Rustic side table made with pallet wood

Spring is here! Time for outdoor DIY projects. 

This week Ive designed a shabby-chic side table for your deck or patio. Anyone can build this project with just a few basic tools and no large workshop space is necessary. I made this entire project using free wood obtained from old pallets.

• You can make this entirely using hand tools, but it will be much easier if you have a jigsaw and a power sander. Both are inexpensive, easy to use, and will save you a lot of time and muscle aches. 
• If you would like to try your hand at busting apart a pallet (its quite easy to do) you will need a crowbar and a hammer with a claw for prying out nails. 
• I used 1/2" dowels for the exposed pins. These are decorative and not necessary for the strength of the table. If you would like to include them, you will need a drill and a 1/2" bit for boring holes.
• I used wood glue, 1", and 3/4" nails to assemble the project. The glue gives the table its strength: the nails are just needed to hold the pieces in place while the glue dries.
• A couple of clamps would be handy.
• I finished my table using Spar Urethane. Its a great outdoor finish that will protect the wood from the elements.
•  I used 80 grit (rough) sandpaper, mostly to clean off dirt, and stopped there. 

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If you would like to give this project a try here are some plans:

• WWMM Rustic side table plans (PDF)
• SketchUp file

Building it is very easy. If you are new to woodworking, maybe a new home owner who wants to get ready for outdoor entertaining this summer, this is a great project to start with. There is no need to get too fussy about any of it: its supposed to look rustic!*****

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A strange evolutionThis was an odd week. For a while, Ive been trying to design a new advent calendar and wanted to build it this week so there would be time for viewers to complete it before December first. The concept was cool: Santa would descend a chimney each day until Christmas by removing a candy cane each day. Sort of like a Ker-plunk game.

After lots of struggling and SketchUpping, I scrapped the entire idea because the chimney would need to be nearly three feet tall in order to accommodate 25 candy canes. The whole thing looked weird. Maybe Ill revisit it next year. If you would like to make an advent calendar, heres a fun one from a couple years ago.
Plan BSo this left me at square one for a project this week. After lots of thought and research (i.e Googling) I thought it might be fun to make a wooden wreath. I looked at many styles of wreaths, but didnt see many wood versions, other than those made with sticks and twigs. Not very woodworky and bound to generate unhappy comments from viewers.
My next thought was to slice up a log and glue the discs together in a donut shape. Again, not much of a woodworking project. (But an idea I do still like.)
After some puttering around in my shop and my scrap wood reserves, I ran across some thin strips of wood I had left over from my trendy bendy photo stands. I began to play around with a few strips to see if I could somehow bend them into a wreath shape. Eventually, I looped the strips into "ribbons" and decided this might be a new take on wreath-making.
Making wood ribbonsIts really easy to cut thin strips. Play around with your rip fence until you get them paper thin. Its better (and safer) to keep the bulk of the board on the fence side and let the strips fall off, rather than trap them against the fence without support. I used a feather board to ensure each time I adjusted my fence it would slice off the same thickness. Also make sure your fence is accurately aligned with your saw blade: if its off a little, the strips will taper off thinner and thinner until you have nothing!
I have bent several types of wood, but I have had the best results with oak. Its a very flexible wood and depending on how thin your cut your strips, it can be bent into very tight curves.
Not a wreathAfter assembling most of the bow, I was still calling it a wreath until I realized a wreath isnt a wreath without a center hole! I still liked where the project was headed, but didnt know what to call it or even what use it would have. "Decorative Wall Hanging" is unlikely to generate many views in a keyword search on YouTube!
After nearly completing the project and the video, it finally struck me that it looked like a bow for a Christmas gift. A big gift, I suppose. At the last minute of shooting the video I revisiting the wreath idea and hung it on my front door. I think it looks good, so its a dual-purpose project.
Sometimes you simply gotta forget about designing and planning and just experiment. The mere act of being in the shop - physically positioned near tools and lumber - can be inspiring.

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Skeleton hand project

Since I didnt have a Halloween project in last weeks video, I thought I would make another Halloween video. I really didnt know where this project was going until I got about halfway through it. Once I started laying out the individual bones, it became clearer.
I thought about running a stiff wire through the bones so that the hand could be bent into various shapes, but drilling straight holes through the fingers proved nearly impossible. I suppose the way to have done this would be to drill the holes before sculpting the bones. So I ended up inserting small dowel pins and gluing it together.
I made this bony hand almost completely with my 1" belt sander. Its really a fun tool to shape wood.

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Make a wooden book keepsake box

Valentines Day projectI started this project with the idea of making a wooden "book". It would open to reveal a heart-shaped picture frame on each side and could be displayed open on a table.

The logistics of pulling that off were a bit more than I had time to deal with, so about halfway through the build, I decided to just make a simple frame insert and call it a keepsake box.
Most of my time on this project was spent in the design: specifically how to make the box look like a book, yet let it to swing open. Since real books generally dont have visible hinges, I didnt want any to show on this one either.
Thankfully, I have a terrific bunch of helpers on my Facebook page who came up will lots (and I mean lots) of ideas. The one I decided to go with was using a dowel as a hinge. It works out great and doesnt require any glue.

This is a pretty easy project to make. Mostly, you will spend your time on the hinge mechanism and shaping the cover and spine so that it swings properly. Take your time to test it along the way and youll be fine. Most importantly, resist the urge to force the cover to swing if it sticks: the dowel holes are so close to the edge, it will likely cause a split. And by the way, use a hardwood. Pine will almost certainly split.
Download plans:

• PDF plans
• SketchUp file
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