In addition to watching the Kentucky Derby at the big soiree this past weekend, we also held a wine tasting event.  At the same party.  The wackiest wine name or label won a prize. (For the record, a wine named Cardinal Zin took the top honors)

So, I had to figure out what to give as the big award.  Some of those wine glass charms are always appreciated.  A waiter’s corkscrew was also a nice addition. But, I knew I had to add something special.  But, what to build?

I had thought about those balancing wine holders.. you know, the simple sticks with a bevel cut on one end and a hole drilled in the other… and realized that it could be a simple but interesting project to build.

Yes, it is an insanely simple plan.  But, as with all simple plans, you have to get the details right.  In this case, how large of a hole to cut, how long a stick of wood and what angle to cut the bevel? That could be critical later when actually putting a wine bottle in the holder.

I did a quick search and found a drawing at the Timeless Treasure Trunk Wood Shoppe that showed the details of the project. Easy Peasey!

I fished around in my scrap barrel and found a few choice pieces of walnut, spalted maple and purpleheart that were big enough for the pieces.  I cut them to rough size and planed each of them by hand to get them square, flat and true.

From there, I cut the bevel on one end of a test piece.  I wanted to make sure that everything was going to work well when I put the bottle in. The plan called for a 40 degree bevel – not sure how that was arrived at, but I wasn’t going  to mess with the plan – for now, at least.

The next task was to cut a circle on the other end of the board to accommodate the neck.  The plan called for a 1 3/16″ hole, but I wanted to go a little larger so it would work with fluted bottles and other larger bottle necks.

When I took the bottle  holder inside, it worked.  VERY well. Once I got the measurements done, I jumped on the other ones.  If it was easy to make one, it was easier to make a dozen!  I cut the bevels on the other ones and started to drill. I used a 1 1/2″ forstner bit to cut the hole on the walnut holders, but the going was much tougher with the maple and purpleheart. For that, I switched to my drill press and a circle cutter.

I put a 1/4″ roundover bit in my table mounted router and rounded over all the edges except the ones at the bevel. I then sanded the pieces down with my random orbit sander and used my spindle sander to make the inside nice and smooth.

I finished each of them with three coats of Watco Danish oil.

Now, the trick to using these is to push the neck of the bottle in as far as it will go, then set the bevel flat on a (stable!) table. Slowly let go of the bottle, and then let go of the stand, and it should stay put. The weight of a full 750 ml bottle of wine will counterbalance the tendency of the holder to tip, making a very impressive display.

I went with the basic rectangular shape for the holders, but you could go with a fancier design if so moved!

No, no post yesterday.  Instead of writing something for the blog, I spent the day cooking Easter dinner for 16 folks. My two sisters in law with their families, my in-laws and my mom and step dad. And, boy, did we ever eat. Roast lamb. Ham. Roasted potatoes. Two veggies. Two different kinds of salads. It was nuts.

And, when it comes to the kitchen prep in our house, we like to keep a lot of the staples close at hand. Different oils, vinegars, rices, pasta… the works.  This way, we can whip up a meal fit for guests whenever we need to.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t always so easy to store these staples. We had very limited pantry storage area in our kitchen – basically a linen closet in one hallway and whatever space we could eke out of our cabinets. Very tight and sloppy.  We needed a solution.

To help contain all of these goodies in one convenient place, I built this freestanding pantry unit for my house. Based on Danny Proulx’s design in his book Fast and Easy Techniques for Building Modern Cabinetry, it is a very simple yet useful design.

Basically, it’s a large cabinet built out of red oak plywood. About seven feet tall and 18 inches deep. Rather than sitting on the floor, I built a frame for the piece to make it look a little more graceful. The piece is held together with glue and pocket screws, and I built the doors for it. I figured the curved top rail would allow it to look a little fancier. It’s as plain as plain can be… but when you get into the inside, this is where the piece shines.

Inside, there are five full-extension heavy duty pull out shelves on runners that can handle 100 pounds each. This baby is designed for heavy lifting and ease of use. I built the shelves from pieces of 2 inch wide by 3/4 inch thick red oak runners with 1/2″ plywood grooved inside. The sides are held together with more pocket screws.  I purposely graduated the height of the drawers from the bottom to the top of the piece to allow for taller storage on the lowest shelf, and to restrict the number of canned goods that could be stacked on the upper shelves, preventing too much weight from being placed on one shelf.

The best thing about the piece is simply how much stuff it can hold. We store all kinds of goodies in there – the breakfast cereals, the bags of coffee, the large mega-retailer packs of pasta – the works. This way, we can stock up at the local membership clubs and keep all of those things out of the way safely tucked in the pantry.

This piece has allowed us some great flexibility in storage at our home, and we’ve had more than one visitor remark how they would like to get their own copy of the pantry for their kitchen.

Albert Einstein was pretty darned smart. No. Seriously. His work in physics has helped unlock many of the mysteries of the universe – that mass could be converted to energy and energy could be converted back to mass. The whole space-time dealio. And, my favorite, the theory of relativity.

Relativity is something my feeble mind can wrap itself around because Einstein gave a really good example to describe how it works:

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity!

Einstein was spot on. When I’m sitting in a meeting at work, the time seems to drag on forever. But, when a holiday is approaching, and you realize you haven’t done anything to get ready for it, the days quickly slip by, leaving you in full-blown panic mode.

You don’t have to be an Einstein to know that Mother’s Day is on the way. It’s just one of those holidays that creeps up on you, leaving you scrambling at the last minute to find the appropriate gift. “It’s happened to all of us,” said Tim Walter of Eagle America. “Your mom, mother in law, wife, daughter… whoever is a mom in your life is expecting you to remember the big day is coming. While they may not be expecting you to break the bank and buy them something lavish, the fact that you noticed and thought to remember the occasion is expected – and greatly appreciated.”

That’s why Eagle America is helping make it easy for woodworkers to come up with ideas to show a little extra appreciation for that special someone in their lives. “Sure, you can go the whole flower route, but that could be a little impersonal. Besides, cut flowers last only a few days in the vase. A wooden gift – that will be treasured for a lifetime!”

Let’s start with the basics. Picture frames are great gifts for moms to showcase pictures of their moms, their kids and the entire family. “Whether you want to build something elaborate or simple, the handcrafted touch really helps those special photos stand out.”

Small ‘treasure’ boxes are also a great place for the mom in your life to stash some of her more special and memorable items. “With digital photography, we don’t always get prints of those memorable shots. But, for those pictures sitting in plain storage boxes, a beautifully crafted box makes an awesome place for her to stash some of her favorites.” Tim continued, “Heck, go crazy and build your box, but make the top a picture frame! This way, it will serve a dual purpose.

For turners, it’s difficult to go wrong when turning an elegant pen. There are dozens of styles of pen works out there, and with some imagination and a few wood scraps, you could make a unique creation she will love. “Go all out. Turn a pen out of the best looking pieces of wood you have, then invest in a little personalized stationery for her. You will be a hero!”

If you really want to go out there with a different twist on things, why not plan a family project? “We have plans for easy woodworking projects that are perfect starting places for kids to build. Plus, we also offer a number of simple woodworking kits the whole family can enjoy. That quality time will be remembered forever.”

Just be smart about the time you have to work. “Even Einstein would tell you – get started now so you won’t be rushed trying to beat the deadline!”

This was a sweet little project I built a long time ago – back in 2001 when I was just a few years into woodworking.

Back then, the only wood I could afford to use was pine, and there was one book at my library that dealt with building pine projects – Bill Hylton’s Country Pine: Furniture You can Build with the Table Saw and Router. It was a great book for a rookie woodworker to get his or her hands on. Hylton offers a great selection of projects to choose from, and many practical shop tips to make your build a success.

One of the projects caught my eye, and would be an excellent way to learn some new techniques. His half-round table would be a great addition to my entryway.

This project is actually pretty sophisticated.  The three legs stand28 inches tall, and are tapered.  The right and left legs are tapered on the side that faces the room and the inside, and the middle leg is tapered on both of the sides… a little more involved.

Rather than a curved front rail, this table has a straight back rail and a mid rail that connects the front leg to the middle of the back rail. While Hylton suggested using mortise and tenon joints to make the connections, I went with sliding dovetail joints to get more mechanical strength.  Knowing now just how strong a mortise and tenon joint is, I may have been able to save myself a little bit of trouble.  But, hey, the joint worked.

The table top is made with a jointed pine board that was cut out using a jigsaw.  I traced a radius from a nail with a string and pencil.  Once I cut it out, I sanded the heck out of the edge to get it smooth.

Hylton’s project had a painted top and a clear finished base, but I decided to flip the script.  The top was sanded down to 220 grit sandpaper, and I put on three coats of brush on poly.  Surprisingly, it was one of the few projects I used that finish on that came out looking good.

The base was primed and painted with an acrylic latex paint in a “Wedgewood blue” type color.

Right now, the table holds a lamp, some pictures and my wife’s cell phone when she charges it.  This way, she has to wake up in the morning and get out of bed to silence her alarm instead of just hitting the snooze button.  It’s also a great place to stash one of the milk boxes that belonged to my grandfather’s dairy.

While I’m using fancier wood now, I still look at that old pine project and think back to the feeling of accomplishment I had when I put the finishing touches on it.

OK, I’m gonna come right out and say it… the Kodak Zx3 is a totally rocking video and still camera. But, it’s lack of ability to attach an external microphone is a HUGE problem when you are trying to show how you can turn a pen while standing in the middle of a busy and noisy woodworking show hall.

Fortunately – while you can’t hear anything – at least you can see me turn my first pen on a lathe. Rather than make you strain to hear the discussion between me and Tano Chickwick, I’ll grab some stills to show you how it went.

Tano’s setup is pretty cool -  a mini Delta lathe attached to a rolling stand.  We used a bowl gouge, a skew chisel and an assortment of sandpaper grits to get things into shape.  Tano had taken the liberty of drilling the pen body and gluing a tube inside two pieces of bubinga. They were put in the lathe on a threaded mandrel with spacer bushings separating the pieces.

If you are looking for  these pen turning supplies, I know that my friends over at Eagle America have a great selection of mechanisms, turning blanks and tools. And if you are looking for exotic woods for turning a pen with a lot of personality, Bell Forest Products has a wide selection of woods – from African Blackwood to Zircote.

Once things got spinning, Tano put the gouge in my hands and let me go to work. The going was kind of tough at first, since the gouge was working against the sharp square corners of the blank. Before too long, things got a whole lot smoother.  Tano kept reminding me that the critical dimension to hit was the diameter of the spacer bushings.  This way, the wood would blend with the pen’s ring, tip and clasp, making for a very smooth feeling pen.

When things were close, I turned to the skew chisel. The tool was a whole lot tougher to handle than the gouge… I kept wanting to hold the handle too low, afraid the cutting edge would grab and flip the tool out of my hand.  With some patience and a whole lot of coaching, I was able to slice a finer finish on the pen and get everything to the right dimension.

Next up was sanding.  No, this kind of sanding is much easier than sanding a larger project… it’s hard to get a piece of furniture to spin on the lathe and let it rub against the sandpaper!  We started at 100 grit, then did 180, 220, 320, 400 and 600.  Hold a piece of sandpaper against the piece with the lathe running and bingo… sweet sanding.

Once we rolled through the grits, Tano stopped the lathe and hand me sand the  piece from top to bottom. This way, there would be no cross-grain sanding scratches.

From there, we brought out the friction polish. A little squirt on some paper towels, the lathe went back on and I moved the towel from top to bottom while the piece spun. The moment the  polish hit the wood, I got excited. The color on the bubinga was incredible and successive coats just make things look better. A glob of Renaissance Wax was smeared over the pen body and a little more buffing made the piece glow.

After this, we pulled the pen body off the lathe and the pieces off the mandrel. We moved to the front of the bench where we had a pen press waiting.  First, the tip was pressed into the bottom of the pen, then the clasp into the top of the other piece.  The fit on these pieces was very tight and the pen press proved to be an essential tool.  The pen’s transmission went into the top of the tip segment of the body and was pressed home (Of course, I had to ask if it was a manual transmission or an automatic transmission… shesh). From there, an ink barrel was installed, a gold ring went over the transmission and the two pieces were hand pressed together.

Stop the clock. A total of – maybe – 25 minutes from blocky blank to sleek pen. I’m not sure, but with this proper coaching, I think I could be convinced to get into a lathe and try my hand at making some more.  After all, the holidays are only about nine months away… it’s never too early to start thinking gifts!

There are some woodworkers out there who know exactly what their next project is. That new workbench. The dining room table. The book shelves in the den.

And, if you do know exactly what your next project is – go forth and build.

However, if you are like me now, you may be finding yourself between projects. I have a few ones on the horizon I need to start on, and after a busy December and January, I’m still sharpening, cleaning and doing other general tidying up. If you are in this situation, you should be building a decorative box.

“But, Tom, I don’t NEED a box.” I hear you out there. What the heck are you going to do with a small decorative box?  You don’t need more knick-knacks to dust, and your desk at work can’t possibly hold another thing.

However, decorative boxes are some of the coolest projects out there, and they can help you hone your woodworking skills like nothing else. Here are some of the reasons why I like them so:

* Reach for new designs. Do you build mostly Shaker style furniture? Just Arts and Crafts? Go out on a limb and stretch your sense of design. Find inspiration in nature, classic pieces of furniture, architecture… wherever. Go with the flow.

* They don’t require a great deal of material. If you have some treasured scrap offcuts cluttering your shop, they are perfect for a decorative box. Besides, if you really get fouled up, you can trim off the bad parts and build a smaller box (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).

* They are easy to move around. Last summer, I spent a lot of time hauling big cabinet boxes around for my friend Paul’s home office. Small boxes can be moved around the shop with little effort, and can be milled, joined, assembled and finished on a corner of your bench. You can also easily put them aside if you get involved in a larger project.

* Embrace your options. Want to try a new form of joinery? Hand cut dovetails. Build a box joint jig for your table saw. Perfect your splined miters. How about a new technique? Veneer. Frame and panel. All hand-tool construction. Thinking outside of the proverbial ‘box,’ you can develop new woodworking skills that can work on all different kinds of projects.

* They challenge you to do your best. Very few people will climb under the dining room table you build to check your joinery. Even fewer will attempt to pull down a wall-mounted cabinet to see how you attached the back. But, people will pick up boxes.  Hold them. Turn them in their hands. Examine them from all angles. Smaller projects with fewer pieces give you the opportunity to really take your time, but still finish before you grow tired of the project.

* They make awesome gifts. Sure, it’s only March, and it seems as if we just came out of a major gift-giving season. But, graduations are coming soon, as is the traditional wedding season in spring and early summer. It’s never too soon to start thinking about building something if you have a big event ahead. Small boxes are perfect for holding jewelry, photos and other small, precious items. Plus, they are insanely easy – and inexpensive -  to ship.

While you may not be a big fan of decorative boxes, there are some very good reasons to give them a go. You might just be surprised how much fun you have building them – and how much you will learn in the process.

Building things for yourself – and gifts for others – is one of the greatest pleasures in the shop. And, when it comes to these projects, the ones that get used the most are nearly always the most appreciated.

A picture frame to hold a treasured photo for a friend’s desk is a useful gift. A cutting board that’s used for meal prep – useful. A bookshelf that holds a child’s collection of picture books – useful.

A wooden project with a clock in it – wow. Impressively useful. Looked at several times a day to keep track of appointments, meal times and bed times. “Clocks are exceptionally useful,” said Tim Walter of Eagle America, “But, they are so much more… they become a focal point in the room and help make a statement.”

Tim pointed out that clocks can be built in all shapes, sizes and styles. They can hold pens and pencils, be part of the lid of a box, or something even more imaginative. “If you want to start small, small desk clocks can be built with dynamic designs and wild glue ups, or with more traditional forms. For these clocks, try going with a small clock insert. With just a forstner bit, you can turn your project into something timeless.”

Going larger, you can go into mantle clocks or hanging wall clocks. “Now we start getting into larger statement making clocks. Mantle clocks offer a great deal of flexibility in design and material choice. Inlays, moldings, different face options – these larger clocks are easier for all to see.” Tim also told me that many woodworkers love the challenge of building schoolhouse or regulator style clock – a clock with a hanging pendulum. Eagle America sells plans for those who would like to build their own clocks from scratch and seek out their own works, or kits which include the mechanical works.

“Then, there are the big ones.. the grandfather clocks. For those really looking to showcase their talents in a big way, a full sized case clock is definitely the way to go.” Eagle’s ultimate clock plan is a mission style, full height grandfather. While the plans call for the traditional white oak, remember, the woodworker is the boss. “You want to go out on a limb and make yours out of figured maple? Cherry? Something exotic? Go for it. After all, it’s your piece.”