File Drawer Organizer

Continuing on the theme of organizing this holiday season, I built this organizer insert for a file drawer that I plan on using at work. My desk at work doesn't have a shallow drawer for pencils, etc.; only two deep file drawers that I don't use. This insert will fit down in and let me have the small stuff at hand easily.
This box is 11 3/4" x 17 1/2". The trim on the sides makes the total width 12 7/8". Total height is 5 1/4". The pencil tray is 4 1/2" x 10  1/8" x 1 3/4".
I started with 1-by that was left over from the porch trim project a couple years ago. I ripped them down to 5 inches and built a box with pocket screws. I used some left over hardboard for the bottom, which  I glued and nailed on.

I added a thin runner down each side so that a smaller pencil box could sit in the insert and move along the rails. These are just glued in as they will not carry much weight.

Next, I made the pencil box. The picture, above, is it in process. I added another divider a bit later on. Its bottom is quarter inch luan left over from another drawer or box project (can't remember which). I was pleased at how easy it was to get this glue up nice and square. You can never tell how tricky that kind of thing will be especially when you're using thin wood like this.

The top is trimmed with quarter-inch luan, too. The trim on the sides sticks out about 7/8". The side trim sits on the rails that are used for file hangers and support the weight of the box. They are glued and nailed and feel really solid so I'm hopeful that they'll carry the weight of the box and contents well. Even though there's a lot of wood in this project, it's surprisingly light weight. This picture shows a bit of the construction technique I used on the box. After glueing the corners but before driving in the pocket screws, I shot in some trim nails to help keep everything in place. Then I let the glue cure for a few minutes so that things stayed aligned while I drove the screws. I have found that unless you're careful when driving pocket screws (or don't use clamps), the parts you're screwing together can come out of alignment easily. Using nails and letting the glue set helped a lot.
I tested the fit on a file cabinet I have here at home so I'm pretty sure it'll fit at work even though the drawer design is slightly different. Since I took my measurements from the work drawer before the holidays and I checked it against a hanging file, I think it'll work.

Shop Organization: Cut-Off Bin

I spent a few hours over Christmas building this cutoff bin for the shop. It took one and a half sheets of 3/4" plywood. That's kind of pricey but it's built to last and holds a surprising amount of scraps.

In addition to the plywood that I bought, for the spacers I used some of the trim from the porch project of a couple years ago. Most of the joints are held together with pocket screws along with some glue. Here's a before and after shot:

 Some of you will look at this and think it's not much better, but trust me: It is! It's hard to tell from the photo, but I added pair of brackets on the back to hold larger pieces of sheet goods. That's a 4x4 piece of plywood on the back (along with a few other smaller sheets) so it really does organize an awful lot of wood.

Handmade Christmas 2016

I had large plans for gifts this year but my work/life schedule just didn't allow me to be elaborate so I toned things down a bit this year. However, even with that, my gifts came out well, are loved, and I enjoyed making them.

I made a wooden disk table runner for Sarah. I was lucky to have a nicely seasoned beech limb in the shop left over from some previous project. I set up my chop-saw so that I'd be cutting slices of the same thickness and went at it. I tried to arrange them in a pattern which I think came out well. I used Elmer's white glue to glue them to a piece of felt. I wasn't sure about how well the white glue would hold up but now, after much handling, it seems to work OK. I think we'll probably still treat it fairly gently, though. I finished it with a light coat of spray varnish.

Elizabeth is heading off to college next year, so I wanted to give her something to remind her of home. This barn board silhouette of Vermont is just the thing. (If she goes to the University of Vermont, she probably won't want it but it'll work for the other schools she's interested in!)

(prior to sanding)

(I love pocket screws!)

I used this silhouette for both Vermont themed gifts this year. After using it, I realized I could have just cut it out and traced it but I transferred it using pencil instead. It worked fine. After sanding the edges, I gave it several coats of spray varnish (front and back). The front is still a bit splintery, though, so you have to be careful handling it. I nailed a hanger on the back so that it can hang on a wall easily. I used a couple hemlock boards left over from building the barn for this one. Since they had been outside for a few years, they were nicely weathered.

This gift for Helen caused me quite a bit of geek and symmetry angst. The geeky angst came from the fact that I made the one with the heart in the middle of the state first - and it came out quite well. BUT the heart isn't over Hartland so the map geek in me forced me to do another with the heart in the right place.

The second one is the one that caused a lot of symmetry angst. As you can see from the picture above, the heart is in the right place but I could NOT get the string to look decent. I ended up stringing this one 3 times - including the last time on Christmas eve! But it came out well so it was worth it.

I used plain old 1-by for the base and 7/8" cut nails. I finished the wood (front and back) with some spray varnish prior to stringing.

Crankie Box for Sarah

Sarah needed a "crankie box" for a workshop she's running this summer so she asked me to make her one. Basically, it's like a big film-strip machine like I had in school when I was a kid. There's a 18" x 5 yard piece of vellum between two rollers upon which you draw or paint a story. The one in the picture is still blank but it'll get painted soon enough.
I started with the two rollers. You can see from this picture (from behind) how they fit in.

The rollers are in the back and the dowels in the front are fixed and provide a little bit of tension on the vellum to keep it rolling smooth and flat. They are 1/2" dowels. The tops of the rollers have handles on them that let the person projecting turn the vellum across the rollers.
Here's an action shot of the rollers being used. This is before I put the outer face frame on it.

I added a light fixture so that whatever is being shown will be back lit. You can also see the face-frame in place.

Here's a shot of the tops of the rollers and the removable arms I used. I added a handle, too, to make it easier to carry. It's quite large. The handles slip out so that you can remove the roller to wind a new "show" on.

Overall, it's about two feet square and ten inches deep. The display area is 17 3/4" square.
I had a really nice time building this. It's been a while since I was in the shop so it felt great to get down there for a nice day of work.
Here are some other construction details.
I used blue painter's tape to mark the various holes I needed to drill as well as front, back, bottom, top. It really helped me keep things straight and I didn't have to sand off a lot of pencil marks.

This is the bottom of one of the rolls before I trimmed it off. The dowel fits in a hole in the bottom and the wheel helps keep the height where I want it and guides the vellum, too. The roller is a 1" dowel and the little one on the end is 3/8".

Productive Christmas Week

What a productive week it's been since Christmas! I took the week between Christmas and New Year's off. Whenever I've done that in the past, I've wanted to spend the time in my shop but never got the chance. Well, this year I finally did it!

The first thing I built was a ply-box for my workouts. It's 18x24x30 made from 3/4" plywood - a beast and it weighs a ton.

Next was a tool cart I've had my eye on for a while. Of course, I didn't get to use it for tools because I need it to make space in the basement. Sarah uses the TV and DVD player for her workouts and I use the receiver and speakers for mine. A good compromise and it's really easy to move around. I'm going to make at least one more so that I can use it as an out-feed table for my table saw. Now that I know how to do it, it'll come together quickly.

I made this table-top drafting table for Liz. She designed it and it came together pretty easily.

Last, I got a chance to do some cleaning, arranging, and general organizing in the shop. By putting up this magnet strip, I combined a bunch of loose tools that had been taking up bench space. So now I gained back almost 3 feet of space. Psych!

Handmade Christmas - 2015

This year was another good year of handmade gifts for family and friends.
For Helen, I made a small stationary kit. I didn't want to give her a big gift this year as I know she doesn't have a lot of space in her dorm room so this was perfect. I custom made the box for it, which I really enjoyed.

The box on the left is for Helen's kit and the one on the right is one I made for Sarah's gift tags. I really enjoyed these sub-projects and will definitely do it again!

I lined all my boxes with brown paper to give them a more finished look

One of my custom boxes under construction

This cutter was the best way to cut the chipboard for the boxes

For Elizabeth, I made a picture frame and printed out a bunch of photos that I thought she might like to put in it. This was a simple gift but well received.

Liz's picture frame

For Sarah, I made a bunch of reusable gift tags. I wrote a bit more about the project here.

I made a journal box for my sister in law, Hilary. I had fun with this one and it came out well.

The Journal box for Hilary

Plans for the journal box

Here are a couple other things I made to enhance the holidays this year.
A tree topper for the wooden Christmas tree I made for Sarah a couple years ago.

Here's our advent candle holder for 2015. I love working with gas "nipple" (a.k.a. pipe). It's quick and has a cool industrial look that I find attractive. I buy most of it at the Home Depot but this four-way junction had to be special ordered from a plumbing supply site.

Advent candles with greens

I made an arch for work to hold Christmas lights and to just generally be festive. Lots of people liked it at the office!
I really liked this project. I didn't spend a penny on it. The wood was scrap hemlock; the green paint was from one of Helen's theatre projects; and the whole thing was held together with that most awesome fastener in the world: Kregg pocket screws.

Handmade Christmas 2015 - Gift Tags

The first gift I worked on this year is a set of reusable gift tags for Sarah. A few years ago, we switched over to wrapping our Christmas gifts in reusable gift bags. We made a bunch of them and they're really quite pretty. So building on that theme, I decided to create a set of gift tags out of wood that we could use again and again rather than the paper tags we've been using.

I bought a bunch of wooden "N", "E", "S", and "H" letters from craftcuts.com. I bought 10 of each which I think should be enough. I painted them different Christmasy colors

I used 1/8" basswood for the tag part. I cut them on the table saw and my chop saw. I used a jig on the chopsaw to make them al consistent.

I also used a jig on the drill press to drill the hole in the top for the ribbon. I stacked 4 at a time to make it go a bit quicker.

I ended up with a bunch of tags ready to have their letters glued on.

After drilling I sanded each one by hand. I made sure all the edges were smooth, corners rounded, etc. This took a while but was kind of nice to just settle in to while I listened to the radio.

Getting the glueing right was tricky. I started with Testors wood glue right out of the tube but that just made a mess; then I switched to super glue but I couldn't apply enough to be reliable. So I switched back to the Testors and applied it with a brush. I had much better luck that way.

I sprayed them all with urethane to protect them and then boxed them up in a box I custom made to hold them. That was a fun little project, too.