Mike's
Woodworking Projects
Villa Park, CA
I'm amazed that people have found this web site - I'm always surprised when I receive an e-mail from someone who wants to ask a question about one of my projects. If you found this web site, I'd really appreciate if you would send me an e-mail letting me know you found it and how you found it - from a Google search for something, or from a woodworking forum site, or... Just send me a note at mike@mikes-woodwork.com. I promise I won't use your e-mail address or send you any e-mail, unless you ask me a question. And if you'd like to tell me where in the world you're located, I'd be interested in that, also. Thanks!
Every now and then, someone contacts me to ask if I will build a piece of furniture for them. I'm happy to build furniture for clients but the problem is shipping - it's very expensive and is usually a deal killer if you live far from me. If you write me asking for a price on a piece of furniture, please tell me where you live (I'm in Villa Park, California).
And if you would like to visit my non-woodworking web site, you can find it here. While this has nothing to do with woodworking, my wife's web site is here.
Visit my "Tutorials" page. I have tutorials on a variety of subjects.
4/26/2013 Here's a panel I just finished for the owners of the Conger Ranch in South Dakota. It consists of a center of the Conger Ranch brand, in black in an ellipse of holly. As I understand it, the brand is read as "Bar, open A, Seven". Around the ellipse is banding consisting of bloodwood, green dyed veneer, and another ring of bloodwood. The ellipse is surrounded by sprigs of dogwood in a field of laurel burl. The banding around the field is holly and green dyed veneer. The border is walnut.
It was originally intended to be a serving tray but they changed their mind and decided to go with a wall hanging. The frame is a rope molding painted to look somewhat like rope. The "rope" doesn't show up well against this background.
4/10/2013 Here's the final of Judy's coffee table. I went with a high gloss on the marquetry shelf. I'm going to enter it in the OC Fair woodworking competition.
4/5/2013 I'm close to being finished with Judy's coffee table. I ordered the glass for the top and should receive it next week. Here's what the table looks like now.
4/1/2013 In between the other projects, I've been working on the marquetry for Judy's coffee table. It took me quite a while to draw the design, then I had to put a packet of veneer together and cut out the pieces - about 400 pieces. Then I had to sand shade the pieces and put them back into the field.
The background (field) is 16 pieces of wenge laid in a radial match. The rose petals are holly and the leaves are dyed green veneer. The stem is olive. The banding is holly and green dyed veneer. The border is figured mahogany. The picture is of the glue face - the show face will be a mirror image of what you see in the picture. Right now, there's veneer tape all over the show face. Still a lot to go, but I'm going to finish it in time for the OC Fair competition.
2/26/2013 We're going to host a large dinner party and needed some extra chairs. Some friends had six chairs that were in pretty bad shape but were willing to give them to us. I repaired and refinished them.
Several of the chairs needed repair - one had a loose joint form the seat into the back rail, another had some splitting of the back rail, that, while sound, would have caught on the user's clothes, two had places where the wood was damaged and needed a replacement insert, two has loose crest rails, probably form the chair falling over backwards, and the back splat on one was split from top to bottom.
In quality, they were good and bad. Well constructed, actually, with traditional mortise and tenon from the seat into the back rail. Many chairs from this era used dowels and dowel joints usually do not last. Only one joint was loose and it was because the back rail had split at the joint.
The wood is walnut but the selection was very poor. The pieces are cut from glued up stock, with light sapwood glued to dark heartwood - so you can easily see the joints. The crest rails were each very light which made finishing to a consistent color difficult.
The wood had been infested with woodworms at one time. As I sanded the chairs to remove the old finish, the woodwork larvae channels were exposed. There was no active infestation, however. I used wood filler to fill all the visible woodworm channels. As a side note, woodworms generally only eat sapwood, not heartwood.
The work process was to do all the repairs first, then sand the wood to remove the old finish. I did not remove the finish from the carved portions because I would have removed detail from the carving. I just finished over the existing finish.
To get the final color, I used a mixture of commercial stains, with extra staining required on the crest rails to get them to match the rest of the chair. The finish was one coat of dewaxed shellac followed by two coats of waterborne lacquer.
Originally, the seats were coil springs and the seat area was barely higher than the seat rails. I chose to use an applied seat built on a 3/8" cut to fit the chair - and each chair was different so each plywood seat has to be matched to its chair - I numbered them to keep track. The applied seat added to the sitting height of the chairs so I had to cut a bit off the legs to bring the seating height to normal. I cut 3/4" off the front legs and 1.5" off the back legs to give the seat backs a bit of an angle. I felt the original seat backs were too upright.
It took about a week to do all six. I expect they will give many more years of good service.
2/7/2013 Here's a progress picture of Judy's coffee table. There will be a shelf that sits on the flat parts of the legs and I'll put a marquetry design on the shelf so that it can be seen through the glass top. Still a lot to do but I'm making progress.
1/30/2013 My wife, Judy, has been asking me to build a coffee table for over a year. When the threats got really serious, I decided it was time to start building:-) The coffee table will have some inlay on the top, and a shelf below that can se seen through the glass in the middle of the top. The shelf will have a marquetry pattern, probably white roses in some design (that I still have to do).
Anyway, here's the inlay on one corner. Only two corners will have inlay - the other two corners will be plain. It was actually a difficult task to get the inlay in, especially the flower and bud on the right side of the picture - lots of very small, detailed work. I'm usually not satisfied with my work, but I felt this came out pretty good.
1/9/2013 Here's another tray I did recently
for a friend.
The tray has a mahogany border, sides and back. The
design is of dogwood flowers on intertwined branches. The center
(background) of the design is laurel burl. The dogwood flowers are holly
veneer, with a center of bloodwood. The branches are cherry and the leaves
are dyed green veneer. The banding is holly and green dyed veneer.
11/22/2012 This is part of a project I'm working on slowly. It'll be four "TV" type trays, each with a different marquetry top. I call this one "Tulips". I was really pleased with the design, with the flowers only in the corner, and the radials coming out from the sun. The pictures don't really do it justice - when looking at it directly, the colors are vivid and striking.
The second picture shows a close-up of the tulips.
10/25/2012 Here's a tray I'm working on now (Dogwood flowers). The field is laurel burl laid in a half radial pattern, the border is mahogany, the banding is holly and green dyed veneer. The flowers are holly, the centers are bloodwood, the branch is cherry and the leaves are green dyed veneer. I especially like how the design stands out on the laurel burl background. I did the back in an offset radial match of drape mahogany.
10/05/2012 I just completed five water lily trays - although I only show four in the pictures. I sold one, and delivered it, before I took the pictures. Three of the remaining trays are for clients, leaving me one for a sample. This design has been very popular. Whenever people look at my tray designs, they seem to always be drawn to the water lily design. I'm trying to figure out why so that I could do more designs that appealed to people. Maybe it's the strong contrast between the lily flower and the dark water.
I did the sides and border in "tiger strip" maple to suggest water movement. As the maple ages and changes color, the tiger strips will stand out even more.
I did the backs in bookmatched tiger strip maple. Some people might call this "fiddle back maple".
I keep experimenting with the design and the materials. As long as people like the design and are willing to buy the trays, I'll keep making them. But for now, I want to do a few trays with different designs.
09/02/2012 I had discovered earlier that I needed to slow down my shop vac when using it for some sanding applications - so since I was doing all this work, I decided to get equipment to do that, also. I used a i-vac unit to turn the vacuum on when the sander is turned on. I prefer the i-vac to the i-socket unit because the i-vac has a switch on it that allows me to turn the vac on for cleanup work when not using the sander.
I also got a "router speed control" unit from Harbor Freight to control the speed of the vac so that I can reduce the suction when I want to. So far, it works very well.
08/27/2012 As part of my dust collection work, I wanted to enclose my router and have dust collection on it. This caused me to have to disassemble most of my cabinet saw, so I decided to build a new outfeed table. My old outfeed table was built for my old shop, which was very small (10' by 11') - so the outfeed table had to fold down so that I could close the garage door. Anyway, here are some pictures of the outfeed table and the box to enclose the router.
This first picture shows the outfeed table. I built it out of 2x4's with a plywood top covered by Formica. I used water based contact cement to lay the Formica and it was difficult to work with - to get it to "grab". I was finally able to get good adhesion.
This pictures shows the box I built around the router. I added a safety switch and mounted it at knee height so I could turn the router off without using my hands.
And here's a picture of the router box with the door open.
I haven't had a chance to use the router yet, but it has to be better than what I had before - which was nothing.
08-01-2012 I went to the OC Fair recently and found out that one of my marquetry trays won an Honorable Mention. Not bad when you consider they were the first marquetry projects I've done.
I'm finally working on getting my dust collection duct work done. You can see my system here.
07-07-2012 I submitted three of my marquetry trays to the woodworking contest at the OC Fair. I don't expect to win anything - the trays may not be of award quality - but maybe I'll get some people interested in buying one.
07-04-2012 Happy Fourth of July! Here are a few serving trays I recently finished. The first is a water lily with lily pads on a black background. The border and sides are figured maple. The back is a bookmatched fiddleback maple. I had done a water lily tray earlier but didn't like the lily pads - I felt they didn't give the proper illusion of depth. So for this one, I kept the lily design, which I was satisfied with, and re-did the lily pads in an attempt to better show depth. The background shows up completely black in person. This picture makes the black look washed out.
Next is a morning glory on a trellis. The background is wenge and the trellis is a bleached wood (don't remember the species). The border and sides are walnut. The back is 16 pieces of quarter sawn walnut, laid in a radial pattern to produce a herringbone effect.
The last tray is an eight sided tray with a circular design of dogwood on the vine, set into walnut burl laid in a radial pattern. I should have used a darker green for the leaves so that they would stand out better against the dark walnut. But otherwise, it came out okay, even if it is busy because of the heavy design in the burl.
The back is quarter sawn walnut laid in a radial match to produce a herringbone pattern, but I took advantage of sapwood on the veneer to also produce a center star pattern. It's always nice to be able to use what would otherwise be a "defect" in the veneer to produce an interesting design.
06-14-2012 I have the two morning glory panels mounted and with a coat of shellac. They're not finished - I'll apply several coats of lacquer - but I thought I'd post the progress pictures.
I'll also include a picture of the back of the first panel (the one with the lighter trellis).
05-21-2012 This is the next marquetry panel for the project I have going on right now. I call this one "Morning Glory on a Trellis". I did two panels, one with bleached wood for the trellis and the other with oak for the trellis (which one do you prefer?). The background is wenge and will finish pretty dark. Anyway, this is just a progress picture - I'll post the finished panel when I get it completed.
04-13-2012 I'm doing a project right now that will require a number of marquetry panels. Here's one that I thought came out nicely. The field is figured white oak in a half radial pattern (I discovered that oak veneer can be quite difficult to work with). The marquetry woods are holly, cherry, mahogany, bloodwood and dyed woods. The banding is dyed (adobe) veneer and holly and the border is figured white oak. I want to do each panel in a different primary wood and in a different design - which is challenging me. I'll just have to see what I can come up with.
And here's the back of this panel. There's no finish on the back so it doesn't stand out as well as it should. I chose the cut to produce the "star" effect in the center.
01-04-2012 My niece, Linda, asked me for a jewelry box so I made this box from wood I had in the shop. I never really thought about what's really needed in a jewelry box so I don't know if this will be a good jewelry box.
It's made from walnut with the inside lined with cedar. The tray bottom is claro walnut veneer laid in a radial match. The sides of the tray are walnut. I put a center divider in the tray to give something to grab on to to lift the tray out.
I built the box as a solid, then sawed the top off to make it into an lift top box. The joints are mitered with internal splines. The hinges are quadrant hinges which are always difficult to get installed.
[Since I posted this, I've receive a request for instructions on installing quadrant hinges. I'll try to take pictures next time I do a box and post it as a tutorial.]
[Update: I did do a tutorial on how to install quadrant hinges. You can see it here.]
12-20-2011 I had promised Judy that I'd do a couple of projects around the house. One was to build shelves for two storage closets. I made them adjustable by putting in panels on the sides with a bunch of 5mm holes in the panels, about an inch or so apart. The hard thing was to get those side panels shimmed so that they were parallel (and plumb) and parallel and square front to back. Walls in houses are just not straight and square. Below is a picture of one of the closets with the shelves installed.
I made the shelves from 3/4" Baltic birch and put angle aluminum on the front and back to reinforce them. They're about 52" long and about 22" wide so we can put a lot of weight on them. I made 8 shelves for each closet but we only used seven. The picture below shows the angle aluminum on the front of one of the shelves. There's another one on the rear of the shelf.
The top shelf is about at the top of the door so I had to make the shelf sort of U shaped so we could get things up on that shelf.
The shelves were finished with a primer, them sprayed with white latex (house) water based paint. I used an HVLP gun with a 2mm tip and thinned the paint a bit to get it to flow well. The finishing took quite a while because I had limited space for doing the finishing - so I'd spray a couple of shelves, then I'd have to wait until the paint dried. I did both sides of the shelves and I put three coats of paint on the shelves. But I was very satisfied with the finish.
The other project was to build four pullouts in one of the kitchen cabinets. I used the cutoffs from the closet shelves to build them. Nothing special, just ordinary box construction. The house projects are not finished yet - I have another house project in progress with a contractor. He's doing things that I'd find difficult or that I don't know how to do. More later, including pictures.
11-21-2011 Here's another tray panel I'm working on. It's my half of the partner project that I did while in Paul Schurch's class on marquetry. My partner had a panel like this but with a light background. This one came out better than I thought it would. The background is walnut in a 16 segment radial match (sunburst), the flowers are bird's eye maple, the branch is Chilean laurel and the leaves are dyed veneer.
Later, I'm going to do one with the same design, but with a light background, maybe maple, and darker flowers, maybe mahogany. I'm just starting the finishing process on this panel.
11-13-2011 I spent the last week in Santa Barbara taking a class in marquetry with Paul Schurch. The picture shows the panel I did in the class. I'll eventually make this into a tray and will post a picture when I'm finished. Overall, I enjoyed the class and was satisfied with the panel I made.
10-17/2011 Here's another marquetry tray I'm doing in preparation for my class in November. On this one, I did the drawing myself, based on a picture of a water lily flower I found on the web. There's several problems with this piece: the lily pads should show more depth, which I could have done by darkening the pads in the background, I should have used a darker green veneer for the pads, and I should have put a black strip between the yellow banding and the maple border, but I thought the flower and it's reflection came out well. Working with very light and very dark veneers is a challenge but I'm learning. I used some figured maple for the sides to match the figured maple in the border.
For the back, I did a bookmatch of tiger maple to match the rest of the figured maple in the tray. The figure will become more pronounced as the maple ages.
10-13-2011 I've been working on learning marquetry and am planning to take a class with Paul Schurch in Santa Barbara in early November. I preparation for that class, I bought Paul's DVD on marquetry and did the project covered by that DVD. His project was to do a top for a jewelry box, but I used his design for the bottom of a serving tray.
The materials are: Walnut burl laid in a half sixteen segment sunburst (the points are at the center of the upper edge), san shaded holly for the petals of the flowers, cherry for the center of the flowers, mahogany for the branch, green dyed veneer for the leaves, holly and bloodwood for the banding, and walnut laid in a 45 degree pattern for the border. The sides are 1/2" walnut.
Here's a couple of close-ups of the flowers.
For the back, I did a sixteen segment sunburst in walnut burl. Note the pattern towards the outside of the sunburst. To me it looks like the face of a big cat (maybe a cougar), but if you're a dog person, I suppose you could see a dog's face in it. Although I've laid a lot of sunburst, I had trouble with this one. The veneer was very old, in bad shape and didn't work well. And I don't have a lot of experience in working with burls in sunburst. But I learned a few more things from this project so that's what counts.
08-22-2011 Here's another tray I did for a friend. Seems like I'm stuck on trays right now. I did a twelve piece sunburst of bubinga in the center, with bloodwood as banding, and cherry as the border. The cherry is pretty light right now but will darken as time goes by.
On the back, I did an experiment with a five piece match of cherry, with the points in one corner. While it looks okay, I think next time I'd do many more pieces to make it more interesting.
07/10/2011 I'm gradually starting to be able to get back in the shop. I still have a number of things to do around the house and in setting up the shop, but I am getting some projects done.
I teach veneering and decided to do a couple of tutorials on veneering, one basic and one advanced. In the tutorials I make two different types of serving trays, with veneered panels as the tray bottom. You can see these in the "Tutorials" section of this web site.
My projects continue here