Projects

Here are some of the woodworking projects I and others have completed, contemplated or are worth taking on.

Making Clocks
Making wooden clocks are fun and relatively easy. This month I have been making several clocks to gift people in the festival season. At the core of clock making is the clock movement which does the job of moving the hands and showing time accurately. [26 October 2017]

Old Style Wooden Clock

Passion for Boxes
I suppose I am into making boxes. I just love those containers and the thought of polishing and embellishing them. They make great gift items too and I have never failed to get a pleased smile in return. That makes it all worthwhile. [24 February 2017]

Hand Planes Cabinet
Tools that are not close at hand tend not to be used. Thus sprang the need for a cabinet for hand planes particularly my Jack Planes. [17 February 2017]

Hand Planes Cabinet

Reader Projects January 2017
While I thought I was extremely busy with my house improvement and woodworking projects, I find some of our regular readers have been even more busy. Raj Moudgil from Assam sent me photographs of the bed he has recently made. It is way better than his previous projects which shows that his woodworking has improved dramatically in recent times. [24 January 2017]

Moudgil's Bed

A Side Table for Books
I have been working on a side table made entirely of Teak - Burma for the frames and African for the shelves and top. This piece has taken me much longer than anticipated because of a series of mistakes. [6 January 2017]

Side Table for Books

November is the Best Month
November is the best month in North India: neither cold nor too warm. Yesterday, I completed a quick and simple toiletries cabinet for my mother who had been complaining about lack of storage in her bathroom. The cabinet was put together quickly with plywood joined by pocket screws; making the doors, painting and adding hardware took the most time. The paint has dried and the cabinet is ready for mounting. [28 November 2016]

Toiletries Cabinet

Basic Moxon Vice
Working on the edges of bigger boards can be inconvenient if you have only a regular bench vice. This is where the Moxon vice comes in. I believe it was popularised some years ago by the erudite woodworker and author, Christopher Schwarz. Since then these vices have become de rigueur for the enlightened woodworker. [7 October 2016]

Moxon Vice

Making Cabinet Doors
Making and fitting doors to cabinets is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks I have been faced with. Last years I had started work on a Teak cabinet but had abandoned it after completing the carcass and shelves. The job of making and accurately fitting the doors/shutters proved too daunting. [1 August 2016]

Teak Cabinet

Ash and Neem Occasional Table
Our family doctor asked me when I last visited him to make a table for an antique gramophone player he had acquired. He said he would pay for the thing. I settled on a simple design with dramatic contrast - the legs and stretcher would be of White Ash while the top would be stained a rich red (Cabernet as it turned out eventually). [16 July 2016]

Ash and Neem occasional table

A New Workbench Top
My workbench is nothing like a traditional one and looks a mish mash. But it works for me, fits the space I have and takes care of most of my clamping needs, especially because I don't make or plan to make large pieces of furniture, doors and things like that. [27 June 2016]

Saal Workbench Top

A Tea Caddy
I spent several months conceiving and manufacturing a tea caddy. Since it started off as an experiment, I used wood that was lying around - a piece of spruce for the front and back, teak for the sides, rubber wood for the top and Wenge for the top edges. The inside trays are of Pine. The finish is Shellac. [19 May 2016]

Tea Caddy

Stand for an Old Cabinet
An old wall cabinet that once adorned our kitchen has been sitting in a corner gathering dust and all kinds of useless stuff. The cabinet is rather nice but there is no wall space in our kitchen so I thought it might get another lease of useful life if I placed it on a stand which would make it easier to access. [9 May 2016]

Stand

Dining Server
When I was gifted several lengths of magnificent Yellow Cedar some months ago, I knew I had to make something nice and large to show off the beauty of the wood. I had been looking at plans and photos of various trolleys that could serve as a dining server and felt Yellow Cedar was most suited for such a project. [26 December 2015]

Dining Server made of Yellow Cedar and Bengal Mahogany

Mini Tool Chest
Of the numerous designs and options available, one which any DIY woodworker could make is a mini tool chest, which goes by a variety of names such as "grandfather's tool chest", "carrying tool box" and so on. [26 August 2015]

Mini Tool Chest

Making a Till
A till is nothing other than a sliding tray installed within a chest or drawer, like the ones that are used to keep notes and coins in a cash register. Small tills are used to accommodate cutlery and other items inside a larger drawer and so on. Tool chests too have tills that slide on runners attached to the insides. [13 August 2015]

A till for my toolbox

Steps to Making Small Boxes
As in most woodworking projects, box making too has many design approaches, methods and so on. While there are no limits on design possibilities there are some basics on which permutations and combinations are based on. [12 July 2015]

Rubber wood tool box

Lessons from a Built-in
Despite soaring temperatures (45 degrees centigrade and above) threatening to shut down my brain, I managed to complete the top half of the built-in for my study. [31 May 2015]

Tools Cabinet with Plywood and Assorted Wood
To accommodate my power tools littered all over my study I made a medium size tools cabinet with plywood and an assortment of wood that I had lying around, including Ash, Pine and steamed Beech. [29 April 2015]

Tools Cabinet

Wooden Nests
Sparrows are disappearing from our urban lands due to lack of nesting sites. Hobbyist wood workers like us can help in the conservation effort by building nest boxes from scrap wood and keeping in our back yards or giving it to friends and family. [28 March 2015]

Help the disappearing Sparrows

Frame and Panel Door by Col Bala
Making a door and door frame for our front entrance was a different ball game. Not only it had to look good and flawless, it also had to operate smoothly and had to be real strong. At the outset it appears to be a very easy task, but remember in a door if you do a mistake, it will not operate as desired.[13 November 2014]

A Sturdy Trestle Table by Kishore Singh Parihar
This is a eco-friendly concept that uses scrap wood destined to end up as firewood or pulp to make functional and an aesthetically pleasing object. This piece was the winner of our 100th milestone contest. [7 November 2014]

Kitchen Sideboard
I have just completed making what constitutes my first commission: a sideboard. The client wanted something cheap, durable, functional yet nice looking for a kitchen. [7 September 2014]

Kitchen Sideboard

Building a Kitchen Wall Shelf with Drawers For the beginner it is more important to make things out of wood rather than worry about joinery, high quality finishing and so on.So here is a step-by-step presentation on making a kitchen wall shelf with drawers. [16 April 2014]

Wall Shelf

Simple DIY Projects Dipti Agarwal, a DIY enthusiast, came over on the weekend with her husband and a video team to shoot a couple of sequences for some Youtube videos on DIY they are putting together. The focus was on really simple but useful projects for the home which anyone without any skills could take on. [31 March 2014]

Wall Box

Project - Saw Stand or Basic Cabinet Construction with Pocket-Hole Joinery
This week, I quickly put together a very basic plywood stand with castors for my benchtop table saw. The entire project took less than a day with the most time consuming part being the cutting and sizing of the plywood pieces, which I ripped from an eight by four feet sheet of three quarter inch plywood. [29 November 2013]

Saw Stand

Project - Boxes are Best
Boxes are best for practicing woodworking skills. Box construction varies from the simple to the very complex depending on the type of joints used. The crudest boxes like the one in the photograph below are made of pieces screwed or nailed together while more complex ones would entail dovetail joints, well-fitting lids and so on. [9 November 2013]



Quick Bookshelf with Pocket-Hole Screws
One easy way of quickly putting together shelves, kitchen cabinets and so on is with the use of pocket-hole screws. Unlike butt joints held together by screws, pocket-hole screws do not go into end grain and are therefore much stronger.  A screw going into end grain as in a butt joint is inherently weak whereas the angled screw in a pocket-hole goes into long grain which is strong and holds well. [30 September 2013]

Bookshelf built with Pockethole Screws

MDF Box The easiest and a generally useful project is the box. And that's what I decided to make with some scrap MDF that had been lying around for months. [19 August 2013]

MDF Box

Project: Teak Bookcase

All about building a Teak bookcase. [14 September 2012]

Teak Bookcase

Project: Basic Router Table
12/09/2012
The router's versatility and productivity can greatly be enhanced by mounting it on a router table. What this does in effect is to make the router stationary and the work piece mobile – the reverse of what it is in the hand held position.

Project: Basic Drill Press Table
14/06/2012
I have an old but trusty Hitachi drill press which isn’t the most accurate of machines – wobbles about quite a bit – and I have been planning to make a drill press table to make it easier working with larger pieces more accurately. For, most drill presses including mine come with only a small metal table that is meant more for metal work than woodworking.

Project: Bookshelf in a Weekend
06/05/2012
Small bookshelves around the house make great storage units and often add interest to otherwise dull walls. Even kitchens could do with small bookshelves to store cookbooks, spice bottles and so on.

Project: Mini Showcase
10/04/2012
I wanted to build a mini showcase to hold a carved figurine. The figurine is small about 5 inches tall and the showcase needs to be small as well. Although this is a small project it has everything that takes to make a much larger project.

Medicine Cabinet

Summer Projects?
04/04/2012
Summer is no time in North India to be in a small workshop and there is no way I can install an air conditioner in it. Even if I could, the saw dust would choke the air conditioner in no time. Maybe I’ll try a desert cooler.At any rate, I hope I can find time from my regular work to complete some of the projects I have in mind.

Base for Light Fixtures
26/09/2011
Problems associated with directly fixing a light fixture can be obviated by using a wooden base. I make the wooden bases out of rubber wood boards, stain and polish them lightly and then fix them on the wall, leaving a small outlet for the electrical wires to pass through.
   
How to make a Basic Bookshelf
20/03/2011
Many households never seem to have enough shelf space for their books, magazines and other odds and ends.  The easiest solution is to build quick and easy bookshelves that will store your books and whatever else you need to display. For putting away stuff you could add a drawer at the bottom of a bookshelf.

How To Hang a Picture Frame
16/03/2011
Hanging framed paintings and photographs on walls is one of the commonest home tasks. Yet, even a simple job like this can be intimidating to the lay person. Nothing could be simpler though.

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