Open Division

[Whaler]

A desk set done from a pressure treated 2X6 that I salvaged from a raised flower bed that I tore down a couple years ago.
The pen is a Copper Sedona, the mag glass and letter Opener are from woodcraft. All are finished with Myland's sanding sealer and carnuba.
I have included a pic of a chunk of the 2X6 that I started with, most of the rest of it went into the stove to heat the shop.

[Black wallnut]

Toys

All entries for the 2011 2x6" Challenge are posted in this thread. Entrants were asked to include as many pics as they would like as well as any added information they would like the membership to consider while judging thier entry. please vote in the poll.

[dbhost]

NASA Themed Desktop Clock for High School graduation.

I just hope I stayed within the guidelines... Challenge or not, this was actually built for my nieces high school graduation gift. She is a big NASA fan, and since I live in the area...

The material I started with...


I came up with this...






The finish is Minwax Golden Pecan on the SYP, and BLO on the walnut scrap, the entire assembly was given 2 coats of brush on lacquer and then buffed. The NASA Meatball came from the NASA gift shop on NASA Parkway in Houston.

I continued the outline of the arc of a traditional Tambour style clock by hand carving just an outline disappearing under the meatball, this was done with my smallest bench chisel (1/4"), and a Swiss Army Knife. I need some carving tools!

The 2x6 section was face jointed / planed to 1.25" thick, and edge jointed / ripped to 5.25" tall. The main body of the clock is 11.75" wide. The entire clock is 5-7/8" tall, 12-1/2" wide.

There was supposed to be a pen & calculator holder to go with it, but when I thicknessed the SYP thin enough, it almost instantly warped...

[Black wallnut]

Please someone else build a box. I'll be posting mine soon.

[Shep]

Biplane

Here is my entry for the 2x6 challenge.

I decided to construct a toy biplane for our future twins room. I think they'll like it. The wings and the fuselage are 2 feet long. I actually had more wood left over than I thought I would. I've left it unfinished for now. The wife is not sure if she wants to paint it or put some shellac on it. The cockpit is intentionally long to have stuffed animals act as pilots. It's hard to tell but the wings have an airfoil shape to them. Vote for me!

[chopnhack]

Regretfully...

Time in the shop didn't work out well, these past two months have been miserable... my initial entry was to have been a hotpipe bent oval waste basket with intarsia artwork on the front. Having never done any bending, I tried some scrap pine in the shop and had some mixed results. Discarding the design I found a picture of a nice waste basket and was going to build something like this:



With any luck, perhaps I can get to it within the year. Good luck to the rest of you! So far the entries have been exceptional at hiding the nature of construction lumber, kudos to you guys!

[Black wallnut]

My humble entry

A writing box sized to fit a spiral bound notebook for LOML.

[Whaler]

Looking good, Mark.

[dbhost]

Two things...

#1. that is a nice looking writing box / lap desk... You did nice work there...

#2. The amount of shavings off that old planer is just huge... If your kids have a hampster that thing would be in wood shavings heaven in there!

[Turaj]

Very nice work indeed! And practical too! I am sure she would be very happy!

[pelligrini]

Not quite finished, but it is as far as I am going to get for now. Weather and other commitments used up a lot of my time, and a bit of procrastination. It's been raining so I couldn't do the chamfers on my router table extension on my saw. There isn't enough room inside the shop. One photo below shows how little room I have when I set up my planer this morning to thickness the short stretchers.

What I wanted to do with the challenge was to use as much of the 8' 2x6 as possible on a needed project using no mechanical fasteners or glue. I also intended to do the whole project with hand tools, but it didn't work out that way. My ripping skills with a handsaw still need a lot of work. I was running out of time to do everything by hand too.

I simplified my original design. I had an idea for wider based trapezoidal shaped rack, but It wasn't working well with the material constraints. Doing a bunch of angled mortises and tenons wouldn't work out time wise either.

I crosscut and ripped a 2x6 after work Thursday night (photo 1). This one had a bunch more knots than the one I really picked. The clearest one of the two I bought last month warped, cupped and twisted something terrible while waiting on my lumber rack.

I cut and thicknessed most all the pieces after work Friday night and started in on the mortises Saturday morning. I cut the first 3 thru mortises on one leg with just my mortise chisels. I then opted to clear most of the waste on the rest of them on the drill press. 1" deep 1/2" x 7/8" mortises in douglas fir aren't easy. The wood dents too readily with little pressure when prying the chips. The drill press saved me a lot of time. I finished and fit all the tenons on the long sides and did a dry fit Sat. night. The storms and rain got me off to a late start this morning. I cut the mortices for the short stretchers and fitted the tenons. I did one tusk tenon before I decided to call it a day and leave it unfinished. The 1/4" wide strips that were left over from the crosspiece rips will be cut to make the tusks.

I still have 11 tapered mortises to do on the thru tenons and cutting and fitting the tapered tusks. The short stretchers still need to be pegged in with square pegs. I'm not sure if I will do the chamfers though. It is pretty stable with out the tusks or pegs. All the joints are really tight. Probably too tight if I even wished to glue it. I was thinking of just tung or teak oil as a finish. The last photo shows the remaining material of my 2x6. The trey is full of all the mortise waste. The dust collector contains some chips too.

Here is my submission, as is; 29 mortises (11 to go), 28 tenons and one tapered pin. I'll take my boots back off the shoe rack as a cold front came though and my feet are getting chilly.

[Turaj]

Well, I just made it before the deadline!!! I always wanted to have a chess set at home and this will do it for now

The idea for the table came to me from an old side table that we got from my Mother-in-law! The design for the chess pieces is from the book:”Using The Band Saw” by Nick Engler (I had to adjust the size and modify the design a bit to make it work with the material at hand. Table is about 20" high, the top is 18" in diameter and the bottom is 13" in diameter. The board is 12 by 12". Pieces are between 2 and 3.25" in length and between 1 and 1.375 square.

I finished the Black pieces and squares using a black aniline stain and the White pieces with just a coat of Polycrylic. To give a contrast to the table (from the board) I finished it with Minwax Golden Oak.








More pictures and construction details in the following post.

Thanks for looking!

edited by Black wallnut adding white space to improve page formatting.

[chopnhack]

Wow Turaj, that is phenomenal!

[Turaj]

Here are a few pictures that I took during the construction:

Marking the wood for the legs and pieces to be glued for the tables:


Next was making the two tables. In order to save all of my 2 X lumber (for the chess pieces), I made the circles in three steps: Joined 3 pieces for half of each circle. After separating them, I then resew them and joined the for full circle:


The legs were simply cut on the band saw and have their edges routed. Here is the table in variety of clamps (not really a good shape for clamping):

For the chess pieces I simply followed the instruction from the book. Maybe one day, I can turn those pieces but for now band saw has to do

At first I was thinking of painting the chess board on the table, but then decided to try a different approach. I cut 64 squares (1 1/2 X 1 1/2 X 1/8) for the board as well as 12 X 12 recess in the table (1/8 deep). I then finished the pieces (black dye or clear Polycrylic) and squares at the same time before gluing squares into the table (those thin squares started curling while I was trying to glue them . Had to clamp them down to make sure they stay there:

And this is what is left of an 8 foot 2 X 6 lumber!!!


Thanks for looking!

[Brian G]

Occasional Table



The dimensions are 19-3/8"w x 13.3/8"d x 27"t.

I used Red Brown Transtint Dye (.25 oz to 8 oz water) to dye the center insert and the legs; the top coat is blond shellac.

Construction notes:



I milked every last fiber out of my 2" x 6" x 8'. I started with a mental image of what I thought I could accomplish, and adjusted accordingly. I subtracted 28" from the board and reserved that for the legs.

Then I sketched out a plan for the top, and drafted the dimensions for the apron.



It helped to cut a few MDF template parts to make sure I could get the material out of the board. Here is an example for the top frame.



I re-sawed the pieces to slightly over finished thickness (5/8"), and glued them according to the layout. I would not have had enough material to make the frame if I had included the center part of the frame. That's why it was left open.




After a few trips through the drum sander, the frame blank was finished.



I had to redesign the apron mid-stream, because I didn't account for the radius of the ends being so short that the stretchers of the apron would be cut off when I bandsawed the ends. I face glued pieces to make the ends. I ripped and "book matched" slices of edge grain to make the stretchers of the apron. The stretchers and ends of the apron are long grain to end grain glue ups, so I strenghtened them by using cutoffs from the legs. Save every cutoff!



My intention for the center insert was to make a quarter matched piece, but the effect didn't come out as elegant as I would have liked. I used a 10" length, re-sawed it once, and then re-sawed each half.



After gluing the "book matched" halves, I then end glued (yikes!) the halves. I then drum sanded the glue up slightly over final thickness (1/8")



I made a frame template on a piece of MDF, which I then used to reference all of the critical cuts.

First, I used a very handy Jasper Circle Cutting Jig to cut the outside radius of the ends of the frame. Then I reset the jig to cut the inside radius of the frame, which also became the outside radius of the insert.



I made a second template to make sure the apron was sized correctly. I marked the radius on the ends of the apron blank, cut them on the bandsaw, and used the OSS to smooth the ends.



I then reset the circle cutting jig, made a new template, and cut (and sanded, filed, and shaped, and sanded, and sanded, and tweaked) the insert to fit the rececess.



The legs were the easiest thing to make. They are 1-1/8" square at the top, and each face tapers down to 3/4" starting at about 11" from the top. I made a quick taper jig to make the tapers. The legs join the apron by a notch in the leg. That gives additional support.



I applied the dye to the legs and to the insert prior to glue up. I had to make sure to keep the insert flat while it dried, and it swelled a little so I had to tweak it to get it to fit. Then I glued the insert into the recess, glued the legs to the apron, and attached the top to the apron with four pocket screws.

Thank you for your interest, and I'd be glad to answer any questions.