Thread: Home made gifts

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How many of you guys make home made gifts for your spouse, kids, or family and friends? Over the past 14yrs doing Christmas with my wife's family, they do home made Christmas. It's really cool seeing what others come up with. A couple of her brothers' wives are now doing it for a side profession and make some really neat stuff. I'm no carpenter, but I try. This year they didn't do it, but I made my wife an end table. She wanted a nice heavy duty end table that is farm style so to speak. I looked around and couldn't find any really her style, or affordable. A guy I work with builds nice wood furniture and had some teak wood from an old barn. i'm not sure if it is teak but I know it is very hard and must have been floor joices. Haha It was super thick but I used a circular saw and cut it down and came up with this. It isn't perfect, sorry for the mess. I need to make a little area for wood working tools to make these jobs easier on myself.

I do that, made a coffee table from a couple of pallets. A bench that goes under a bay window in the dinning room. The cats love to sit there and keep an eye on the back yard critters.

Hand made is just cool, a good way to play with tools when everything else is working in the home and garage.

My wife and I made a cedar chest for her parents one year, an arbor for her sister and brother in law another, I made a fire pit for one of her brothers last year. Two years ago we made a table and stools from a black walnut tree stump in my parent's pasture for another of my wife's brothers. It s fun and I really want to keep improving any wood working skills I can. I have really grown to like wood grains and the looks of nice cabinets and such out of my price range.

Very nice Ryan.

In all honesty wood is not my favorite material to work with. On more than one occasion I have told people “give me 2 pieces of metal and I can make almost anything you want……give me 2 pieces of wood and I can make sawdust and splinters”. The sum total of my wood working tools (or tools that can be used for wood) are a saber saw, circular saw, a square that had been dads and a tack hammer and couple of wood chisels that had been granddads. The total of my wood working experience is a semester of HS wood shop 45 years ago.

Somehow a couple of months ago I got the hair brain idea that I should build a couple of “French fit” presentation cases for the pistol, derringer and knife I want to pass to each of my grandsons in the distant future. I took the easiest way out and bought what the store called “hobby boards”; pieces of wood already cut to width and sanded. Of course it was not only working with wood, but getting to stretch felt over the forms I had cut out of plywood.






The one thing I did notice was that just like doing project cars, what starts out simple usually ends up with add-ons you hadn’t originally planned for……like a drawer to store holsters and ammo in,



Then what the heck, lets add a false bottom to the drawer to store cleaning equipment under.



And of course I needed to fabricate a locking bar that would lock both the lid and drawer (I actually enjoyed that part). The first one took about a week to build and the second about 2 days.



I still don’t like working with wood, but there was something about knowing that they would eventually be passed to the kids that gave me a good feeling while I was putting them together.

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Mike, that's very nice and a sweet gift to the grandsons as well.

Wood and I dont get along to well! So with that said I can really appreciate what you have done there. Chances are that home built table will mean much more to her than a store bought one! Nice job.

Wood is actually my preference for a medium. Metal is challenging and has a much longer learning curve than wood. Wood is easier to shape, sand, join, etc. in my opinion. I think it goes back to junior high school where we had wood and metal shop classes. The wood projects just seamed easier to me.
In college I was majoring in Zoology and Marine Biology which pack in some fairly difficult science and math classes. I like working with my hands, so I went to a local High School Adult Education program for two years of night school, once a week making my own wood working projects. My first project may yet be the most difficult thing I ever made(The posts taper 8 sided on top, and 4 below the frame), a pencil post bed, as a wedding gift to my wife. We still use it and the night stands(almost 21 years now). I also like turning bowls, and the spare burl chunks are usefull as clocks etc.. After my truck gets completed I have plans for making a Shaker Tall Dresser, and a Harvest dinner table. For the Shaker dresser, it will have a cabinet made of quilted maple, drawers made of spalted myrtle wood, bordered by black walnut, and have black walnut pulls. The dinner table will be made from 100 year old reclaimed doughlas fir planks, with worming in the wood. I picked up 3 12 foot long, by two inch thick, by 1 foot wide planks for the top, as well as a 4a4 post, and some additional pieces for the base. I guess I grab wood when I stumble across it, then store in the shop until I can use it. The doug fir was only 80 bucks, and the quilted maple $
$125.00 ten years ago!








Here are a few shots of different projects I've made.

Wow Steve, all those are awesome! Great work. It is crazy how much barn wood and thick planks are going for around here. You definitely have to keep searching like a hawk if you want to get any good deals anymore it seems.

Thanks, I find wood more forgiving than metal, and a lot easier to shape and lift! That being said I've learned alot about metal from folks here at this site. I know what you mean about barn wood. Here it's hit or miss. If someone's tearing down an old building, chances are the prices are cheap if you arrive at the right time. We now have a wood reclaimer buisness in town, who makes big bucks selling similar finds! On the quilted maple planks I want to say I have 7-8 planks that are 3/4 or 4/4" thick, 12"-18" inches wide and around 7-8' long. the wood worker selling it had no where to store it at the time. Now days one of those planks would cost what I paid for the whole lot.

Here's an old sideboard buffet that my wife and I fixed up. It really needed taken apart and some wood replaced, but seeing as how we have 3 young kids, I talked her into just refinishing it and making it nice enough. She is into the old farm house type look and likes using chalk paint and such. I like wood that is stained or finished nicely. I have to bite my lip and let her do her thing since she looks at it more than I do.

She also did this old chest. Some one made a rabbit hutch out of it. She stripped it down, removed the nasty wall paper from the inside, and lined the inside of it to give as a gift, wasn't happy with it, and we still have it. Haha

Photos of the table and bench. Table wood was lightly sanded to keep the feel of a pallet . The bench was just off the shelf pine, HD fine woods.. LOL

Wood/metal... I like metal welding and lean in that direction. I am builder will attempt to use any materials and enjoy different projects.

There are some very nice pieces posted, stoves is the cabinet maker in the crowd . Not bad for a bunch of greasers, nice work you all !

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Great work guys, My brother and I owned a cabinet shop for 21 years, I have built a lot but prefer hotrods!! I still have a ton of tools as my brother is still in buisness. The end table doesn't appear to be teak (teak is oily and doesn't glue well without wiping it with lacquer thinner) But hard to tell, lots of woods around. Wood working has helped me a ton on interior work as well, it also has tempered me to sanding, I did it so long I can block for days and I guess I am pretty use to it! Keep up the great work I like seeing it.

You guys are crafty! Man oh man those wood projects come out beautiful when you do them.

Me? Not so much. My work bench has a steel frame for a reason!

I used to make handmade gifts all the time, especially when my Grandchildren were young. I made them all their first rocking horses, or in my first born Grand daughter's case, Rocking Burro named Beezer. I am holding it at my house for "safe keepin" until she gets out of College or is ready for it and then it will be her's again to keep or give to her child. I also made her a glass enclosed showcase for her ballerina doll, plus a transition bed which was low to the floor for obvious reasons. Our old Hot Rod Club even made trophies for the various Classes which I thought was one of the best ideas ever - - - - some of us could really get innovative and it beat the hellouta store bought dust gathers for the trophy case that sometimes all look the same.

Let me introduce you to "Beezer The Burro" !

Nice Mello!