Rocking chair repair

This rocking chair was in our family for a few decades now. It was made in Japan and now was in need of some repair. The wood was cracked in several places and two spindles on the back were broken.

I used my friend's wood lathe to turn the replacement spindles. Removing the old finish took a lot of time because I used a set of scrapers. This was my introduction to scrapers and I really like using them. Finish was wipe off Puritan pine Varathane and paste wax top coat. We use this rocking chair to rock our children to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.   

New Workshop !

On New Years Day 2011 I moved into my new workshop in the basement of our house. I did have a shop in our garden shed in the backyard but it was very small and cold for half of the year.

 I pulled up the old carpet that was in the basement room and put down Dri Core sub floor. I sealed the sub floor with polyurethane. 

I am currently repairing a rocking chair that we got as a hand me down. The lighting in the room is not great but it will suffice for now. It feels great to have a heated workshop and some space to move around in.

Kid's sled

This sled is a project that I started just before Helen was born. I originally wanted to use bent wood for the hand rails but I chose a simpler style instead. Helen is old enough now to sit up in the sled and we will try it out this winter.

End grain cutting board

This is my first stab at a cutting board - an end grain one at that. My inspiration for the project came from The Wood Whisperer - Marc S. He had a video on his website that highlighted the steps for making an end grain cutting board.

With the exception of the purple heart, the rest of the pieces were scraps of wood I had in my shop already. I did not have the pieces I did what I could with the table saw.

60 grit sand paper on my orbital sander did a good job of doing a final cleaning over the end grain.

This project was fun to do. The end product (after finishing with a food safe oil) was very rewarding.

The cutting board was a gift for my mother in law for her birthday.