would be cut with my CNC. 

I know I still have a little ways before it’s done but I couldn’t help but poke the tops in to get an idea on how it will look…..: ) Nice.

Alright, lets get a finish on it then move back to the TX letter add ons. For this project I’m going with General Finishes Arm R Seal in Satin. I’ve had great luck applying this finish with a regular clean rag so that’s what I stuck with for this.

I did pay close enough attention and tried not to get finish down inside the holes. I didn’t want the finish build up to make the tops difficult to slide in. So instead of two or three kind of heavy coats, I did four light coatings. And man, I just love walnut under finish. After getting the face of the state I also applied the Arm R Seal to the edges as well as the back. I’ve heard with solid wood, it’s good to finish all sides the same to prevent different movement rates from face to face. 

I needed to wait about four hours between coatings on the Arm R Seal so I left that set up while I went back to work on the TX parts. Since the whiskey logo is dark then light then dark, I thought it would be cool to do the dark in walnut and the light in maple. I’ll tell you now that I ran out of time to do three layers so I instead just did two. 

I cut out the center of the logo then traced that on my walnut blanks and cut them out. I couldn’t joint these edges so I instead took a lot of time to sand them down and I used the help of my Armor Tool workbench for this task. You can see all the dog holes in the top which means I can place fences and clamps in just about any orientation to help me hold down small parts as I’m working on them. In this case I attached a fence, or a stop attachment, then two self adjusting clamps to hang onto the workpiece. Then just like the State, I sanded these down to 220 grit. 

Next I started measuring, cutting, and gluing on the maple boarder pieces and my goodness did I underestimate how long this process would take! Ha, this was an all time endeavor and looking back on it, yes it looks good but I don’t know if I would do it again.

What I ended up doing is measuring then cutting each part as I went then glueing it in place. However, I could only glue a few in place at a time because the clamps got in each others way. I did switch back and forth in between the two to try and minimize the down time but there was still a lot of waiting on glue to dry. If I did this again, I suppose I could also give in and use a pin nailer so I wouldn’t have to wait on glue to dry but at the time I was aiming for no nail holes since it will be up on the wall and be seen. 

A tip for you though: on a lot of the joints I would leave the pieces long then once they were dry I would cut them flush. Then another tip is to use a sacrificial fence on the miter saw in order to make these small cuts. This will provide support to your small piece and keep it from shattering on you. 

Like I said before, I planned on adding walnut to the outside of these so it would match the logo but since the process took up so much time, I had to scratch the idea. I do like the way the maple board makes it look though!

Ok a little more clean up work before these are ready for holes….this maple burns so easily! I guess I left burn marks when cutting the strips at the table saw. To get them out I stuck them in my superjaws, placing cardboard in first because I’ve been using these jaws in my metal shop and didn’t want to transfer the mill scale to my parts. Then I used my palm sander with 120 paper to remove the burns. 

Lookin good…now to drill the holes in these I had to get a little creative. I used a spare print (because I always get a spare) and a woodpeckers straight edge to cut out a row of holes. I could take this strip of holes and lay it on my T and my X to figure out their placement. I liked this method because it will keep the spacing the same as the states. I taped it in place where it looked good, used a transfer punch to mark the Stencil, then laid the stencil on the actual part and transferred punched again to get my final indent markings on where I needed to drill. : ) 

That worked wonderfully. I drilled out all the holes, then also applied the same four light coats of General Finishes Arm R Seal to it and now after my friends fill up their Texas, they can add the Whiskey logo to their wall (or always have it hanging up) and continue filling holes in as this gave them an additional 26 to fill. 

For mounting it, I attached a French cleat to the back side of the parts. This is an angled cleat so that all they will have to do is hang an opposing cleat on their wall then mate up the two. By adding this cleat it does push the state off the wall by 3/4 of an inch so to keep the state from rocking when adding in tops, I added a small 3/4” black to the bottom of the state as well.

So what do you think? I’m personally so pleased with the way this turned out! I love the walnut and I love these tops. What a great marketing idea on their part. If you would like to make your own or have another idea where you need a template for a state shape then be sure to check out my website, there is a link for you in the description. 

Thanks for following along! I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next. 

Things I Used In This DIY Walnut Whiskey Top Display Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Triton Thickness Planer
Wilker Do’s Planer Mobile Stand
Wilker Do’s Miter Saw Stand
MIter Saw
Miter Saw Blade
Titebond Original Woodglue
Gluebrush
Bessey Kbody Clamps
Bessey Quick Clamp
Woodpeckers 36 Straight Edge
Woodpeckers 12 Straight Edge
3″ Belt Sander
Rockler Dust Separator
Sanding Cart
Triton Large ROS
Triton Palm ROS
Triton Spindle Sander
Wilker Do’s Plywood Mallet
Rockler Forstner Bits
General Finishes Arm R Seal
Armor Tool Workbench
Armor Tool In Line Clamps
Armor Tool Dog Fence
Bessey Small F Style Clamps

(Most of the links listed above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Thinking about making your own custom edge grain cutting board? Check out this cool DIY project where I built my own out of walnut and maple!

Tools and Materials I Used In This Custom Edge Grain Cutting Board Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Miter Saw
Miter Saw Stand
Infinity Table Saw Blade
Router Table
Infinity Round Over Bit
Triton ROS Sander
Ultimate Workbench Plans
Triton Drills
Triton Spindle Sander
Blue Rockler Clamps
Titebond III Woodglue
Triton Thickness Planer
Rockler Crosscut Sled
Triton Router
Triton Superjaws
Infinity Straight Bit
Infinity Flush Trim Bit
Rockler Sanding Grips
Cutting Board Finish

The incremental name comes from the pattern of two contrasting woods incrementally getting smaller and larger from left to right and from right to left. For my board I chose to use the beautiful combination of walnut and maple. Using my neighbors jointer to first get one face and one edge of the boards nice and flat. Big thank you to my neighbor for being so gracious with his shop and tools.

After flattening one face and edge on my walnut board I also did the same with my maple board. Then since I was already in my neighbors shop I went ahead and used his planer to flatten the other side of the boards. However at this point I could have ran these boards through my bench top planer to do the same.

Getting the boards back to my own shop I figured out how long I wanted my cutting board to be, then added an inch and cut that length at the miter saw. That way my boards are roughly cut to size but I still have room to cut them to final length later.

Before continuing, let me explain the two different cutting board options: end grain and edge grain. End grain is where you have the end grain facing up and down, for the cutting surface. Edge grain is where you have the edge of the boards for the cutting surfaces. End grain is easier on the knives edge but edge grain boards are just so darn pretty. For my board I went with edge grain so I could do the pattern I wanted.

I took my boards to the bandsaw and started cutting them in strips. This dimension will ultimately become the thickness of the cutting board.

Next I glued these strips together by applying glue to the face grain of the pieces so that the edge grain will be facing up and down. I’m using Titebond III for this project as it’s water proof. Now it’s worth noting that if I had bought thicker stock I wouldn’t have had to do this step. To move through this project quicker, you can buy wood that is at least as thick as the widest strip you want in your cutting board. For example, since my widest strip is 1 1/4”, I should have bought at least 1 1/2” rough sawn wood.

Instead, I’m doing this glue up so that I have a massive block of edge grain walnut and maple to then cut strips from.

After getting my glue ups in clamps I took some water on a towel and wiped off as much of the glue squeeze out as I could before letting it set up overnight.

Oh and I used some scraps wood strips on the ends of each glue up just to protect the wood from a slight indent from the clamps. These are not glued to the boards though.

The next morning I took the edge grain blocks and ran them through my thickness planer to get both sides completely flat.

Since I still don’t have full power out to the shop yet, I hooked up a generator to my jobsite saw and started cutting my strips. The trick with the strips is to start off with a dimension, in my case it’s 1 1/4”. Then run the walnut through then the maple to get a strip this size. Now move the fence to reduce the cut by 1/8” or whatever increment you prefer. I dropped mine to 1 1/8” then ran the walnut and the maple blocks through again. Every time I moved the fence over the same amount, 1/8” until I got down to 1/8” strips.

Now I just rearranged them so that the two outside strips are the 1 1/4” strips, then moved the 1/8” right inside, then the 1 1/8”, then 1/4” and so on. You can see the effect is as the walnut shrinks in size from the left to the right, the maples grows the same amount. Pretty cool huh?

Once I double checked that none of the strips got out of order, I got my Rockler bar clamps ready and did the final glue up. This glue up was a little more time consuming as each strip was a different height so the glue had to be placed and smeared individually. Again, I’m using Titebond III for this.

After letting that sit up over night I grabbed my crosscut sled to cut the board down to it’s final size.

I once again knocked on my neighbors shop to use his larger thickness planer as the cutting board was now too large to run through my 12” bench top planer. Once I got both sides nice and flat, I took it back to my own space.

Now you can call the board done here if you’d like, it’s still very pretty as it is. However, I thought it looked a tad plain so I played around with adding a few curves to the body.

I first drove in some screws to my workbench then used a flexible ruler to trace out a nice subtle curve. I repeated the shape on the other side then took it to the band saw to cut. This came out alright but it wasn’t perfect as the cut was made free hand. I did what I could to clean it up at the spindle sander.

I also wanted some curves on the top and bottom of the cutting board but first wanted to cut in the handles on the sides while they were still square. To do this I used a straight bit in my router and made three passes to get to the depth I wanted. I again did this cut free hand and while they came out okay, I learned my lesson and would definitely recommend using a template to make it cleaner and quicker!

After cutting done with the router I came back with a chisel and mallet to square the corners.

When moving to the cut in the curves for the top and bottom I actually took the time to make a template, and I will tell you that using a template made a huge difference in speed and final look.

I made my template from scraps laying around the shop. I used double sided tape to attach the curve to my cutting board, flipped it all upside down and used a flush trim bit to make the cut. The bearing of the bit rides along the template making the edge of the board match the curve I wanted perfectly.

If you’re interested I do have these templates available here. The template package includes CNC cut templates for the body curves, the handles, as well as making the juice groove which you’ll see in the next step.

Before moving on I used my palm ROS to round over the sharp corners just by moving my it back and forth a few times.

Ok next was a little bit of a tricky part. I wanted a juice groove in my board, you know that mote some boards have to catch juices so they don’t spill onto your counter? There are plenty of tutorials on making this cut when your board is square, but not any on making one with an irregular shape. So I improvised.

I cut off some cardboard bigger than my cutting board then traced the shape onto it. Next I came in a little bit on all sides and used my board to trace more lines. I’m essentially making the same shape as the board, just smaller. I’ll use this as a template or guide for my router to make the juice groove.

Once I liked the shape and size in cardboard I made the template from scrap wood. Once again using double sided tape to stick it to my cutting board, making sure it was nice and centered before I made the cut.

I’m using a 3/8” round nose bit and a guide bushing to make this cut. I took my time and made sure to keep the router pressed up against this template and I’ll say that I was beyond happy with the way it came out. It’s a small thing that I know serves a function but even if it didn’t, dang does it look nice.

To sand this groove nice and smooth I grabbed a Rockler contour sanding grip that was roughly the same size.

And now was my absolute favorite part (not), sanding. The board was pretty smooth already since I ran it through the thickness planer so I started off with 120 grit paper then worked down to 220.

Then the final touch before throwing on a finish was to round over the edges over at the router table. I set the height of the bit then started running all edges through, completely forgetting about the handles on the sides, which meant when I got to the handle, the bearing fell into the void of it and ate into the shape of the body.

As soon as I heard it my stomach dropped. I’ll be honest and say I was pretty disappointed in my mistake but decided to finish and keep the board anyways. It gives it a story, right?

So moving on to finishing, I first wiped the board down with water to get the grain of the wood to raise up. Once that was dry, I lightly sanded the board using 400 grit paper until everything was baby-smooth again. If you skip this step, then the grain will raise up the first time your board gets wet, and it won’t feel smooth.

For a finish, I used standard cutting board finish since it’s food safe and won’t go rancid. I applied 3 coats right off the bat using a paper towel to spread it around the board, it’s edges, and the juice groove.

Even with my little hiccup, I am completely in love with how this came out.

Cheers – April

Thinking about making your own DIY walnut bath caddy? Check out this DIY project where I built my own bath caddy, using walnut! Great build!

Well I’m side stepping from the shop for this week’s video to bring you this bath caddy. It’s made from spare walnut I had left over from the DIY kitchen table I finished earlier last year. I first designed the bath caddy in SketchUp which really helps me to visualize my work before cutting any material. Even if I’m not working with something as precious as walnut, I still prefer this method of making my ideas come to life. Check out the video down below if you haven’t already to see this project take shape. I had a load of fun building it to custom fit my Chromebook, Kindle, iPhone, and a glass of wine – you know, all the essentials for a long soak in the tub. : )

Things I Used In This DIY Walnut Bath Caddy Project:

SketchUp
Planer
ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Bandsaw
Cross Cut Sled
Drop Off Platform
Titebond III Woodglue
Glue Brush

Track Saw
Super Jaws
Belt Sander
Dust Right Separator
Small Port Hose Kit
T Track Slots
Router
Minwax Spar Urethane: Bench Cookies

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Thinking about building your own bathroom vanity? Check out this awesome DIY project where I built my own bathroom vanity myself!

I’ve been wanting to build a new bathroom vanity since I moved into the house. This week I finally took the time to model one on the computer and start making it happen. The build was moving along perfectly until it came time for the molding on the drawer fronts and I realized I do not own the router bit needed to create the profile I’m interested in! No worries; I got the bit on order and amazon promises to have it to me tomorrow : ) Check out the build video down below if you haven’t already and be sure to stay tuned in for part two where I remove the old one and install this complete Oak unit. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Things I Used In This Bathroom Vanity Project:

Track Saw
ISOTunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Dado Stack
Brass Gauge Blocks
Orange Push Pad
Titebond Wood Glue
Glue Brush
Right Angle Clamping Jig

Blue Clamps
Drill
Palm Belt Sander
Dust Right
Small Port Hose Kit
Crosscut Sled
Router
Bottom Trim Router Bit

Top Trim Router Bit
Superjaws
Shop Stool
Contour Sanding Pads
Miter Saw
Bandy Clamps
Circular Saw

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Thinking about woodworker Christmas gift ideas? Check out this DIY project where I show you what to get a DIYer woodworker for Christmas!

Happy holidays guys and gals! I threw together a quick video to offer up some good gift suggestions for the handy person in your life! All of these suggestions are things I have come to love while working in my shop over the past 5 years. The products range from hearing protection to shop consumables to feet saving floor mats : )

I’ve also thrown in a killer deal on a bundle of shop project plans for just $25 for FIVE sets of building plans to get you or your loved one going in the garage with building some functional “stuff”. You can find them here! They are marked down from $41 to $25, which amounts to a  61% holiday savings that you can use to put toward other gift ideas.

Watch the video down below to see all the items I think would make a perfect Christmas gift for a woodworker or DIYer.

– April

Wonder how to build a hook on balcony desk? Check out this fun and productive DIY project where I built my own desk that hooks onto my balcony!

By now you’ve probably learned that I LOVE being outdoors in the elements. This idea was born out of my love for sitting outside on the balcony while drinking coffee and working on the computer. Although we have a couple tables out on the porch, this little “hook-on” balcony desk is the real deal. I can easily move it from one spot to another depending on where the wind is blowing from, if the sun is in my eyes, or if there happen to be a lot of deer on the west side of the house in the evening. All and all I think there are many others who could benefit from this little design. If you haven’t already, check out the video down below.

Things I Used In This Hook On Balcony Desk Project:

Miter Saw Stand
ISOTunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Miter Saw
Thickness Planer
Thickness Planer Stand
Crosscut Sled
Brass Gauge Blocks

Glue Brush
Bench Dog Push Blocks
Large ROS
Outfeed Table
T-tracks
T-track Hold Downs

Large Right Angle Jigs
Small Right Angle Jigs
Blue Clamps
Drill
Adjustable Right Angle Jig
Super Jaws

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Thinking about building a custom walking cane? Check out this DIY project where I built a walking cane for my dad!

Well, my Dad finally went through with his knee surgery to replace a broken down knee joint. Thank goodness! Before he went into surgery I decided to make a custom walking cane out of some scrap material I had on the lumber cart. I went back and forth on material types but settled on a combination of Walnut and Padauk with an Oak center. I really love the way that it came out….and so does Dad. If you haven’t already, check out the video link below to see how the project came together.

Things I Used In This Custom Walking Cane Build: 

Handle Template
ISOTunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Rolling Lumber Rack
Crosscut Sled
Glue Bottle
Super Jaws

Bar Clamps
Hole Saw Bit
Out feed Table
Bandsaw
Small Vise
Dust Right Separator
Belt Sander

Small Hose Kit
Blue Clamps
Spindle Sander
Anti Fatigue Mats
Shop Stool
Respirator Mask

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Wondering how to restore an old rocking chair? Check out this DIY project where I walk you through the exact steps of restoring any rocking chair!

One of the joys of wood working is occasionally getting to breathe life back into old pieces of furniture that would otherwise get forgotten. This week I resurrected an old rocking chair that was originally bought for my grandmother but was then passed to my mom. She not only rocked my brother and me in it but her mom also rocked her and her five siblings in it. The chair was purchased in 1950 and for it’s age I say it has held up well! However, a few years back a guest sat in the chair and the entire thing collapsed and broke a part. The guest was fine but the chair was badly damaged. My grandfather did what he could to repair the chair but now that I’m knee deep into woodworking, my mom asked if I could show it some love. Check out the video below to see the extensive process of breaking down the chair and restoring it.

I want to thank Minwax for sponsoring this project. Minwax is once again celebrating the meaningful stories and sentimental value that wood holds with the second installment of, ‘Made With Love. Finished With Minwax.’ This year, Minwax is spotlighting the joy of finding wood pieces, sometimes in the least expected places, and the emotional value these items take on when finishing them with love.

Whether wood items come already imbued with family memories or are simply a blank canvas awaiting a new identity, Minwax provides the tools that enable everyone from novices to trained professionals to either preserve a meaningful history or embed in wood a profound, new meaning. ‘Made With Love. Finished With Minwax.’ provides a platform for people to discover and share their personal stories about taking something ordinary and making it into something extraordinary.

Things I Used In This Restore An Old Rocking Chair Project:

ISOTunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Super Jaws
Outfeed Table
Japanese Pull Saw
Dust Right Separator
Small Port Hose Kit
T-Track Hold Downs
Sanding Grips

Belt Sander
Drills
Mini Lathe
Turning Tools 1
Turning Tools 2
Lathe Dust Collector
Small Clamps
Bench Cookies

Pre Stain Wood Conditioner
Stain
Wipe On Poly
Hide Glue
Two Part Epoxy

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Wondering if you can install hardwood flooring? Check out this DIY project where I installed my own hardwood!

Out with the old carpet and in with the new hardwood. This job was a total ass kicker but man was it worth it.  The old carpet wasn’t in terrible shape but I just never really liked it. Plus, I’ve always wanted to install a hardwood floor so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Suffice to say I learned a lot. The main thing to understand if you’re considering a job like this is that it’s a long process and it does no good to rush. I took my time on this job and worked steady for about 4 days by myself.  That’s one day to prep the floor and 3 days for installation. If you haven’t already, check out the video below to see how it all came together. Cheers!

Things I Used In This Install Hardwood Flooring Project:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection
16 Gauge Brad Nailer
Triton Project Saw
2″ Cleats

Rubber Tapping Block
Knee Pads
Pull Saw

The links above are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I will get a small commission from the sale of the products.  In a small way it helps to keep this website alive and kicking and I appreciate your support in this way.

Thinking about building your own DIY wood wall? Check out this DIY project where I installed a wood wall, and added some floating shelves!

The TV wall in my living room has been bugging me since we moved into the house. It was just so plain and uninteresting, and the TV was off center which was also kinda bothering my sense of balance lol.  This week I turned my crosshairs onto the TV wall and totally transformed it’s appearance.  In the video down below, I show you how I created a nice faux wood layer over the dry wall using some basic materials and then whittled up four floating shelves I created from a pine 2×8. This project was super easy and only took about 3-4 hours from start to finish. The job was made a bit easier with the help of a cordless brad nailer that I offer an in depth review on found here. Check it out!

Things I Used In This DIY Wood Wall Project:

Bluetooth Hearing Protection
Drills
Stud Finder
Faux Wood Panels

Construction Adhesive
Brad Nailer
Project Saw
Miter Saw Stand

Miter Saw
Knot Sealer
Floating Shelf Hardware
Super Jaws

These links are affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase using one of these links then I will receive a small commission from the product sale. In a small way this really helps this website to stay alive and kicking and I sincerely appreciate the support. Take care and have a great day – April. 

Thinking about building your own scrap wood art? Check out this DIY project where I used scrap wood my build this really cool abstract mountain!

This week is totally off the beaten path – I’m diving into an “art project” : )  Make no mistake, I am not an artist, lol. But I did have a really fun time making this abstract mountain scene.  After combing through the internet for inspiration, I combined a handful of different ideas to make this mountain scene. All and all the project cost about $50 in material. Feel free to check out the video below to see how it all came together.

Things I Used In This Scrap Wood Art Project:

Mountain Art Template
Sketchup Design Program
Rolling Lumber Rack

Circular Saw
Miter Saw Stand
Miter Saw

Band Saw
Outfeed Table
Triton Drill

*Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!

Make your own growth chart ruler using this simple guide video and template. This is a great DIY gift you can complete on your own.

This was a really fun project for my new baby nephew Noah. And a great gift for any children in your life.

The build is fun, very straight forward and requires very few tools.  Check out the video down below if you’d like to see how it all came together!

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Also, I now sell templates for the DIY growth chart! You can find those here.

Thinking about building your own DIY leaning wall shelf? I think this design is simple yet functional and just looks interesting the way that it only uses two legs and the wall for stability.

I started the project by first developing a cad model in sketch up.

From there I was able to generate a cut list which saves a lot of time when going to the hardware store to buy material.

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Things I Used For This Project:

Blue Tooth Hearing Protection
Miter Saw
Miter Saw Stand
Sketchup Design Software
Bandsaw
Belt Sander

Router
Router Table
Push Blocks
Drills
Right Angle Jigs

3″ Clamps
Glue Bot
Silicone Glue Brush
Rockler Stool
Joint Compound

If you’re interested, the drawing plans with a cut list and shopping list can be found DIY leaning wall shelves plan here. This is one of those lite projects that can be completed with very little tools – feel free to jump in : )

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I built all of the shelves first. I started by cutting all of the bottom and back slats then moved to cutting the sides of the shelves. I made these cuts using a miter saw but you can use a jig saw or a circular saw if you do not own a miter saw.

I rounded over the front corner of the shelf just to soften up the appearance a bit. To make the radius for the corner, I simply traced a section of a masking tape roll at the corner of the side pieces, then trimmed it off using a band saw. A jig saw would work perfectly if you do not own a band saw.

Lastly, I touched up all the edges using a router and a sander. Again, sand paper and a sanding block would work just fine if that’s all you have access to.

Time to joint the pieces together. I’m basically making an open top box. I started by using a 90° jig and clamped the back and side pieces together. After pre-drilling the holes, I used wood screws to attach the material together. Also, I recommend using wood glue at every joint to not only stiffen the joint but to also prevent the assembly from squeaking.

Once the two sides were joined to the back, I turned the shelf over and began attaching the bottom slats. I used the same method here, pre-drilling each screw hole then using wood screws to attach the slats to the bottom of the side pieces.

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I decided to cut a small spacer so that the spacing between each slat would come out equal on every shelf. Admittedly, these things went pretty fast.

Cutting the legs is pretty straight-forward as well. I used the same roll of tape to round off the front corner and then used a speed square to make an angled cut on the bottom and the top of the leg.

The two angled cuts allow the entire unit to rest against the wall and the floor nice and flat-like rather than on a the sharp corner of an uncut 2×4. I’ll admit that a bit of care needs to be taken when cutting the angles since you need them to rest flat on the wall and the floor respectively, while at the same time, keeping the shelves level. Of course all the numbers and details are covered in the PLANS. Feel free to check ‘em out!

To finish up the legs, I filled in small imperfections with joint compound, and then sanded it down after the compound dried. Finally, everything got a coat of paint.

I was sure to NOT paint the surfaces of the shelves and the legs that would be mating up to one another. This is because the paint will keep the glue from working correctly when legs are joined to the shelves.

To attach the shelves to the legs I started with the bottom most shelf. I placed a couple of 2×4’s under each side to act as spacers so that it was nice and level off the concrete floor. Then, I simply scooted the legs in position on the sides of the bottom shelf, made sure everything was nice and square to one another, then glued and screwed the legs to the first shelf.

The remaining shelves pretty much went the same way. The one thing to keep in mind is that the back of the shelf is spaced about ½” off of the wall and you will need to be sure each shelf is completely level before driving in the screws. The last bit only calls for some finishing painting and that’s pretty well it!

If you’re interested, I have finished up a set of plans found DIY ladder shelf plans here that walks through all of the nitty gritty details and dimensions. Feel free to check the out : ) This has been a really fun, simple, and inexpensive little project and will definitely serve a good purpose in the new bathroom space.

Limited Tools Ladder Shelf Plans

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Thanks for stopping by – April

Learn how we built this wooden small stool! DIY plans are included with this project so you can easily repeat this build on your own!

Hey everyone! Hope you’re having a wonderful Easter holiday. This week’s post is a bit different since I have been on travel in Europe for the past few weeks. I had the pleasure of working as a guest with J. Smith Woodwork in Dorset, England. While visiting Jamie and Rhiannon, we built a small wooden stool using the Triton Workcenter and a couple other small Triton power tools.

Things We Used For This Small Stool Build:

Workcentre
Table Saw Attachment
SuperJaws
Bluetooth Hearing Protection

Palm Belt Sander
Duo Dowelling Jig
Glue Bot
Drills

The stool turned out great and you can find plans to it on their website by clicking here. Also, feel free to check out the build video down below that shows how made this awesome little stool.

Thanks for stopping by. Cheers!

Learn how to make a single bit axe handle! All the steps are covered in this tutorial from material selection to final finishing!

If you are thinking about building your own axe handle you will find there are two main choices of material, Ash and Hickory. Unfortunately for me, neither of these materials were available in 3 x 3 stock like I needed. Consequently, I went with a 3 x 3 piece of oak.   I actually purchased two of these stock pieces and kept one for a backup in case something went wrong with the first one.

Below is a video giving you an overview of the build process.

Things I Used For This Axe Handle Project:

Bandsaw
Spindle Sander
SuperJaws

Belt Sander
Boiled Linseed Oil

I started with an old handle to use as a template. I laid the old handle on top of the 3 x 3 stock and positioned it so that the grain that would be mostly vertical throughout the entire length of the handle.

Once I was happy with the orientation I simply traced the handle on all four sides of the square stock I was working with.

And then took the piece of square stock over to the band saw and began cutting out the shape of the ax handle. I started by first cutting the side profile and then rotated peace 90° and begin cutting the top and bottom profile. At this point I am just roughing in the shape of the axe handle and not trying to make very precise cuts. Just getting the bulk of the material out of the way.

The angled portion at the bottom of the axe handle is known as a “fawns foot”. Do not cut the funds foot at the bandsaw. The bottom of the axe handle needs to remain square so that you can hammer on it with a mallet when hanging the axe head.

The bandsaw removes a lot of material very quickly. If you are repeating this project, be very careful not to accidentally cut away too much material. The fine detail work can be completed with less aggressive tools.

There are a variety of tools which can handle the detail work of the axe handle. Unfortunately I had to make a second handle because I made a mistake on the first handle. For the second handle, I chose a belt sander to sand down the roughed out shape to the near finished shape. Alternatively, a draw knife or a spoke shave can also be used. After sanding down the rough shape, I moved over to hand sanding the handle down to 220 grit.

The top of the axe that the head hangs on is known as the “eye of the handle”. I used power tools to shape the eye of the first handle and it was difficult to precisely control the material removal. On the second handle, I opted for hand tools which were much more controllable. The tools I reached for on the second handle were a “rasp” and a “4 in hand”.

With a little patience, I was able to shape the eye of the handle perfectly. I then focused on hanging the head.

Much like shaping the eye, hanging the head requires a lot of patience. You will have to hang the head on the eye until it is seated, then tap it back off of the eye, examine the rub marks on the eye of the handle, then remove a little more material until you get nice even rub patterns from the axe head.

Once I was satisfied with the pattern of the rub marks, I took the handle over to the bandsaw and cut a slot into the eye for the wedge. The depths of the wedge cut should be three quarters of the links of the axe head itself; in my case, this was about 3 inches.

Now on to making the wedge. The wedge needs to be made from a soft material. I chose to make my wedge out of Poplar and just cut some material on the band saw in a wedge shape.

Before driving in the wedge, I covered it and wood glue to ensure that it will bond well to the eye of the handle. I then hung the head one last time. Slowly but surely, I drove the wedge into the eye until it would not drive any further. The axe head is now fully seated and mounted to the axe handle.

The excess wedge material can be cut flush to the top of the axe head with a coping saw.

The final step to shaping the axe handle, is cutting the angle bottom on the fawns foot. It’s easy to see now that cutting this shape early on would not provide a good square surface to hammer against when hanging the head.

After I little more finish sanding on the fawns foot, I applied boiled linseed oil to the handle as a finish.

Now, lets go chop some wood!

Build your own free standing pantry with the help of this tutorial and the downloadable plans that walk you through the entire build.

My house was built back in 1978 and for some reason, the original design did not feature a food pantry.  This week I’ve decided to do something about it.  I’ve already torn out a couple of cabinets where we’ve been storing can goods and have committed myself to building a free standing pantry…let’s get started.

Free-Standing Pantry with Pull Out Drawers Plans

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If you haven’t already, feel free to take a look at the video I posted showing how I constructed this little gem of a pantry.

I started this build by constructing the main box shape complete with the two sides, the top, and the bottom. After the main box was built, I inserted the center divider.

Things I Used For This Free Standing Pantry Project:

Triton Multi Stand
Track Saw
Small Impact Drill Set
Right Angle Corner Jigs
Quick Clamps

Joint Compound
Push Blocks
Dado Stack
Drawer Slides
Brad Nailer

Forstner Bit
Spindle Sander
Trition Workcenter
Router Attachment for Workcenter

Initially I was building this pantry on top of my table saw and out feed table but started running out of room and transitioned down to the floor. I could already tell it was going to be a very heavy unit once it was fully assembled.

Free-Standing Pantry with Pull Out Drawers Plans

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Before moving forward with the drawer sliders I gave the entire unit a couple coats of paint. It is best to paint before the drawer slides go in, otherwise I would have to cut in the paint around all of the slides.

After letting the paint dry for a while, I laid the unit on its side and installed one half of the drawer slides. Once they were done, I turned the unit onto its opposite side, and then attached the remaining sliders.

Now I could focus on building the drawers. I relied on the solid model I designed for this project for dimensioning the drawers. In total I made 8 drawers, 2 can goods organizer/rotators, and 2 wine bottle organizers.

Free-Standing Pantry with Pull Out Drawers Plans

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Word to the wise: I find it best to paint these drawers after you complete them and before they get installed. The same goes for the wine bottle storage and the can goods rotator. Naturally it would be much more of a hassle to paint after installation.

The drawers went very quickly since I have done so many of them in the past and they fit together perfectly.

The can goods rotator was a bit more challenging. I’ve never built anything like these before so naturally they took a bit longer. However, this is just another area where it really pays off to have a detailed model or a drawing ahead of time. I designed the entire pantry on the computer before I ever began cutting material.

The last piece to make for this pantry was the wine bottle storage. I came up with this design years ago when I first got into woodworking. It’s incredibly easy and works perfectly. Consequently, I had no problem making another one for this pantry.

Last but certainly not least, after some finishing touches, is moving this mammoth into position and loading it with groceries. My husband and his brother moved this big thing into position and I finally got to load it down with all sorts of dry goods and wine bottles.  I have to say that I am just tickled at how well this came out.

Free-Standing Pantry with Pull Out Drawers Plans

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Thank you so much for stopping by and supporting what I do. I really appreciate it.

Cheers,

April

Pepper and salt shakers make a great unique, handmade gift. Here is how to make them using scrap wood and a lathe!

If you’re not already aware, there is a salt trick used in wood working which helps with glue-ups. If you sprinkle a little salt on the board when you’re doing a glue-up, it gives the boards a little bit of traction to prevent them from slipping around while you’re clamping them together. However my problem is I tend to remove the saltshaker from the kitchen but always forget to return it. So, I decided to make a dedicated saltshaker on my new wood lathe my woodshop.

Things I Used In This Salt Shaker Project: 

Excelsior Lathe
Carbide Mini Turning Tool Set
Shop Stool
4″ Tool Rest 

Pen Turning Carbide Tool Set
Deft Spray Lacquer
Super Jaws
Japanese Pull Saw

Wooden Handscrew Clamps
Triton Belt Sander
Triton Drill
Forstner Bit Set
Center Finder

I think this machine is great for getting started. It’s a plug-and-play machine and I was able to take it out of the box, plug it in, change out a few of the components to do spindle turning and I was ready to go.

To start with I am using Rockler carbide tools; both the large set and the smaller pen turning set. I started off only using the larger set to get the shape roughed-in. Once it was time to do the smaller detail work on the saltshaker I switched over to using the pen turning set.

Now since I’m just playing around getting used to my machine, I raided my scrap bin and pulled out anything that I could turn into a round shape. I have a lot of cut down 2×4’s and even some old table leg scraps I cut down. I learned very quickly that the long grain pine scraps were a bit more messy and difficult to turn than the shorter grain oak table leg scraps. The oak blanks measure roughly 1-3/4” square and I thought they were the perfect size to make saltshaker’s.

Once I had the basic shape of the saltshaker turned on the lathe, I hit it with a bit of sand paper. I was impressed at how easy it is to sand the wood as it turned on the lathe. It takes very little time to move through the grits of sandpaper to get the surface finish you need when sanding on the lathe. I started by using 100 grit, then switched to 120, then finished up using 220. I would advise using extreme caution when putting your hands on turning material however. If you decide to recreate this project on your own, just be very careful. : )

With the surface nice and smooth from sanding I decided I wanted to add a bit more character to the saltshaker with some accent lines. For the accent lines, I used a little tool called a “Garrotte” wire. You may have seen these little doo-dads used on classic mob movies as a strangulation device – and I can see why : ) However, for this project I’m using it to burn in the accent lines. I moved the tool rest out of the way and as the part turns, I simply pull the Garrotte wire in to the workpiece so that it burns a line in the material.

After strangling the saltshaker with the Garrotte wire, I removed the whole spindle (or workpiece) from the lathe and took it over to my super jaws where I clamped it down and used a pull saw to cut the bottom off.

The next item is to drill out the well which holds the salt. For this, I would clamp the shaker in a wooden C-clamp then use my drill-press and a ¾” forstner bit to drill a blind hole. I made this hole go about 3/4 of the way into the saltshaker.

Now I needed to make the small pour holes for the shaker. I removed it from the clamp and then used a cordless drill and a 3/32” bit to create five holes in the top of the shaker. These holes are through holes, meaning they go all the way through the material – from the top surface of the shaker all the way in to the well which I created with the forstner bit. In order to do this I had to clamp onto the end of the bit with my drill since my 3/32” bit is kind of short. I needed enough drill bit length to get through the material.

And now the shaker’s done other than some finish work. I clamped my belt sander down to my workbench and used it to clean the top and bottom up. Then I gave it three coats of spray lacquer.

Lastly, I pilfered through my husband’s collection of plastic caps and plugs and found the perfect cap to fit the hole I created. Then I filled this little baby up, plugged the bottom of it, and spent the rest of the day admiring it on the shelf : )

Admittedly, I got carried away and made a few of these, but that’s okay because it’s good practice. A salt and pepper shaker set would make a good gift for just about anybody however remember that a nicely turned saltshaker would also make a good gift for a workshop buddy. It’s small and simple but really functional in a woodshop.

Happy Turning – April : )

Thinking about building a DIY wooden utensil holder? Check out this DIY project where I show you how to build your own utensil holder!

This week I am building a utensil holder for my kitchen. I built a utensil holder around a year ago but it felt like it came out a bit too small after a using it for a while (you can find that video here). So today I’m going to remake it and put together a new tutorial for it on the updated design. I have a free set of plans for this build if you are interested in building your own.

Things I Used In This DIY Wooden Utensil Holder Project:

Thickness Planer
Setup Blocks
Push Blocks

Dado Stack
Rockler Blue Clamps
Glue Bottle
Glue Brush

SuperJaws
Triton Palm Sander
Bench Cookies
Teak Oil

I am building mine from cedar because I already have one and a half boards left over from a previous project. However any 1×12 board will work.

I took my 1×12 to the miter saw and cut the different boards to length. Once they were cut to length, I decided to reduce the thickness some in my planer.  After creating a small mountain of chips, the material was reduced down to 1/2″

Next I exchanged my table saw blade for my dado stack and cut in all the rabbits and dados. If you do not have a dado stack then you can make multiple passes with a single table saw blade.

Then I used some wood glue to start joining things together, attached the three vertical pieces to the top and bottom boards, then set all my clamps in place and allowed everything to dry.

I cut the shelves to size and glued them in place; again using clamps.

Now I cut the small vertical dividers for the shelves and attach them in place.

Before applying a finish I test ft the unit on my counter top.  I wasn’t too crazy about the over all square shape and decided I wanted to create an angled face on the front.  Unfortunately, out of all the power saws I own, I was not able to use a single one of them simply because the unit was too large.  So, to the big box store I went and pulled the trigger on a standard hand saw. I did my best to create a type of “guide” which would keep my board on the line I wanted.  I did this by just clamping some scraps to the box and taking my time with the cut as the guide helped me along.

The cut came out pretty good but I still needed to do some clean up with the sander to put the finishing touches on the front.

For finish I am using teak oil since I made mine from Cedar. However cutting board oil would also be a good choice of a finish.

And it’s as simple as that. If you plan to make one it would be a good build to make two of them at the same time. If you make your out of a 1”x12”x8’ like I did, you will wind up with a decent amount of scrap. However, if you buy 3 of boards of this size, you can easily build 2 utensil holder and give away one as a DIY gift! Be sure to download the plans for a free cultist.

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this email are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!

This past week I was trying to make my mom a Mother’s Day present and needed to figure out how to patina copper. It was a pretty simple process once I went through a few trial and errors so I figured I would write up a short tutorial going over my experience. First big take away I learned was that the big box stores do not have real copper. I saw copper sheets for sale in the sheet metal section and picked up five only to later discover that they are actually aluminum sheets just colored copper. So call around and see who in your area sells real copper.

Things I Used In This How To Patina Copper Project:

Ammonia

Construction Adhesive

Salt

Plastic Container

Spar Urethane

Drill

Chem Gloves

Sandpaper

I started out by gathering all the materials I would need to make a fume chamber.  This is going to be an enclosed chamber where the copper will patina during the process.  I drilled holes in the sides of the clear tub I used for the chamber.  With all the holes drilled in each side, I inserted 3/8″ dowel rods into the holes, spanning from one side of the tub to the other. The dowel rods will serve a type of “bridge” to keep the copper sheets out of the fluid I add in later on.

With the tub finished up, I moved on to preparing the copper sheets.  I start by sanding the copper sheets with 220 grit sand paper.

After the sanding was finished up I moved on to giving all  of the sheets a good washing with soap and water to get all of the grit, grime, and oils off.  This part is important since all of these things will interfere with the patina process. Once they were washed and rinsed, I did my best to not touch the surface of the sheet and handle them by touching the outer edges only.  I then sprinkled sea salt evenly over the entire area of the sheets.

Ammonia is the main ingredient in this process.  I poured some ammonia into a generic spray bottle to make the application a little easier than the big bottle it comes in.   I was sure to do this in a well ventilated area and wore chem gloves to protect my hands.

I poured in some ammonia to the bottom of the tub but not high enough to contact the wooden dowels.  Then I placed the copper sheets on the dowel rods and let them sit over night with the lid on the tub.  After about 8-10 hours of sitting in the tub, I pulled them out the following morning. They were beautiful! A brilliant aqua blue with a very pretty copper background. Well…..except for one.  One sheet did not patina quite as well as some of the others so I applied a bit more salt, sprayed on a coat of ammonia from the spray bottle, then let it sit in the chamber for another day…which did the trick.

The last step before using these patina copper sheets, was to lock in the patina. I used some spar urethane clear coat to try and freeze in the color exactly where it was.  Unfortunately this did effect the color some.  It changed the color from the brilliant blue to a more of a green color but is still very appealing nonetheless.

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this email are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!

Free DIY Plans! Here is a step by step tutorial on a DIY Birdhouse! This is a great project to get kids involved in a homemade gift as well.

I bet my mom loves me being on YouTube because it means she gets her present early. I went ahead and did my mother’s day present a week early in case any of you out there needed an idea for a quick and easy DIY present for your own mom. My brother and I built a birdhouse hotel for our mom when we were just little kids (with the help of a family friend of course) and even though it’s hung in there for all these years it was just about falling apart so she asked if I would remake it for her this mother’s day. I was going to try and salvage the roofs at least from the original build but even those were in pretty rough shape, so I am going to show you how to build a bird house from scrap wood AND how to patina copper so it looks aged. If you would like to build one as well then I do have a FREE set of plans for you to download here.

Bird House Hotel Plan

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Also, if you want to see an overview of the build process here is a video I put together:

Things I Used In This DIY Birdhouse Project:

• Forstner Bit
• Screws
• Drill
• Countersink
• Bandsaw (or Jigsaw)
• Glue Bottle
• Construction Adhesive
• SuperJaws
• Spindle Sander (or sanding block)

I looked around my scrap bin and I had a lot of 1×6 scrap cut offs left over from previous projects. They were a mix of different woods but since I planned on painting my project I didn’t mind. This is a great scrap wood project so I would recommend checking to see what you have before buying material.

I started by cutting all my boards to length first at the miter saw. Since a lot of these cuts are repetitive I utilized a stop block.

I again used a stop block to cut all the 45 degrees on the front and back pieces.

To make the 45 degree cuts on the sides I used my miter gauge at the table saw.

After all the boards were cut I took the fronts and used a 2″ forstner bit to make a hole. Of course if you want a larger hole you can either use a bigger bit (maybe a hole saw bit) or you can use a jigsaw and cut out a circle by hand.

Since this is going outside I wanted every inch of this to be painted, to give it a little protection, so I painted all the boards before I assembled them together. I put on a total of three coats of paint on both sides. Tip: When I go to the big box store I always look in the Oops paint section and look for white or off white colors to buy cheap (since I paint so many things white). So for this project I already had a quart of white paint that I only spent $2 on months ago.

While I was painting I went ahead and cut my post down to size. I’m using a 4×4 cedar post and I cut mine to 6′ tall. Cedar is a great wood to use outdoors because it’s naturally rot resistant. I gave it a light sanding then also gave it three coats of paint.

When all the boards were dry I started attaching things together. I used a countersink bit to predrill my holes but to also make the screw heads slightly recessed (so that I could later fill in the holes and hide them).

Bird House Hotel Plan

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Building The Base:

Next I cut out a base for the birdhouses to rest on. To give it a little more support I also made a few decorative right angle supports. I first cut out the supports using a bandsaw (you could use a jigsaw instead) then used a spindle sander to refine the shape (you could also use a sanding block).

I joined the supports to the back plate piece with glue and two screws. Again, using a countersink first to make sure the screw heads were recessed. These supports are not centered! They are slightly off centered so that when all four are joined together, they are centered. : ) If that makes sense….

This acts as a sleeve so that you can slip your birdhouse on a 4×4 post. Note: I left an 1/8″ space on two sides so this sleeve is not a snug fit.

Next I added it to the base using the construction adhesive and also a few screws.

With everything assembled I went through and filled in all the screw holes with the construction adhesive then let it dry for an hour before giving everything a final coat of paint.

I attached the roofs to the birdhouses using the adhesive and a few screws on each side. If you are interested in seeing how I patina the copper I wrote up a tutorial you can check out here!

I used the construction adhesive once again to attach all the bird houses to the base. I started with adding the center, tallest birdhouse. Then came back and added the smaller ones.

The last thing I did was add a line of caulk to the base of the houses so no water gets in. If you would like to build this exact birdhouse then I have a set of plans available to download for free!

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If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this email are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!

Here is a step by step on how to make large wooden tree wall art for any room. This would be great for a living room or a nursery!

Since I was young I’ve always had a liking for trees.  I find them relaxing and soothing so when we bought our house I jumped on the first opportunity to build a tree on a large wall in our living room.  And as you might imagine, I love it.  However, I took this project on as my very first which was before I was filming my projects. So this week I got a chance to build another one in my friends living room and this time I filmed the process and put together a step by step.  This is a super cool project that could be changed very easily to suit different spaces such as nurseries, game rooms, or bed rooms. You primarily need patience, a projector, and a jigsaw. Total, this project  is 10 feet tall and took me three days to complete, using two sheets of plywood.

Photo taken by Nicki Morgan: Morgans2day

I purchased two sheet of 1/2″ birch plywood which can be found at Home Depot. Even for my original tree which was 14′ tall, it only took two sheets of plywood….but I would recommend measuring your space before heading to the store to see how much wood you need. Keep in mind that you’ll need to keep the grain orientation running the same way throughout the piece to make it look it’s best.

Things I Used For This Wooden Tree Project:

• Jigsaw
• Jigsaw Blade
• Saw Horses
• SuperJaws
• Horse Hair Brush
• Loctite Adhesive
• Brad Nailer
• Air Compressor
• Stain
• Clear Coat

Check out the video showing an overview of the build process!

The first thing I did was set up a projector and project a tree image on the wall. I found this tree back in 2011 and just held on to it all these years, so I’m not sure who drew it but as soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it.

Once the tree was projected in just the right placement and to the exact size I cut down two sheets of plywood to tack up on the wall (just temporarily). I used a few screws to do this and I didn’t worry about finding a stud, because it’s only in place for a short period of time. Note: Be sure to pick a grain orientation (either vertical or horizontal) and stick with it to get the best looking results.

Once the wood was in place, I started tracing. This process took about two hours I would estimate. After everything was traced, I turned the projector off, took down the wood, and started cutting.

I ended up cutting the canopy into two pieces because I was going to have to haul this to a friends house to install. I used a jigsaw to make all of my cuts and I made sure to put my blade setting (on the jigsaw) to the ‘zero’ setting to prevent a lot of tear out.

Total it took me around 4 1/2 – 5 hours to cut both pieces out.

For the small pieces like the birds I used my SuperJaws to hold the pieces in place while I cut out the details. You could also use a vise or clamps.

With everything cut out I gave everything a good sanding then starting applying a finish. I used a stain color called Carrington and applied it with a foam brush.

After a coat of stain I applied three coats of water based poly.

To install it on the wall I would first use some all purpose adhesive on the back then set the piece in place and use a few brad nails to tack it down. I started with the bottom then worked my way up.

And that’s it! If you want to do a similar project I really encourage you to get creative, I think this method would work great with tons of other ideas like animals, under water themed, boats/airplanes….just about anything really! It really fun to go big but the bigger you go, the more patience it takes so take your time and enjoy the process!

Big thank you to Nicki Morgan for the beautiful photo! Check out Nicki here: Morgans2day

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!

Thinking about building your own custom DIY pool table light? Check out this fun DIY project where I built a custom light for above a pool table!

Right above my shop is a room where we have a pool table. I haven’t done much with this space other than fill it up with a few things we found on Craigslist when we first purchased the house, one of those items being a pool table lamp. I’ve always hated this lamp and now that I’m into building things I figured I would try my hand at making my own custom pool table lamp! Now I typically have a rustic style with my projects but for this space I want things to be a little more…sophisticated I guess. It’s mostly my husband’s man cave so I certainly don’t want to take away from that. I played around in SketchUp a little bit trying to work out a design, but I quickly realized that this was going to be one of those projects where I just had to jump in and start playing around.

Here is a photo of the finished lamp so you can follow along with the tutorial below and know where it’s all going. Keep in mind if you are wanting to replicate this project that you can use the same methods or concepts that I used but customize the lamp further to your personal likes and dislikes.

Things I Used For This Pool Table Light Project:

• Miter Saw
• Table Saw
• Glue Bottle
• Bar Clamps
• Quick Clamps
• Dado Stack
• Push Blocks
• Plug Cutting Bits
• Biscuit Jointer
• Jig Saw
• Shellac
• Wood Glue

A few years ago a buddy gave me a bundle of walnut and I’ve been hanging on to it, well I finally broke into the bundle to use a little on this project. For a contrasting wood I went with oak and these boards I purchased from the big box store.

The first thing I did was use my miter saw to cut the boards down to rough size. I left these about 1/2″ longer then what I knew I wanted them to be so that I would have room to cut everything down to square later.

Next I ran the boards through my table saw to cut the pieces to the exact width. I’m going for a long octagon shape so I’lll have six short panels and two long ones. However, all of the panels consist of the same pattern and are made the same with one larger piece on top then four thinner strips under it.

After cutting all the strips I glued then clamped the panels together, letting them dry over night. Note: I used a damp cloth to remove the majority of the glue squeeze out.

Once the panels were dry I ran each board through my thickness planer. I wanted all the boards to be flush with each other but I also wanted to remove some of the weight since this is a light fixture.

Next I cut all my panels to be square. Since I haven’t yet built a miter saw sled I used my miter gauge with a stop block clamped on to it. I ran each panel through once then adjusted the stop block and ran them through again to cut the other side square.

Ok next was an experiment but I’m really happy with the results! I wanted the walnut inlays to be recessed back from the oak and I thought it would be easier to glue everything together at the same thickness and cut away the walnut material (instead of first cutting thin strips and trying to glue them to the thicker oak strips). To do this I exchanged my regular blade for my dado stack and ran each board through so that the walnut was cut back to around 1/4″. Take your time on getting not only the dado stack thickness correct but also the placement of it.

After cutting all the horizontal walnut inlays down, I decided to add three vertical strips to two panels on each end of the lamp (so four panels total), I also decided to make them all different widths. I started with the first one and ran all four panels through. Then I reduced the size of my dado stack and ran them though again. I repeated to make a third and final pass.

To fill in these cuts I just made I grabbed some walnut scraps and cut them to size of the three different cuts. Take your time on making these so that they fit nice and snug in their slots. Once I had them down to the right width I used the thickness planer to knock off some height and make them flush with the panels. Note: I taped the two smaller sizes together so that they could safety go through the planer.

Also, while I was cutting in dados I cut a rabbet on the backside of each panel where a top will later go.

Next I glued and clamped these in place to dry. Again, using a damp cloth to get the majority of the glue squeeze out from the surface. Since these strips create closed off portions I used a damp Q-tip to get in these spaces and get the glue.

After letting it sit over night I knocked these accent pieces down flush by clamping my belt sander to my workbench and working the piece until both sides were smooth.

At this point I decided to add more accents to these pieces by using some plug bits. I would first drill three holes with a forstner bit then cut some plugs the same size from the walnut.

I glued, hammered, and let these sit until dry.

Next I used a pull saw to cut them down flush with the panel.

I was actually planning on adding some accents to the longer panels as well but when I got here I thought it would look better to leave it as is. But! if you are making one then maybe play around with different ideas that you’ll like.

With all the panels made I moved on to cutting the edges to join them together. Again, since I don’t have a sled for my table saw I ended up using my miter gauge with a stop block clamped in place. I positioned the smaller panels so that only the edges were being cut. For the long panels I screwed a temporary fence to my miter gauge. If you do the same make sure the board is straight and sturdy so the panel will stay square as you push it through the blade.

I used a biscuit jointer to reinforce these mitered cuts. I was only able to place one biscuit on the panels since the bottom has those recessed walnut strips, but this is plenty to make these joints strong and durable. After cutting all the biscuit slots I glued and clamped the lamp together to sit overnight. Note: I used two ratchet straps to compress all the joints at the same time. I also placed wax paper behind the straps because I was afraid they would bond with the glue. Before calling it done for the day I used a damp cloth to go through and clean up as much glue squeeze out as possible. This will cut down on a lot of work in the next step.

I let it dry over night then took the clamps and wax paper off. Next I took my time sanding each side, paying special attention to remove all dried glue.

With the body done I grabbed some 1/4″ plywood and laid it down on my shop floor. I flipped the body over and used a pencil to trace inside the rabbet I cut earlier then used a jigsaw to cut it out. This will give me my cap piece for the lamp.

For a finish I applied three coats of Shellac. I would apply a thin coat then let it dry for about 30 mins then come back and sand with 220 grit paper before applying the next coat.

Once things were dry I attached some mounting hardware to the inside end panels. I purchased these from the big box store as well as some help rope to hang the lamp by. I threaded the hardware loop onto the rope before attaching it to the lamp body then used baling wire to keep the end of the rope from unraveling.

I reused the lamp from the previous light and just secured it to the cap using some long screws, flat washers, and nuts. I cut two holes in the cap just big enough for the ropes to fit through then used some more hooks from the previous steps to hang it from the ceiling.

Since I only had to purchase the oak, rope, and hooks for this project it actually turned out to be pretty cheap! I spent around $80 total. However, if you also had to buy the walnut and lamp fixture inside then it would be more then that.

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this email are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!

Thinking about building your own DIY sitting stool? Check out this awesome DIY project where I built a small sitting stool for a porch entryway!

Ah I just went on a big trip! I was invited to go to Cologne Germany to attend the International Hardware Fair with the Triton Tools booth. I am sponsored by Triton Tools and was delighted/excited/nervous about the opportunity. The booth had a demo room that was like an aquarium. : ) Two other woodworkers and I would take turns rotating in the demo room and build something using the tools so people walking around could see them in action. My parents have been wanting a simple stool they saw online to place on their front porch so they could have a spot to sit down and take off their shoes, before entering the house, so I decided to make that my project for my turn inside the aquarium. Below is a tutorial outlining how to build the stool if you would like to build your own. I also have a free set of sitting stool plans available for this project!

Small Sitting Stool/Step Stool

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For this project I am going to be using all 1″ x 12″ boards. I worked it out so that three 8′ boards could build two stools. So if you are wanting to make a few DIY gifts for Mother’s Day presents (coming up!) then buy three boards and build two at the same time. I’m using cedar boards because the stool will be placed outside and cedar is naturally rot resistant.

Since I am practicing building this stool for my trip, I am only using the tools that I will have available at the show. So instead of using a miter saw to break down my boards, I am going to be using the Triton SuperJaws and the track saw. If you don’t have a miter saw or track saw then an alternative would be to use a circular saw.

Note: I am wearing a dust mask made by RZ Mask, it is the M2 model. If you want to purchase one then you can click here: https://goo.gl/khpGiA This project was sponsored by RZ Mask and they were awesome enough to put together a promotion where if you use the code “April” at checkout then you will receive three free filters with your purchase of a mask!

I took the two boards that will eventually be the ends/legs and butted them end to end, then I grabbed something in my shop that had a 5″ diameter, in my case it happen to be a roll of tape. I set it in the middle, and traced around it using a pencil. This creates a simi circle on end end board which I then used a jigsaw to cut out.

For joining things together I am going to be using dados, however if you are not comfortable using dados, you could use glue and a butt joint or even glue and screws.

To make the dados I’m going to be using a router in my Triton Workcentre. The bit is a 1/2″ straight bit so since my material is 5/8″ thick, I will be making two passes to get the dados to 5/8″. All dados are cut a 1/4″ deep.

Small Sitting Stool/Step Stool

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I took the fence that comes with the Workcentre table saw attachment and used it on the router table attachment to cut my dados. I also used the miter gauge to give the material more support as I was pushing my material through. Note: If you don’t have a router table an alternative would be to use a dado stack in a table saw, or to use a regular single blade but make multiple passes.

Since the dados on the legs are identical to each other I would make one pass on one of the legs then grab the other leg and make the same pass on it. Next, I would move the fence over to increase the dado to 5/8″ then run both of the pieces through again. You can do the same for the two shelf pieces since they are identical as well.

For the top, set your fence then make a pass on one end then flip the board around and make the same pass on the other. Move the fence to increase the dado width then repeat.

With all the dados cut now I started assembling the stool. Use glue in all of the dados and I would suggest by starting off with putting the two shelf pieces into the legs first. Then attaching the second side, then attaching the top.

Small Sitting Stool/Step Stool

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I intentionally did not cut the vertical dividers until the very end so that I could get their height exact. So once the stool was assembled I took a measurement from the bottom dado to the top and used the table saw attachment to cut my boards to height. I then glued and slide these into place.

While everything was drying, I attached clamps to keep everything in place. This is pretty tricky and kinda gets crowded. So a few alternatives you can do if you don’t want to mess with clamps is use a brad nailer to tack things in place while the glue dries or you can use screws and use plugs to hid them.

The last thing I did was cut two additional pieces with the table saw attachment to attach to the front and back of the stool to give it more detail. I cut both of the sides of these pieces at an angle with a jigsaw. Next I glued and clamped these into place then let it dry. Again, you could use brad nails to tack it into place if you want to skip using clamps.

Small Sitting Stool/Step Stool

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And that’s it! You can apply whichever finish you prefer then set it in place. I used teak oil because it’s made for dense wood. I applied three coats, waiting a day in between coats.

This is a simple project that can be built in just a few hours. I think it would look cute on a back or front porch or even entryway. However, since it’s so simple to make, I think it would also be a good project to make a few and sell or give away as gifts. : ) Remember I have a set of sitting stool DIY plans if you are interested.

Small Sitting Stool/Step Stool

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Since I used cedar for this project it was a little pricey, it cost me $54 for the two boards. If you wanted to save some money you could buy pine boards instead.

If you liked this project and want to stay up to date with what I’m building, then be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and you’ll get an email when I post something new. See you soon!

*Disclosure: Some links in this email are affiliate links meaning, I may get a commission if you make a purchase. Thanks for your support in this way!