Squirrelly Whirligig

I have always liked whirligigs. It started with my grandmother who had several plastic windmill style ones as well as a few birds with spinning wings. At one point in university I made a goose whirligig with spinning wings but my goal has always been to make one with a bit more going on. I like the ones where when the propeller turns it makes a creature on top do something interesting. The classic is the logger chopping down a tree but another common one is some sort of teeter totter action which is what I went with here.

I have always been scared of the creation of the propeller but in hindsight it's really not that complicated. I have a book on whirligig to help me out and the hub just starts as a perfect square with some diagonal slots cut in it and a hole in the middle. It was a bit tricky getting the slots right in the middle of each side and I also had to make sure the width fit the plywood I had which was a bit under 1/4 inch. Once you've cut the slots and drilled the a disc the sander takes care of shaping the circle. The propellers are all just a simple propeller shape and I taped them together so I could sand them all to size at the same time.

The final complex bit was the mechanism that does the turning. I had some 1/8 inch brass rod as well as a tap and die set so creating the rod that I could attach everything to was fairly simple. The element I didn't know was how long it had to be. It took a bit of trial and error to create the rod, install it and then bend it to shape. Since I put the hole through solid wood I had to bend it in the whirligig which was a bit awkward. The rocker arm should have been 1/16 brass but I only had a coat hanger so I'll have to do that a bit better later. That length was hard to guess at as well. As with any project if I had to make it again, many steps would be much easier.

The motion of the propeller transfers to a see saw for a couple of 'squirrels'. Because I had to make everything balance nicely I ended up with the rocker arm a bit forward back than I wanted. This meant there is a bit less teeter to the totter. Ideally next time I would move that back about an inch and then the motion of the spinning would transfer closer to the middle on the teeter resulting in more totter. (If any of that makes sense.) My son designed and painted the squirrels. They are Homer Simpson if he was a squirrel. I think they look great but obviously you could replace them with any character you want. I'm thinking my next one will be something Halloween themed, maybe with spooky lights. 

Dog End Table

This project started about a year ago. We bought a new BBQ and my son made a dog house out of the box it came in. He sized it to fit his dog mattress and we were quite surprised when the dog decided he loved it. This was fun for a while but soon we grew tired of a taped together cardboard box sitting in our family room. The roof was coming apart and we had started trying to store things on top of it. A cardboard dog house is not a good end table so it was time to design something a bit more practical. This was another exercise in Google Image Search and although I found several I liked I was not quite satisfied with any of them.

I had a bunch of poplar and baltic birch plywood so I wanted something painted. I had recently watched the remake of "Mad About You" and their apartment has some great wood furniture. Their kitchen has a nice blue with butcher block top so I decided I would try something similar. The dimensions were based on the dog mat I found which was 20x30 and the height was based a bit on the width but also based on how high our couch was. I split the height between a solid wood panel and the dowel bars. I wanted it open but I also wanted it to feel cozy. We choose not to have a door because I think our dog would just attempt to chew his way out and that wasn't really the goal anyways. The hardest element was that I wanted to use spray paint because of the dowel bars. Most spray paint I could find was more in the primary colour family but I eventually found a 'Chalk' spray paint called 'Coastal Blue'. I originally wanted to go with quarter-sawn white oak for the top but I was on a bit of a deadline and didn't have time to get to the wood yard so I had to settle for quarter sawn fir from my local Windsor Plywood. The top is finished with Minwax Wipe on Poly. The dog loves it.

Night Stand With Open Shelf

First we'll start with the design process. My favourite way to design is to put the basic parameters of what I"m looking to do into Google Image Search and to copy every picture that I like into a single folder on my desktop. I don't necessarily have to like everything about the picture but if there is a specific element I like like a foot rail or a side view I copy it. This can sometimes take weeks and I often have to use the Google feature where you see one picture you like and then select 'See More' to see similar images. In this case the input criteria were;
1) Night stand
2) Open shelf
3) Oak
4) Drawers
5) Grey
This particular night stand was for my son Carter and he was specifically interested in something that was grey and had an open shelf.

The overall dimensions were based on another night stand that I had that at the time seemed well proportioned. In hindsight I really should have decided to go taller. When I made the previous set of night stands we had an older mattress set that was quite low. Since that time, it seems that mattresses and box springs have gotten taller. My key message here is to pick a height that matches your bed and then create proportions that look good. My dimensions ended up being 24 inches tall with a top that was 16 inches deep and 19 inches wide. The posts are 1 3/4 and the the drawer fronts were sized to match the wood I had with the remaining space going to the open shelf. Construction was mortise and tenon with a dovetailed top rail. All of the panels are 1/4 inch plywood. I had originally planned on doing round pulls but we found some nice handles at the hardware store and switched last minute. The one element I wasn't super happy with was putting plywood in the open shelf area. I choose to just place it against the outside plywood. If I did it again I think I would have it cover the rails for a cleaner look.

The finish was a grey Minwax stain with a Minwax wipe on poly. I use the wipe-on poly all the time and I love it. I just have to remember to keep each coat very thin or it can drip. The stain from Minwax is the bane of my existence. I often use it on oak and it never works out well. It soaks into the poor and then bleeds for days. I've had good experiences with aniline dies. It's more forgiving and doesn't bleed so you can move to the finish coat much quicker. I really must remember to stop buying the Minwax wipe on stain and preferably will just avoid staining in general. The client however wanted grey so we went with the stain.

I wasn't too sure about the open shelf when it was first presented but in the end I think it was a great idea. This way you can have your water, clock,  lamp and glasses on top and hide your books in an easy to access nook.