Oaken Gearbox

Although conventional wisdom (or at least a window salesman) would say that replacing will always save you money, that isn't necessarily true, and depends on a lot of factors, including the condition of your windows,  the cost and type of fuel available in your area,  and not least your climate. Read on for the actual results I've gotten from both new windows and rebuilt origin My suburban Minneapolis story and a half, like many thousands of others that popped up during the post WWII baby boom was built with the traditional double-hung, single pane windows and removable wood-framed screens and storms, each one custom fit and labeled in neat black sharpie for its parent window, NE Bedroom, for example, or Kitchen Sink. Although it is well documented that low-e glass, double pane windows allow less heat to escape your home and don't require the screens and storms to be swapped every spring and fall, that doesn't necessarily mean they are the best energy invest...

Nothing beats the smell of a freshly cut 2x4. Seriously, it's the one of the best smells on earth, and when you catch a whiff of that smell and hear the high pitched whine of an electric saw on a sunny Saturday afternoon it means times are good. Two-by-fours are generally used for construction, but they are good for a whole lot more than just building houses. You may have to spend a few minutes sorting through the bin at your local big box hardware store for good, straight boards without a lot of knots, but its time well spent. Two-by-fours are cheap, sturdy, and easy to work with. You may not end up with an heirloom quality piece that will be passed on for generations, but for less than $20 in materials and a long weekend you can construct some basic furniture that far surpasses what's available at Ikea or Target. Take this small kitchen table I built to go next to our gas range for example. Materials 2 2x4's 1 3/4" x 5" board 1 16 x 36" pine ...

There are many, many ways to build drawers. I've tried several, but the half-blind dovetail/rabbet is my favorite. This drawer is a classic I first encountered in a dresser I bought for $30 dollars on Craigslist. Although the dresser was falling apart and all the glue had completely deteriorated, the pieces of the dresser fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, making it easy to re-assemble just like new. If you stop to think, you will realize that a dresser drawer, or any drawer, really, is just an open topped box, made up of five parts: the front, the back, two sides, and a bottom. The real difference between a strong drawer and a flimsy one is how those pieces are attached to each other.  How to Build a Half Blind Dovetail and Rabbet Joint Drawer Recommended Tools: A Tablesaw A Router & Dovetail Bit A Planer Clamps Chisels Design: Decide what size you want your drawer. I typically make mine 1/8"-3/16" smaller than the opening it's made for so it will...

The area around the University of Cincinnati, my alma mater, is laid out more or less like a big Monopoly board. The campus is one city block, and the streets around campus are filled with run down houses that get rented out to groups of students, packed in 4 to 7 per house. Different slum lords have begun buying up as many houses as they can on each street, and on the south side of campus they've begun putting up big 'hotels' that they rent by the bed and charge three times as much as usual for. Senior year of college I lived with five of my friends in a big, roach-infested house that we rented from a guy named Bill. Bill also owned most of the other houses on our street, which was more Oriental Ave. than it was Boardwalk, if you catch my drift.  Even so, Bill was slowly working to fix up his properties, and one day we found two solid wood five panel doors out on the curb, demoed from the place next door. Naturally we snapped those up and moved them into our basem...

I really don't like going to Ikea; I like buying furniture from Ikea even less. The craftsman in me detests the functional but charmless lack of detail work, like box or dovetail joints, that really make a simple piece of furniture stand out. The hipster in me hates thinking, "Hey, I have that bookshelf." every time I visit a friend's apartment. But most of all, the cheapskate in me can't live with the fact that I could have made a better piece for half the cost. Below is my alternative to flimsy Ikea shelves. Total cost: $20 Time to complete: A Saturday afternoon Materials: 4 2x4's 6 boards for shelves. I used the 9 1/2" x 24" ones from Ikea (but the joke's on me, because they've already started sagging) Edge-joining two boards for each shelf as described in a previous post would be a better, if more time-consuming solution. A box of screws Wood Glue (I use Titebond) Stain, paint, varnish, etc. Tools: Tablesaw Drill...

Edge joining two boards can be one of the more intimidating techniques in woodworking. If the edges on each board aren't completely smooth and flat, your panel will have a big, ugly crack in it. In this post I will describe how to get a perfect joint every time using only hand tools. If like me, you have an inexpensive table saw, or just work with boards with the 'factory' edge on them, they probably don't have a clean enough edge to just glue them together and call it good. With some very simple tools though, you can accomplish the same thing that a $400 jointer can. Tools For the Job: - A Jack Plane. This is really a nifty tool. I just bought the cheap one from Home Depot. It works okay,  although the blade needed to be sharpened right out of the box. - A Dowelling Jig. This isn't strictly necessary, but will let you make a much stronger joint. I bought the self-centering one from  Rockler . It's a little bit pricey, but when I bought it, it was...

I started these paddles last summer, but finally got around to varnishing them this week. I started with 3/4" planed poplar boards from Home Depot. I may try making a set of white ash paddles in the future, but I decided on poplar for my first set since it is inexpensive, readily available, and easy to work with. Next I sliced one board into long strips 1 1/8" wide, leaving one 3/4" thick and planing the other to 1/2". I then glued the two together so I ended up with a board 1 1/8" square. This would become the shaft of the paddle. The other I cut into a strip 2 1/2" inches wide for the paddle blades. I then used Gorilla Glue to glue the pieces together in the general shape of a canoe paddle.  A coping saw did a good job at further refining my wooden 'blank,' and a 1/2" radius bit on a router made the shaft nearly round.  I cut the curve into the profile of the handle using a coffee can to draw and arc and the coping saw to d...