Linda and I designed and built a representation of Jesus’s Empty Tomb for the Face to Face with the Easter Story program at the Dexter United Methodist Church, presented on March 27th, 2021 and attended by over 350 people.
After designing a 3D representation that could be folded flat for easy storage, we headed to Lowes for a couple of sheets of 1/2″ maple plywood, six sets of 4″ strap hinges and a couple of 2x4s. Working from our design, Linda laid out the freeform curves of the profile and set to work cutting them out with a jigsaw. She then laid out the hinge locations, drilled the holes and mounted the hinges. Two 2x4s were angled to hold the “wings” and form the 3D representation.
Special recognition goes to Artist Sharon Broyles, who brought the tomb representation to life with amazing colors of rocks, vegetation and shading! Attaching black fabric to the inside surface of the door, Sharon completed the artfully done representation of Jesus’s Empty Tomb.
Linda cutting freeform curves with the jigsaw
More jigsawing
Three piece tomb will be hinged for 3D effect
Linda drilling holes for strap hinges
Linda laying out curves on the rollaway stone door
Linda cutting curves on the bandsaw
Completed tomb ready for finishing
Amazing paint job by Artist Sharon Broyles
Tomb set up with black fabric to simulate the entrance
In his new home, Kyle has a bedroom that will support a California King bed, with a mattress that is 72 inches wide and 84 inches long. We designed a custom “floating” platform 80 inches wide and almost eight feet long. The headboard alone is 27 inches tall and 74 inches wide. Our material choice was 2 inch thick white ash, stained with MinWax Dark Walnut and HVLP spray-finished with MinWax Water Based Oil Modified Polyurethane.
Due to the overall scale of this project and the mass of the materials used (the headboard alone weighed about 75 pounds), the relatively simple joinery employed was fairly challenging. Definitely a two-person job, with additional finishing help from Linda!
LL Johnson Lumber in Charlotte, Michigan did a great job milling some beautiful 10/4 white ash to the 2 inch finished thickness for us. Special thanks to Kyle’s cousin, Lucas, who welded up the custom-designed brackets that help support the massive headboard and mount the two stretchers that support the mid-spans of bed slats. The platform is topped with a very cool Leesa hybrid mattress.
Chopping 4/4 ash for slats
Easing slat edges with a palm router
A beautiful load of 10/4 white ash, milled to 2 inches thick by LL Johnson Lumber
Cross-cutting with a track saw
Waiting for a hand to joint a board for the headboard glue up
Headboard glue up with only two wide boards
Headboard “cooking” in parallel clamps
Raw stock for custom brackets from Alro Steel
FastenMaster HeadLok screws of various lengths
Stiles ready for routing slat ledges
Routing big rabbets with an edge guide
Hardware from McMaster-Carr for jig construction
Custom router jig and two drill jigs
Routing mortises in the ends of the 12 inch wide rails … vertically
Mortise routing jig closeup
Rail and stile mortises will accept floating tenons
Deep hole drilling with one of the drill jigs
Floating tenon blanks
Floating tenon dry fit
Welded up brackets
More welded up brackets
Routing relief for headboard brackets with a second router jig
Headboard bracket dry fit
Headboard bracket dry fit
Headboard dry fit to head rail
Installation of bed slat spacers
Transferring holes in one of the two foot assemblies
Leveling the headboard glue up with one of Grandpa Bill’s hand planes
Headboard hand planing detail
First dry fit of foot assemblies on main frame
All major components complete and ready for finishing
Priming the custom brackets
Custom brackets primed and ready for black satin finish
Setup for applying black satin Rustoleum with a rattle can
Staining with MinWax Dark Walnut
MinWax Dark Walnut stain
Flooding the headboard with stain
Stained headboard ready for clear coating
HVLP spray-finishing materials
10 x 10 spray booth set up in the workshop
Applying MinWax Water Based Oil Modified Polyurethane with an HVLP spray system
Finished components being packed up for delivery
The long-anticipated delivery and assembly day finally arrived
Setting up to assembly foot subassemblies … with kitty help!
Driving 10 inch long HeadLok fasteners to join stile to end rail
Flipping the main platform assembly right side up
Installing brackets for headboard installation
Carefully moving the “sturdy” assembly into place
Stretchers dropped beautifully into their custom brackets
Completed assembly with natural finish slats in place
California King sized Leesa hybrid mattress in its as-shipped state
Watching the Leesa mattress come into its final shape was kinda magical
Another joint project in the books, with lots of good memories and great nights of sleep to come!
I recently rearranged my digital piano setup to include a computer monitor instead of a paper music stand. (I detest trying to turn pages while I’m playing.) This move left a very nice black 24″ LED piano light unemployed. With a bit of design work in SketchUp and a few leftover pieces of white ash, I came up with a base to suit the piano light. I also used some leftover pieces of copper tubing, painted to look like brass, to enhance the design a bit. Now I have a cool (both meanings) energy-efficient and comfortable new lamp on my desk.
Basic lamp base shape with scraps of white ash.
Simple and heavy two-layer base.
First dry fit of all the components.
Loose assembly, front view
Loose assembly, back view
After adding a few chamfer details, the “goalpost” was ready for glue up.
A rubber band and four 5/16 spacers helped position the beveled cap pieces.
Base assembly stained and ready for polyurethane.
MinWax Dark Walnut looks rich on the white ash.
Three coats of MinWax satin spar urethane yielded a nice sheen.
A quick fixture to clean up the copper tubes with 400 grit emery paper.
The copper really shines, and the tiny scratches will help the primer and paint to adhere.
Rattle can brass over a primer first coat.
The finished lamp, sitting on the riser at the back of my desk.
An old cherry box, one of many made by my dad, Bill Mahan, back in the day. Still solid, time had taken it’s toll, warping the box and lid so they no longer lined up or closed. After some jointer and table saw work and quite a bit of sanding, the sides of the box and lid were thinner, but straight again. The lid ended up shorter, but I wanted to use the original hardware, so I added a bullet-nosed walnut detail to the lip of the lid to make up for the quarter inch I removed to flatten the lid again.
A few coats of spray Deft polyurethane brought the life back to the sanded cherry wood. Black flocking finished the interior of the lid and box. The restored box, with dad’s finger joinery and a new walnut accent strip, made a kind of special birthday present to Kyle … from his Grandpa Bill and from his dad. 🙂
An old cherry box, one of many made by my dad, Bill Mahan … back in the day.
Still solid, but time had taken it’s toll, warping the box and lid so they no longer lined up or closed.
After some jointer and table saw work, the sides were thinner, but straight again.
Because the lid ended up shorter, but I wanted to use the original hardware, I added a bullet-nosed walnut detail to the lip of the lid.
Fitting the walnut accent strips.
Relieving the walnut accent strips to accept the original hardware.
Stanley chisels, also from my dad, with a fresh edge on them.
Before I decided to sand off the dark patina on the lid.
Rear hinges were fitted with some spacers to make up for the width differences after all the warps were taken out.
Rear hinges
A few coats of spray Deft polyurethane brought the life back to the sanded cherry wood.
Black flocking to finish the interior of the lid and box.
Excess flocking applied and left to dry over night.
The restored box, with dad’s finger joinery and a new walnut accent strip.
Rear view of the restored box.
Some nice details of the restored box.
Dad had formed the box feet on the table saw, by removing the excess material around them. The cove area maintained the original patina.
Restored box with the circular sawmill marks on the inside of the lid still showing through the flocking.
Finger joinery, feet and flocking details.
A birthday present to Kyle from his Grandpa Bill and his dad. 🙂
This project is a custom dining room pedestal table for Terri and Jeff. One end of this bar top height table will attach to an existing kitchen island, while the main weight of the table will be supported by an eight inch, eight-sided center column with three legs and ball feet. Constructed from white ash, this table was stained with MinWax Dark Walnut stain and varnished with MinWax Water Based Oil-Modified Polyurethane in a satin sheen to complement the existing woodwork in the room.
While most of this project was straightforward woodworking, two components provided interesting challenges in the workshop. The three ball feet, glued up and lathe turned to custom templates have internal leveling feet incorporated. The real challenge is the curved section of table apron, which will be made of a bent lamination glue up. To accomplish this, a form made of four layers of 3/4 MDF was designed and fabricated to accommodate 19 clamps. A single white ash board was resawed into six thin strips, coated with Gorilla brand polyurethane glue and clamped in the bending jig. Polyurethane glue dries more rigid than PVA glue, so it was used to minimize springback of the curved apron blank upon removal from the jig.
After several options were evaluated with SketchUp 3D models, this design was settled on
Linda’s kind patience in allowing me to slip several projects for other folks in front of her sewing cabinet finally paid off. Made of birch plywood and maple trim, with a sewing machine lift and eight storage drawers, the sewing cabinet was immediately pressed into service making face masks for family, friends and local healthcare workers.
Fully open, this cabinet design has a lot of work area, even including a left top drawer that extends the surface. With the sewing machine lift in its lowered position, the cabinet folds up into a compact unit that can be wheeled anywhere in the room.
Every cabinet project starts with a trip to Chelsea Lumber!
Dry fit of a few panels
Varnishing inside panels before assembly
Panels with drawer runners already mounted
Basic case assembly
Bottom panel assembly
Varnishing bottom panel before mounting casters
Basic case complete with casters
Making maple cove molding
The back panel was built up with three layers of plywood
Apron installation
Cutting tenons on door parts
Panel doors ready for assembly
Panel doors to support the open lid
Pattern for insert opening temporarily attached with painters tape and CA glue
Routing the insert opening
Cabinet taking shape
Removable insert specific to Linda’s sewing machine
Ready to mortise in sewing machine hinges
Sewing machine hinges complete
Varnishing insides of drawers before assembly
Drawer assembly with helpers from Rockler
Drawer boxes complete
Solid edging on drawer fronts
Completed drawer fronts ready to install
Installing drawer fronts
Cabinet complete and ready for finishing
Padded up for hand truck trip down basement stairs
Finishing components with MinWax water-borne, iol-modified polyurethane
Sewing machine lift installed with lag screws
Linda’s “before” sewing machine setup
Linda’s “after” sewing machine cabinet
Sewing with the machine in the flat bed configuration
A long time in the dreaming and designing stages, Linda’s 40 x 60 cutting table has finally made it into her sewing room. Made from birch plywood and maple, this cutting table also features room for sixteen 11 x 11 x 11 cloth storage boxes, four vertical storage areas and four locking dual wheel casters for mobility.
Linda welcoming home the birch plywood that will become her cutting table.
Nearly every Marietta Wood Works project starts with a dream … and a SketchUp design.
Shallow dadoes will register the vertical dividers.
Cutting dadoes with the fence and precision miter gauge.
First dry fit of the lower cabinet partitions.
Tongue around the plywood field of the top, millied on the table saw.
Predrilling and countersinking for screws to be used in assembly.
Assembling one of the lower cabinets.
Lower cabinet assembly ready for a 1/2 birch back.
Careful component preparation and right angle jigs make for square assemblies.
Using a dial indicator to make very small adjustments to the rip fence.
Upper and lower plates, grooved to accept acrylic dividers at final assembly.
Deep counterbores for screws to help attach border pieces to the top.
Assembling maple border pieces to the birch field of the top.
Applying 1/4 thick maple edging to finish the exposed plywood edges.
Both lower cabinets complete and ready for finishing.
Plugging screw holes in the top maple border with red oak plugs for a little contrast.
Dry fit of the final assembly.
Preparing to spray MinWax Water Borne Oil Modified polyurethane.
Lower cabinet in spray booth, upside down for first two coats of spray finish.
Top ready to receive the final coat of polyurethane, after sanding with 220 grit paper.
Finished subassemblies, ready for final assembly.
Casters mounted with 1 1/4 screws that penetrate the base and enter into the bottoms of the lower cabinets.
Linda’s cutting table, with the Horn 40 x 60 cutting mat that I got her for Christmas … last year!
End view, showing vertical storage area.
Vertical storage area.
Linda had a beautiful quilt in process, and will be doing the remaining cutting on her new cutting table.
The 36 high work surface is comfortable for standing and working.
This project consists of four separate shelving / storage units for the back wall of the garage. The two base units are identical, while the left upper unit features slatwall storage, mostly for sports equipment, and the right upper unit features adjustable shelving. Each unit is made from 1/2 and 3/4 S1S AC plywood, with one sheet of 1/2 birch plywood for the custom made slats. Thin sawn poplar was ripped into 3/4 strips to cover the exposed plywood edges before painting. The bare plywood was primed with Zinsser 1-2-3 primer and finished with gray SW urethane trim paint, which dries quickly to a durable finish. Brass plated shelf standards and clips were used for all the adjustable shelves, eliminating the need to drill about a brazilian shelf pin holes.
My home office isn’t “exactly” cluttered, and I recently rearranged it to let a lot more natural light in. So, in keeping with the improvements theme, I tackled a build that’s been in the Future Projects folder for quite awhile. Four bookcase units will be ganged together in the closet to replace the commercial wire shelving units that only utilize about half the volume of storage space available. The sliding bypass doors on the closet, which I don’t want to remove and reinstall, presented the minor design challenge of coming up with units that would slide through the door openings and still use most of the storage volume available.
The four units I came up with will slide straight into the existing door openings and take up the majority of the closet volume, both from side to side and from bottom to top. The upper units will be partially behind the closet door header, but at only twelve inches deep, those top shelves will be for seldom accessed but un-tossable kit! Rather than breaking out my shelf pin drilling jig and drilling a bunch of holes, I ordered brass plated shelf standards that will install quickly in shallow dadoes I cut in each of the carcass sides before assembly.
I always appreciate a project that gives rise to adding new tools or equipment to the workshop. Anticipating all that surface area (seven sheets of plywood!) of the carcasses and shelving, I’ve re-acquired an HVLP spray system, the single-stage turbine Earlex 5500. After quite a bit of research and some test samples, I’m going to spray a water-borne clear finish, MinWax Oil-Modified Poly. The water-borne finish brings much lower VOCs and soap-and-water cleanup to the party, and the oil-modified variation still adds some of the amber hue of solvent-based polyurethanes.
Every cabinetry project starts with a trip to Chelsea Lumber
Design done and plywood in the shop
Using my Festool track saw to break down the sheet goods according to the cutting diagrams in my design
Ripping plywood sections to final widths on the table saw
Using my shop made cross cut sled to break the long plywood sections into individual components
Most of the plywood components sized and ready for next operations
My new Earlex 5500 HVLP spray system
For a light duty HVLP system, the spray gun is high quality
Setting up the dado blade stack on the table saw
A set of these Kreg setup jigs, from 1/8″ to 1/2″ make quick and accurate work of setting cutting depths on the table saw
Another Kreg jig assists in adding pocket screw holes to cabinet components for attaching face frames
After making samples of both MinWax Polycrylic and Oil-Modified Polyurethane, the OMP product was much closer to the finish I was looking for
The slight amber hue from the OMP finish is evident
This birch plywood finishes well with one sanding at 150 grit
Carcass assembly with Titebond III and two-inch drywall screws
Test fit of the brass shelf standards that arrived the day I was assembling carcasses
The Rockler spec for these brass shelf standards was 3/16″ x 5/8″ but since I cut the dadoes before I had them in hand, I made the dadoes 3/16″ deep by 11/16″ wide, just in case
Assembling one of the bookcase carcass sides, top and bottom
The stacked units will be 92 inches tall, with just enough ceiling clearance to allow the top units to slide up and onto the bottom units at the required angle
Cross cutting the 1/2″ blywood backs a little long, to be match trimmed to the top of each cabinet
Lower units with backs installed
All four units with backs installed, ready for face frames
Maple stock rough sized for face frames and shelf edging
Shelf edging profile
Attaching shelf edging
Assembling one of the face frames with pocket screws
Attaching a face frame to a cabinet carcass with glue and pocket screws
A seven degree block guides a long drill bit to open the bottom of each pocket screw hole
Face frame vise grips hold rail and stile in perfect alignment for pocket screw connections
Blocks and quick clamps help straighten slightly bowed plywood sides
Using a self-centering DowlIt drill jig and drill bushings to add connection holes in face frame stiles
Cutting four shelf standards to length clamped between two pieces of 1/2″ plywood
Built up “T” section spacers will position bookcases directly in line with closet door openings
Lower cabinets with spacer and shelf dry fit in place
Four cabinets ready for finishing
MinWax Water-based Oil Modified Polyurethane (Satin) was the finish of choice to be applied with my new HVLP sprayer
Workshop ready for spray tent deployment
A 10′ x 10′ popup tent with three canvas sides provides a spray area and protects the rest of the workshop from overspray
Each cabinet received two coats of poly, with a 220 grit sanding in between
With the cabinets complete, saw horses provided support for all twelve shelves
Soap and water cleanup of the water-based (borne) polyurethane was really nice
An extra-duty lower shelf in place for spraying
Shelving laid out to dry and harden up for installation
Before shot of one side of my office closet, with wire shelving and a hodge podge of items
Office closet contents and wire shelving emptied out of the closet
Left side of new bookcases installed and partially filled
Right side of new bookcases installed and pretty full already
Everything reorganized and out of sight
Every large project finishes with scraps on the burning pile. This burn included some of the original office cabinetry that I don’t need anymore!
We found Dallas Galbraith, metal sculptor from Indiana, at the Ann Arbor Art Fair again this year. His work has always appealed to me, and I found a perfect piece to complement the colors and wood tones in our guest bathroom. At the inception of Marietta Wood Works many years ago in Georgia, I incorporated a Live Oak in my pamphlets and business cards. Dallas said the piece we found could be interpreted as a Live Oak, a Mangrove, or even a Banyan Tree, but since the Live Oak held special meaning for me, that’s what he wrote on the sales receipt!
I hung the Live Oak sculpture in its new home and it was beautiful, but just a bit small for the wall expanse. I brought a photo of the sculpture into SketchUp and designed a twelve-sided frame with copper rays to hang behind the Live Oak. The frame is made of white ash and stained with Minwax Provincial to match the wood cabinetry in the room. To complement the materials in the sculpture, bare copper wire is incorporated in two places around the frame, and as simple rays connecting opposing sides of the frame.
Live Oak metal sculpture by Dallas Galbraith, approximately 19″ across
SketchUp design showing the frame and rays behind the metal sculpture
Dry fit of the twelve-sided frame
Small grooves and 1/16″ diameter holes were machined into each of the twelve segments before assembly
Twelve segments, beveled at 15 degrees on each end, ready for assembly
One of my ancient band clamps worked well to hold the frame while the Titebnd III PVA glue cured overnight
Minwax Provincial was applied with a 1″ foam brush
Quick clamps provided the extra hands to control the 80″ loops of copper wire around the perimeter of the frame
After two coats of spar varnish, the copper wire elements were installed
Copper wire rays installed and ready to be trimmed
Two-part epoxy applied to the copper wire on the bottom segment of the frame secures it from coming loose
Copper wire details
Completed frame hung behind the Live Oak sculpture
