Read Time: 4 mins

Hits: 9380

For me, woodworking is about building things and having fun doing it. I'm lucky in that most of the things I build are items that I have choosen to make, but once in a while I get requests for things that are either hard to find or are not easily available other than to have someone build them. This seemingly simple tissue dispenser turned out to be a lot of fun, I got to use a whole range of tools, even on this small build, and I did something I have never done before which is to purchase commercially available molding and use it for creating or augmenting something  I build.
I have seldom spent much time looking at molding in the lumber store and was surprised and how little variety there was when it comes to wide material with any kind of sculpture design. There was lots of plain molding, but not much in the "fancy" category, but I selected a couple that I thought might work. One was a baseboard molding which I  finally decided against, the other was a crown molding piece molding with a bit more charcter to it.

My challenge was to make a wall mount kleenex or tissue holder and dispenser and someone even gave me a tiny picture as an idea to help me with the build. I had no idea on sizes so went out to purchase a tissue box. To my amazement there are many different kinds and all sorts of different boxes, and none of them exactly the same ... similar, but not the same. I decided the best way to do this was to build for the largest tissue box and that way it would accomodate the smaller boxes too.

Read Time: 6 mins

Hits: 10877

Some furniture pieces are timeless and such is the case with these little splayed leg side tables. They are still as popular today as they were decades ago and little has changed. They seem to fit many decors with their tapered legs and small size, they can easily fit in a blank corner, or become a stand or showcase for artworks, plants or pictures, and they are not difficult to build despite their somewhat complicated look with the splayed legs.
Like all small tables, these want to at a comfortable "sitting height" which puts them around the 24 to 25 inch height so they are comfortable to use for anyone sitting down, which is another reason they are often called side tables, as in a table beside a chair or sofa. Most of what I have seen have been a solid color for whatever the wood they were build with, but in my  case I decided to make something a bit more showy by making the legs and the top of different colors.

I stared off with the legs that were 25 inches long and 1.25 inches square. I set these up on my tapering jig on my table saw so that the blade would leave about a 3/4 ionch square at the bottom and disengage from the top at of the leg about 6 inches from the top. then carried on a cut all 4 legs with this taper.

Read Time: 6 mins

Hits: 9863

With all the modern clock movements that are available, building a functioning clock it much easier that it was a couple of decades ago. In the past you had to purchase mechanical time keeping movements, and keep them running. Now, with the highly accurate quartz, battery operated mechanisms, anyone can build clocks.

For me, the first thing a clock needs to be is to be able to tell accurate time, and to be clearly visible in displaying the time. I don't want to have to stop and have to try and calculate the time every time I look at the clock. The second thing I wang the clock to be is at least, somewhat attractive. To help match these criteria, I chose a blank white face, applied numbers at the appropriate locations, then surrounded it all with figured wood.  What I ended up with is a clock that I love, is quick and easy to tell the time from and is a nice looking clock.

Collecting all the parts is the first step with a project like this as there are a number of components, the clock mechanism, the face, the carcass, the numbers for the face, the hands (hour, minute and second) hinges and clasps if you need them and perhaps even some way of hanging or sitting the clock.