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.

Garden Swing

This past summer we removed an old playhouse which I didn't build that had reached end of life. If I had built it myself I might have considered saving it. This left an area of our backyard that was lower than the rest of the yard and looked quite blank. The decision was made to put in a small retaining wall in the back, a curbed area surrounding a garden and a pergola with a swing. The hardest part was clearing out some excess soil in the garden area and adding in some gravel as a solid base for the curbing. The retaining wall was just a single block and was made with channel block filled with concrete. It works great as its easy to construct with limited equipment.

The swing was from a plan from Lee Valley. I've wanted to do some Adirondack style benches for a while and this hanging swing seemed like a good start. Since it's such an established style I didn't see the need to try to design my own. The plans were pretty easy to use though I found the templates weren't always the right size. I chose cedar for materials because it was a cheap option from the home centre. For my next chair I'm planning on something longer lasting like white oak or cypress. I used a solid stain that has worked well for me and the hardware was all from the home centre. A nice quick project.

The final piece of the puzzle was the pergola. No real plans here. I sized it to fit the space and wanted something that I could grow vines up the side. I found some stainless steal 6x6 mesh that I drilled holes in the posts to fit. It seems quite sturdy and shouldn't rust. The only troubles I had were with attaching the post anchors. I was in a hurry with the concrete and didn't put them in at that time. Instead I drilled and used epoxy to set them later. I waited a month so drilling wasn't easy. The other thing I wasn't thrilled about was the height. I think the full 8 foot posts are a bit tall. We'll see how it looks once the vines fill in.

Bat House

When I was building my shed a few years ago I briefly thought that the gables would be a perfect spot to place a bat box. At the time I assumed bats were not that common where I lived. We're in the city on the coast of Canada and I had never seen any evidence of bats in our area. This changed last year when I was in my living room watching TV. Something fluttered in from outside and at first I thought it was just a fly, then it seemed bigger and I assumed a butterfly. Things got dicy as it got closer as it was now more bird sized but flying in a rather erratic matter. It was a bat! My gable and local wildlife were now coming together for my next project.

I am not a bat expert and I only just built this so I have no idea if it will be successful or not. I got the basic design from www.bcbats.ca. I took two of their plans to come up with my own design. My criteria were
1) I wanted it to have chance for success so bigger than a single chamber.
2) I didn't want it too big.
3) It was going to be installed on my shed so I wanted the back piece to help with the install in a way that would not damage my siding.
4) I am a woodworker so I wanted there to be slightly more craftsmanship than some of the plans I was finding online.

The back piece is about 38 inches long by 18 inches wide. This allowed for a roosting space of about 18 by 24 plus the top triangle bit for attaching at the eaves where I have some trim that I can easily patch if I remove it. It also allowed for a landing strip of a little over 4 inches at the bottom. The back piece is 1/2 inch plywood and I had a scrap piece of 3/4 inch plywood for the front. The interior slats are 3/8 and the sides are made out of 2x6s. I felt I would end up with a much longer lasting product if I did 2x6 with dadoes. I also dadoed the back piece where the roof attaches. This should help make it more waterproof.

I cut grooves in the bottom landing strip as well as the first couple inches of all the partitions and front piece. All areas are 7/8 inch wide. I figure once the bat gets in the tiny space they need less grip. It's all rough saw plywood so they can shimmy. I also included some holes in the top of the partitions so they can move between chambers. I was lucky enough to have some charcoal coloured paint from a previous project so it heats up in the sun. The last item was the most important part. The bat signal. How else will the bats know it's intended for them? The whole project took about 4 hours from start to finish. Looking forward to shining a flashlight inside during the day and seeing beady little eyes.

Dutch Shuffleboard

What is Dutch Shuffleboard? I had no idea either until a night of drinking with some friends and reminiscing about childhood games brought forth a game from his youth. A small down payment later to ensure he was serious about wanting to play again and I was off to the internet to figure out how to build one. It's not an extremely popular game in North America and I had some trouble finding plans. I did manage to find good dimensions however and after a bit of thought figured out how to make some of the key parts of the game.

The first challenge was the disks. They needed to be from a wood that would take a beating and ideally the would be end grain vertical. This meant I had to find wood that was wide enough for the 54mm disks. (I should mention that since it's Dutch, all the dimensions ended up being in mm.) I only needed a small chunk of maple for the disks and the most cost effective way of getting it was to take a natural edge shelf I found at the wood working store and cut it into slabs of the right thickness. I set up a jig for the drill press to hold the slabs and quickly had 30+ disks ready for the next step.

Since this is a form of shuffleboard you want to minimize friction. This meant that the disks needed to be concave so they had a minimum amount of surface area touching the playing surface. I'm sure the professional use some sort of router bit. My plan was to use the table saw to dish out the middle of each side of the disk. I was a bit nervous with the first disk as I figured there was a high likelihood that the disk would go flying across the shop. I tried to clamp the first one but found that if I put the disk into the hole on an angle and then dipped it down slowly and twisted I got the dishing with no surprises.

The table saw did a great job creating the dishing effect however it left a fairly rough surface. Maple end grain is not easy to sand and after some failed attempts at using a palm sander I turned (no pun intended) to the lathe. I have a four jaw chuck and I put a rubber band around the disk to protect it. I then used a drill with a sanding attachment with a foam backing to do the sanding. About 30 seconds per side and all tool marks had disappeared. I finished things off at the router table putting a chamfer on the edges. A lot of steps for a lot of disks.

The design portion I could not wrap my head around was trying to make a sturdy playing surface without being too heavy. I considered a 3/4 inch bottom but it seemed too heavy. In the end I went with a 1/4 inch bottom with cross braces every foot or so. They are rabbited into the sides and screwed in. I considered gluing everything but by the time you have screws in all the pieces running in different directions the end result seems very stable. I'll check in after 10 years or so and see how things are holding up.

I also considered getting fancy with the joinery and dovetailing in the cross pieces. The issue was that I had never seen a dutch shuffleboard and didn't want to get too far down a particular path without being able to reset. This mean the joinery is relatively simple dadoes and screws though as mentioned, screws from the side and bottom into maple make for a very strong joint. The only 'fancy' woodworking was the point system marks on the gates. Walnut dowels into maple holes sanded smooth.

The final result turned out well enough for my first (and likely last) attempt at a dutch shuffleboard. I don't often do a project twice. If I were to do it again I think I would commit to dovetailing or box joints on the sides and maybe turn the back portion into a compartment with a cover to store the disks. The nice thing about screwing everything together is that you can technically remove the playing surface and refinish it. I put on 6 coats of wipe on poly followed by a carnauba based wax. I also have some shuffleboard salt however the wax seems pretty good for a drinking game. Maybe one day I'll got to the Netherlands and check out a tournament.

A Trebuchet

Let's call this a prototype. I've wanted to make myself a catapult or more precisely a trebuchet since I watched a show on PBS when I was a kid. The idea that an elevated weight could be used to propel large stones at a castle was incredibly intriguing. I got even more interested when I found out that there is an annual pumpkin tossing competition that has a trebuchet category. The opportunity arose for me to make one myself when my son decided he wanted to do a medieval themed birthday party. We had also just recently painted our fence and taken down an old playhouse in the back yard. I had everything I needed. I won't go into the details of angles and dimensions as there are plenty of more detailed resources online. I effectively started with the length of the arm and all dimensions were ratios from there. When I started I was too impatient to figure out the exact ratios so I made it 'adjustable'. I learned later on in the process that the ideal dimensions are fairly consistent as you scale up and down so I didn't really experiment with any of the other settings.

Since I only had three days to put this together and the goal was to use it in a party game it's far from perfectly tuned. I managed to get it to toss a tennis ball about 100 feet. With a larger weight I think I could have tuned it to a distance closer to a soccer field. The only real trouble I had with it was figuring out how to 'release' at the right time. This is the only adjustable piece that I did take advantage of. I put a ring on the end of the string and hooked it on a nail. I adjusted the angle of the nail until it released perfectly. The other not so obvious piece was how to arm the ball in the sling. I started with the leather pouch horizontal but quickly realized vertical was the right way to go because it would release and get out of the way.

This was a fun project. Now I'm ready to build a pumpkin tossing version.