Phil and his son, Harry, were looking for an adventure so they decided it would be fun to drive from southern Mississippi to Minnesota to spend an afternoon with me. They pulled a 30ft trailer loa...
Over Thanksgiving weekend, my dad and I spent some time together getting this large red oak log up onto my mill, sliced up, and stacked to dry. Getting the Log: https://youtu.be/fCTsj-xUl6c Chainsa...
My friend, Brandon, was removing this dead red oak tree in Andover, MN last summer. Since it was pretty sizable, he knew I’d be interested in having the trunk to run through my sawmill. Find Bra...
My friend, Brandon, brought me this log from a removal job he was doing. The log has a diameter of 4' at the base, tapers to about 3', and flares back out to 4' at the top. The tree was removed fr...
This time we're slabbing up a sugar maple with a lot of limbs clumped towards the middle of the log. The tree was also tapped for maple syrup during its life so we see the results of that.
Last time we sliced up the longer section of this silver maple tree that was topped and left standing for 5 years. This time we'll continue on and slice up the shorter section. This one is from t...
After having taken my sawmill apart to paint it, I wanted to make sure everything went back together correctly and is still calibrated. I saved this offcut from a log I cut about a year ago so I w...
I got a call about a walnut tree that was coming down and this was a really fun outing. The loading was just a bit challenging which made it more interesting than just driving up to a pile of logs...
As part of my secretary desk build, I needed to turn and carve the ornamental urns and finials that sit at the top of the upper case. I haven't done much spindle turning in the past, so the urns w...
In this video I share an in depth look at my typical technique for dovetailing a drawer. My drawers are joined with half-blind dovetails in the front and through dovetails in the back. My techniq...
If you don't have a jointer or a planer or you need to flatten something large or difficult to flatten, building a simple sled for your router is a great solution.
Enhance your frame and panel construction with an integral bead detail and an arched top rail. Like this style of video? Check out my step by step instructional videos: http://bit.ly/1XRuNzi Produc...
For the secretary desk I am building, I needed to carve two fans to go in the top section of the upper case. These fans start out as a solid carving block and the concave profile is carved into th...
I recently made a set of goose neck moldings for the upper case of the secretary desk I am building. After going through the process I've realized that it's not a very difficult process, just very...
This time we go all the way back to a tree standing in the forest as we build the doors for the upper case of the secretary. There is a lot involved with the construction of these doors from the i...
These things are referred to by a few different names such as dutchmen, dovetail keys, butterflies, and bow ties. What they do is prevent a crack in a piece of wood from growing due to their doubl...
I wanted to try a water based finish for the maple top of my shop desk since I wanted the maple to retain it's natural color. After I apply the finish to the desk top, I show samples comparing the...
I'm back from a few weeks of traveling. I was in the UK at the start of the month to build a custom guitar and to attend Makers Central. When I got back, it was off to Weekend with Wood in Des Mo...
I got the new handtool cabinet up onto the wall and got going on making holders for all of my tools. At this point I've taken care of most of them especially the more "complicated" ones. Things ar...
I took most of the week off after my daughter was born last week but I was able to get the doors hung on the tool cabinet and finish up the joinery on the drawers.
I kept moving along with the tool cabinet this week by getting finish applied to my custom door panels. While finish was curing, I finally swapped the cutterhead in my planer. I've had the spiral...
I have been plugging away at the handtool cabinet for the past couple weeks. I am just about done with the doors and I have my drawer fronts cut to their openings. Triton Tool also stopped by for...
Last week I was at WORKBENCHcon which was an amazing experience. Back in the shop I finished cleaning the head of the Bridgeport and made a good amount of progress on the handtool cabinet.
This week I continued working on the new handtool cabinet by installing the dividers which make up the drawer area. I also finished up my batch of adjustable bases for stacking lumber and did a li...