Toothed plane blade demonstration

When I was building the Shaker Trestle Table I espoused my love for the Lie-Nielsen #62 with a toothed blade. Well, Deneb Puchalski from Lie-Nielsen has put together a video demonstrating that very thing and doing so better than I could explain. The one thing missing from the video was a close-up of the surface after using the toothed blade. Fortunately I have one in my blog post. Hopefully this will help make things even clearer.

Why you should take classes from Master Cabinetmakers

Just like any passionate hobbyist woodworker I have read just about eveything I could get my hands on with regards to woodworking. I've also bought and rented my fair share on woodworking DVD's. After a while I got to the point where I just felt like 90% of what I was reading/watching I had seen before. I decided to take some classes with Chuck Bender at the Acanthus Workshop in Pottstown, Pa. Chuck has an extensive portfolio of amazing period furniture, having worked as a professional in the trade for almost 30 years.

Trestle Table Base is Almost Complete

I'm on vacation from work this week so I've been able to get quite a few hours of work in the shop. The base for this table is from a big maple tree my next door neighbor had cut down to put a pool in. I cut mortise and tenon joints for the leg-to-foot joint, which I will also draw-bore, and a notched bridle joint for leg-to-brace joint.

Trestle Table Top is Starting To Take Shape

Yesterday I started preparing to make the top for my trestle table.

A few weeks ago I brought some boards down from the attic to give them time to aclimate to my shop. My cherry log has been drying for about a year and the 4/4 stock is down to about 10% moisture content now.I trimmed the sap wood off of three of the boards from the tree and cut off the end where the tree started to bend. That left me with 8' boards. The final table length should be about 84" so I've go a little to play with still.

The Media Cabinet is Complete!

I started this project in October of 2009. It started as this:

I finally finished it last week. It is all Cherry with the exception of the drawer sides and bottoms which are Pine. I made it for my parents. They wanted something to put their flat-screen TV on that would also store their audio and video components as well as DVD's, books and other stuff. My mother wanted something elegant but not too fancy. This is the design I came up with. They didn't have media cabinets in the mid to late 1700's, but I think that if they had maybe they would have looked something like this. The remote control is RF, so no glass is required in the doors for it to reach the components.