Marietta Wood Works
Category: Small Projects
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Rebekah’s Keepsake Box
I have a practice in my workshop, or perhaps it could be called a bit of a tradition. If someone gives me raw wood in any form, logs, rough sawn or finished lumber, I try to return at least a portion of their generosity in the form of a woodworking project. Rebekah, a friend I…
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Five Friends Poem
Still Stitching Us Together, an original poem about five longtime friends and fellow knitters, came to us on the back of a cute, hand-painted Christmas tree ornament. The poem’s beautiful sentiment touched me, so I decided to engrave it onto plaques for each of the five friends. As I worked on these laser-engraved plaques, I…
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Camera Lucida
With several friends and loved ones who have artistic talent, I thought a perfect gift would be a custom-made drawing aid called a Camera Lucida. For those of you not familiar with this completely analog device, it is a relatively simple arrangement of a box with a mirror in the back and a semi-mirrored piece…
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Office Chair Arms
This was a simple yet meaningful project: replacing worn fabric armrests with new wooden ones, a good illustration of the importance of preserving and renewing the things we use in our daily lives. This basic office chair, on the verge of being discarded, now has a new assignment, thanks to a small repair. I’m glad…
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Play Kitchen Repair
Michael and Olivia wanted to give their Uptown Expresso Play Kitchen to Elliott, but a few minor repairs were called for before the hand-off happened. The refrigerator door was missing, and the oven door had a big crack in it! Fortunately and surprisingly, the manufacturer, KidKraft, had some repair parts available … but not quite…
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Box Joint Jig
After I enjoyed making the Box Joint Box for Jeff, I decided to make a more permanent box joint jig for the workshop. I wanted a jig that didn’t depend on clamping it to a miter gage on the tablesaw, that would accommodate different thicknesses of wood and that would be easy to make very…
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Mary’s Mesquite Log
Mary was saddened when a sudden Arizona storm blew down a mesquite tree in her yard. Not long ago, Mary’s husband Boyd had passed away, and that particular mesquite had always been his favorite tree. As Mary’s friend, Deb asked me if they sent me a log from Mary’s fallen tree, would I be able…
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Katie’s Little Stools
Katie asked me if I could make two little stools, based on the one she already had. She also pointed me to a plan for them online. As always, well almost always, I created a 3D model of the stool from the plan, along with a few corrections and “improvements.” From the SketchUp model, I…
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Smartphone Amplifiers
Inspired by the walnut inlaid amplifier that Kyle made for Beth for last year’s Christmas name exchange, I decided to make a simplified design, taking advantage of the lessons learned from Kyle’s build. I also took advantage of a piece of 2″ thick white ash left over from Kyle’s Platform Bed build. One of the…
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Box Joint Box for Jeff
Two things: I love wood with a story, and if you give me wood, you can almost always expect to get some of it back in a different form. One of Jeff’s customers requested Vertical Grain Douglas Fir (VGDF) for window parts, a species he hadn’t processed in the past. He gave me a few…