Miscellaneous Pieces and Mementos

April 2002-Headboard Project for the Kid

I made a pair of headboards for my two older girls. The posts, caps, and center plaque are all hard maple. The backboard is finish grade birch ply. Mortise and tennon joins the backboard to the posts. The finish is four coats of hand rubbed polyurethane. The Poly mix is home made with the following ratio: 4 parts mineral spirits,  three parts semi-gloss polyurethane, one part Minwax Puritan Pine oil based stain.  This was one of the first pieces I made for the girls when they were little and their Mom and I were first married.

December 2003

 Casket Flag and Memorial Flag Boxes 

The flag box below is for my Father-in-Law's Casket Flag from last June. It is made with wormy red oak we pulled out of his barn. The finish is minwax special walnut with wipe on poly mix of BLO, varnish and mineral spirits.  I have made several flag cases over the years.  The fun ones are hte small ones people use for memorial flags when they retire from the services.  The sad but honorable ones are the casket flag cases.  They are hard to get through without emotion, but are well worth the effort to honor the dead.  The case on the left is the first casket flag case I made. The small one on the right is on of the fun memorial ones that are fun to make.

 July 2004

This is my first attempt at a baby cradle for a friend who served in Afghanistan and his wife . He returned home late 2003 and is now in the Army Reserves.  The cradle is solid poplar hardwood, hardwood dowels, and hardwood plywood for the mattress support. All hinges, knobs, and

hidden structural items are shop made and solid poplar hardwood. The bed is made to be disassembled when not in use. The finish is several coats white Valspar 60 sheen lacquer over white shellac primer.  The whole piece was rubbed out with steel wool and soapy water for smoothness.

Secret Santa at Work 

2013

We used to participate in a secret Santa at work.  We would bring
something under a certain amount based on the information provided in the secret Santa survey.  This is a little box with a hand carved lid I made for one of our Secret Santa events/.  Th box is white oak with a sliding lid.  The lid contains a had carved "A" for the recipient's last name.

  2018

This little box is a "white elephant" gift made for our office Christmas party. The box is the first time I used through dovetails as joinery.  The material is 1/2" thick and is unfinished.  It has no hardware other than two hinges in the back and super strong magnets in the front of the lid.  The magnets stick to two steel screws flush with the top of the rim.

2022 

Lots of babies being born. 

One my closest friends daughter was expecting her first baby, so we decided to gift them the classic cradle.  Material is red oak with walnut stain and satin Emtech 6000 WB acrylic lacquer

 

 My cousins daughter was also having a baby at the same time as my friend, so she received the classic cradle in white WB Emtech acrylic lacquer.

 

 

 2023

More baby cradles. 

My closest friends daughter is having a baby, so we decided to build her the classic cradle.  It was a joint project between the two of us.  Lucky 13 work shop cut out all the pieces because he is better at the router than I am.  My shop lent the layout and finishing space.  His daughter chose grey as the baby furniture color, so we opted to use Behr grey interior paint wiped back to reveal the wood grain.  It turned out to be kind of a "grey wash" which was then top coated by two coats satin Emtech 6000 acrylic lacquer.  Turned out really nice.