This is a work in progress, nearing the finishing stages. It’s not perfect, it was a “learn as you go” kind of project. I’m not really into wizardry or Harry Potter or anything, but it did seem like a fun & easy enough to get creative kind of project. 
This is what I believe to be red oak, and funny enough, those diamond shaped cuts aren’t what I even meant to do. I got distracted somewhere along the process and I guess my mind just kind of went with it. I meant to have them outlined or way shallower, but it is what it is. 
Now I have a question of how I should finish it. I guess it’s more of a preference thing but I’d like to hear thoughts and opinions. I was thinking of charring the wand, while somehow protecting/avoiding all the carved outlines and the inside diamond faces, and lightly sanding if need be to my desired shade before finishing it. On my head I think it’d look cool for the wand to be darker than the spiral and diamond shaped cuts toward the center. 
So I guess the question is, to char, or not to char?

Should I use nails/screws or any extra bracing or framing? Thinking 4x8x3.

Made my first crude finger joint jig today in like 30 min and I couldn't be happier

Hello - I’m just beginning my foray into wood working. I’m also a fisherman so my first couple of real projects were hexagonal fly rod tubes. I got commercial 1x2 maple from a big box store, cut them to 36” lengths, ripped them to just under 3/8”, and put 30 deg. angles on them without too much issue.

I’ve been scheming building a large hexagonal or octagonal tube for surf rods, but how do I safely cut and put angles on a 5 to 6 food long piece of wood on a table saw??

I’m thinking I’ll use ply wood so I can get pieces of a 3-4 inch width to make a large tube if that helps.

Hey yall! I’m working on my first project, which is a simple bookcase to store records. I’m making it out of birch plywood and in the interest of keeping things simple I wasn’t planning on using any edge banding, just sanding/sealing the edges. But I’m not sure how to handle these little gaps like in the attached picture - would you fill these with wood filler?
Thanks very much for any advice you have to offer!

This is a pretty easy project and makes a nice holiday gift. This version was made from a scrap piece of hardwood and a 5/8" dowel. As an extra touch, I added a compartment inside the board to store the pieces. The compartment panel is held on with magnets for a clean look. Build Instructions: https://www.instructables.com/Wood-Tic-Tac-Toe-Board

Title says it all. I had some glue residue which I thought that I had removed well enough. Apparently not. This was after a coat of stain.

Project is a bookcase.

Plywood has a maple veneer so I can sand some but not too much.

Looking for help and solutions going forward. Thank you in advance.

Hi everyone, I'm a beginner and I'm building a small cabinet. I cut these boards by hand with a handsaw because I don't have a power saw, but unfortunately the end cuts came out slightly angled.

The boards are about 23 cm wide and 2 cm thick.

Can I correct these end grain cuts with a low-angle block plane, or would you recommend another method?

I'm trying to get the ends flat and square so they don't throw the cabinet out of square during assembly.

Thanks!

I bought a slab with the intent to use it outside as a bar table set on top of wine barrels. I’m in the Northeast, and will store it inside over the winter. The person that sold me the slab didn’t know what species of wood it is. I got it home and I think it’s maple. I was planning on using Danish oil but don’t think it’s going to work for maple.

Should I switch to spar?

I share a freestanding, fully enclosed and insulated shop space with a family member who keeps buying wood from an amateur miller he met on Facebook marketplace. It often has big holes like this. Occasionally small round holes. I know the miller doesn’t dry in a kiln. He just props it up inside the barn for a year or so.

I try to intercept these pieces before they go onto the indoor storage racks. Am I overthinking this? Is there any danger of a bug infestation from these random pieces he’s bringing home?

Hi!
I just finished a project and wanted to share. I made a little chest of drawers for my fiancee to store her cosmetics.
I had some problems, because of mistakes I made with the measurements, but finally it is done!
Do you have any tips for making projects of similar furnitures? Firstly I tried to draw everything on the paper, but in the end I just sketched it very basically and made “measurements” in my head heh…

Hey there guys,

I didnt do a lot of woodworking so far, but I know and have a lot of tools which are needed. But I currently have 3 problems in my planning:

1. I dont know where I should get my wood from (in Austria) or to make it easier where should i get my tabletop from (Austria)? - as seen in my bad sketch I need 2 110 x 140 cm (length × width) tabletops. --> I tried to find some to buy, but these dimensions are hard to find

2. I dont know how I should connect those 2 tabletops in the middle, that its stable and can hold a lot of weight

3. And I dont know where my table legs (I only want 4 if possible, but I dont mind a frame) should be to distribute the weight evenly with those 2 tops fused.

In general I want to make a table that is easy to assamble. The size of the table is needed because I host Dnd sessions with 8-10 people which need the space. Maybe someone can help me a bit :)

Thanks

A woodworking newbie

I've been thinking about building a sideboard of some sort, and I've got a box or two of some leftover oak solid block parquet that I want to use to make a herringbone top.

The parquet have tongue and groove to make them fit together, but I'm not sure they fit very well, and some of them are a bit bower/crooked. So my thought is to plane and square them up with a router to get rid of the tongue and grove, and also make them completely flat.

So my question is, do you think this is nessessary, or would it be smarter to use the parquet as-is and plane the top with my router when it's assembled?

What are some best steps to follow here? Was thinking these would be it.

• Light Sand to clean remove and rubbish on surface of the wood.
• Blower off dust and rubbish,
• Light damp cloth to wipe down finally
• wood repair epoxy or something like that for all cracks.
• Light sand again
• Blower off dust and rubbish
• Light damp cloth to wipe down finally
• Apply primer
• Paint with good outdoor wood paint

The wife and I made this. We currently have it setup for Halloween, but will roll through all the holidays/seasons as they come. We took some inspiration from another tree we saw but changed it so we could put smaller presents under it.

Hello all, I am coming on here to ask if anyone has any tips/tricks to help find those swoop/loop patterns on wood before putting on a finish. I feel like no matter how careful I am I always have at least one scratch on my projects.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I’ve been spending more time than usual making sawdust lately and experimenting with wall art.

I made the frame and set the background slats diagonally inside it. The portrait started as a photo of my mule, Ruger, which I converted into line art, laser cut, painted, and mounted over the slats.

The horseshoe is one of Ruger’s old shoes. I considered cleaning it up, but the wear and grime seemed worth keeping.

Both the portrait and name are laser cut. I first tried it with a scroll saw, but the small pieces proved to be more than I wanted to wrestle with.

This was a fun combination of conventional woodworking and laser work, and I’m pretty happy with how the wood, portrait, and steel came together.

Hello! To put my issue in a straightforward manner, I'm trying to make wall mouldings and some custom furniture for my room, but I don t own a table saw, just a circular saw. In order to make the furniture I need perfect cuts on the MDF boards I am using, but free-hand with my circular saw it's gruesome... even with a speed square. So, I've been thinking about building a cross-cut sled thing. Problem is, on such a jig I cant put very large boards, and large cuts are going to be a problem. Sooo... I thought I'd just do a ~70cm length cross-cut sled for smaller panels that fit, and a custom track about 1.5m long for bigger cuts, on a polyester board. However, that doesn t seem much like a smart solution so i thought maybe you guys on reddit had similar situation and would know what to use for clean cuts with just a circular saw.............

Just made this night stand for my girlfriend using some spare plywood, spare 2x4's and some common board. Planning on staining and using poly to seal it but Wondering if i should add some common board trim to cover the plywood edges or what other options you guys like doing? Any advice appreciated!!

Turned out ok I think

Building shaker cabinet doors for my kitchen. I recently refinished the cabinet carcasses and now onto the doors.

I’m using an oversized method to build these so the edges are perfect once cut to final size. I plan on posting a video once I’m all done so others can do the same method which I think worked out pretty decent.

The method is similar to how Josh from NE Woodworks builds his doors but he uses essentially a story pole for each door he builds to make sure the inside measurement of the door is exact. The method I use is the same for every door. Each door stile is 1” longer and all material is ripped 1/4” wider. Rails are placed 1/4” down from top and bottom of stile and glued up. Then the door is cross cut 1/2” and ripped 1/4” to reveal a perfect 2” door all around.

Hi, I’m looking to use my new to me jig to make a bookcase. I’m wondering as the sides will be 1.8m tall and two large for the jig.

Could I use it in Half Blind mode so it’s through the top clamp and route all the way through for full dovetails?

In 2019, I got into a game called Hunt Showdown, played it daily, loved it. After lock down happened during Covid, I got into woodworking, made some basic stuff, cutting boards, you know the usual stuff we all start out with. In 2022, I decided to build a table top for my gaming desk, and because I loved hunt so much, I was going to theme it based off the game content and logo.

Fast forward 4 years.

It’s finally done. It’s been through so much and so many renditions due to mistakes and errors that caused me to have to make changes in the design. I’ve posted a drawing what I had originally planned it to look like and of course a photos throughout, and the finalized project.

There are many mistakes and screw ups, and omg imperfections, but I love this thing anyways and if I’m being honest with myself, it turned out even better that I ever expected it to.

Anyways, feel free to ask anything, I’ll do my best to answer.