woodworking Archives - Page 8 of 11

Easy DIY: Build This Simple, Modern Eastern White Pine Playhouse

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Jeff Easterling

modern pine playhouse 1

Looking for an easy weekend project that’ll make your house more fun for kids? This playhouse can be made entirely from Eastern White Pine, and it’s simple enough that even novice builders can take it on. Offered up by Janice Andersson of Easy DIY, the Modern Playhouse uses affordable 16mm pine plywood to create a sloped-roof structure with eye-catching circular windows.

modern pine playhouse 2

Measuring just about four by four feet, it’s small enough to keep in the house, but the board materials can be treated with a suitable exterior sealer or varnish if you want to put it in the yard as an outdoor playhouse. In addition to plywood and a few pine blocks, all you’ll need to build the playhouse is some steel decking screws, cut screws, a drill, drill bits and a jig saw with a clean-cut blade.

Keep it raw for a look that’ll blend right in with even the most modern of interiors, or paint it to make your decor scheme. Get the whole tutorial at Easy DIY.

Carved Japanese Chapel is a Masterwork of Intricate Wooden Design

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

japanese wooden carved chapel 1

Beautifully carved wooden elements have been common in architecture for millennia, including the antique Eastern White Pine columns, capitals, corbels and other millwork and decorative trim found in so many colonial homes. These flourishes are typically used sparingly, so seeing them take center stage in incredibly intricate interiors makes quite an impact. Check out this gorgeous wedding chapel, located at the Ana Crowne Plaza Hotel in Hiroshima, Japan.

japanese wooden carved chapel 2

Nikken Space Design collaborated with a kimono designer to come up with the botanical patterns lining the walls and ceiling of the chapel, containing its rows of pews within a shell of lace-like wooden lattice. The complex design is supported by an arched framework measuring 20 feet high by 62 feet long.

japanese wooden carved chapel 3

100 hand-carved wooden panels bear the patterns illustrated by the kimono designer, including leaves, flowers, butterflies and billowing clouds. When sun streams in through the floor-to-ceiling window connecting the pulpit to the garden outside, it projects the pattern onto the floor.

japanese wooden carved chapel 5

“Hiroshima is often known for the ‘Genbaku Dome’ and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, and one of the most popular destinations for overseas tourists to Japan,” say the architects. “For this reason, in planning the chapel, we were highly conscious of the fact that we were not simply designing as a commercial facility but a showcase that would let the rest of the world know about Japan’s peaceful spirituality, history, traditional arts and crafts, and its refined workmanship.”

japanese wooden carved chapel 6

We’d say that goal has been achieved! This chapel is unforgettable, and it’s easy to see why couples would be eager to book it as the setting for their wedding ceremonies. It would be great to see similar woodworking trends catching on in the States, marrying traditional craftsmanship and American motifs with contemporary architecture. (Hint: Eastern White Pine would be an ideal material for this!)

Spotlight on White Pine: Finishing Tips from Woodcraft Magazine

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

Screen Shot 2016-12-01 at 4.09.55 PM

We’ve written many pages about the historical applications of Eastern White Pine, from the King’s Broad Arrow to some of the oldest colonial structures ever built on American soil. Rising high into the sky in majestic green groves, the trees proved to be of immense value to the first English settlers arriving in the Northeast, and they soon discovered that its light weight, rot resistance and easy-to-work characteristics lends itself to everything from kitchen utensils and cupboards to ship masts and the grandest of residential architecture.

Woodworkers still favor Eastern White Pine today for these very same qualities, using it to craft boats, birdhouses, millwork, mantels and much more. It’s highly stable when dry, surprisingly strong and durable for its weight. If you’re a professional or hobbyist woodworker, you could probably use some tips for using Eastern White Pine to its best advantages. Woodcraft Magazine offers some information in its Spotlight on White Pine.

Working white pine in the shop
Let your stock acclimate in your home or a temperature/humidity controlled shop for a few weeks to ensure stability later. Then keep the following points in mind.

Rippling and routing. Eastern and western white pine contain far less pitch than other pines, but if you’re going to machine a lot of it, switch to a coated saw blade and router to avoid burning caused by gummy buildup. Clean the blade and/or cutters with a nylon bristle brush dipped in solvent.

Assembly. Drill pilot holes for screws, especially in the much harder western white pine.

Deciding on the right finish

The small pin knots found in even the best grades of white pine will remain tight, yet they can bleed through a finish. To prevent this, seal them with shellac. Remember, white pine will gradually darken to pleasing yellow-orange color no matter what clear film finish you choose (it take all, except penetrating finishes, very well.) The preference is to leave the wood unstained. If you do decide to stain the wood, first put on a commercial conditioner or a wash coat of shellac (1 lb. cut) thinned with denatured alcohol to prevent blotching. Gel stain also works and won’t blotch, because it doesn’t penetrate.

White pine finishing tips

Do not sand pine without a sanding block. The softness of the earlywood and the hardness of the lacewood result in ridges that won’t take stain or finish evenly.

Tone the finish coat rather than stain. After finish-sanding, apply a thinned (50/50) coat of clear finish, such as polyurethane, and let dry. Sand lightly with 320-grit, remove dust, and then brush on a clear finish toned to the desired color with a Mixol tint (available at Woodcraft) and let dry. Repeat for a darker color.

Check out lots more valuable woodworking information at the Woodcraft Magazine website.

Eastern White Pine Shines: WunderWoods Custom Woodworking

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

eastern white pine wunderwoods 3

What makes Eastern White Pine such an ideal choice for woodworking? Craftsman Scott Wunder, owner of WunderWoods Custom Woodworking in St. Louis, Missouri, gives us a few reasons in the form of gorgeous hollow beams, dark-stained tables made for a brewing company, custom shelving and other projects. As one of the tallest and largest trees used for wood projects, with trunk circumferences often passing fifteen feet, it fits the bill when large slabs of wood are needed, with a little extra pliability and smooth texture to boot.

eastern white pine wonderworks

Wunder shows off just how big Eastern White Pine can get in a photo showing an unusually-shaped trunk, which was trimmed down to 60 inches wide to fit in a Lucas mill for processing. One commission involved a series of long, wide tables milled for Goebel & Co. Furniture, which ultimately ended up at Urban Chestnut Brewing Company. Another required a bunch of new pine lids to be created for vintage wine boxes, to be displayed on hand-hewn pine shelving in a wine cellar.

eastern white pine wunderwoods 4

Says Wunder, “Pine is the perfect choice for anything with a rustic feel because it can easily be worked with hand tools, distressed with minimal effort and is naturally rustic in feel with the characteristic knot patterns. But, white pine isn’t always knotty. The big logs can produce completely clear lumber for projects with a more modern look, and even smaller logs can produce clear lumber between the knots, which can be used for smaller projects.”

eastern white pine wunderwoods 2

“White pine is also fantastic for woodwork hat needs to stay straight, like interior doors, because of the trees normally straight up growth pattern which produces consistently stable lumber. I have built many doors with white pine, and I love knowing that the doors will stay very straight.”

A notable bonus? “The wood smells great and leaves my shop smelling fresh and clean.”

Solve a Puzzle to Turn Each Page in This Amazing Wooden Book

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

wooden puzzle book

Skyscrapers can be made of wood, gadgets can be made of wood, wood can be made as transparent as glass – seriously, what can’t wood do? The latest cool and unexpected wooden design is so intriguing, it has already raised over five times its goal on Kickstarter with twenty days remaining on its fundraising campaign. ‘Codex Silenda’ is a five-page book made of wood, each page featuring an intricate puzzle. To turn the page, you have to figure out how to unlock the corresponding bolts.

wooden puzzle book 2

“As the puzzler moves through the book, a story begins to unfold, depicting the story of an apprentice in Da Vinci’s Workshop who encounters the same Codex. However in the story the Codex acts as a trap set by Da Vinci to capture any would be spies/snoopy apprentices in order to protect his work. The only way to escape is to solve each of the puzzles before the master returns from his trip.”

puzzle puzzle 2

The puzzles look pretty incredible, full of rotating parts and wheel mechanisms, and every single piece is made of laser-cut, hand-assembled wood. Laser cutting technology is what allows these complex parts to be made quickly, precisely and consistently enough to be produced on a large scale. So what inspired the Codex?

“The problem with puzzles today is they are either simple and cheap or handcrafted and supremely expensive,” say the creators, Brady Whitney and Hanna Humphrey, on the Kickstarter page. “Yet once you’ve solved either type of puzzle, you know the solution and have no desire to ever play with the puzzle again. The Codex addresses this issue of deployability by offering five puzzles in one, an intriguing story that ties everything together and a hidden storage compartment. On top of that, the beautiful design makes it perfect for putting on display in your home!”

puzzle 3 wooden puzzle book 3

The fact that this puzzle book is made of wood is what truly makes it a collector’s item. It’s beautiful, durable, and there are no high-tech parts to fizzle out or go obsolete all too quickly. The pre-sales offered to Kickstarter backers have sold out, but perhaps this imaginative project will inspire more people to create such cool wooden curiosities. Learn more about how the puzzles work here.

Wood Innovations: Beautiful Uses for Textile-Like Timber Skin

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

What would you create with a flexible wooden material that can be wrapped around objects or manipulated into shape like a piece of fabric? The faceted panels of ‘wood skin,’ a composite material that’s redefining the possibilities of wood, enable it to bend and fold in extraordinary ways. Applied to a textile backing, the geometric pieces of wood in various shapes and sizes hinge at desired points for virtually limitless applications.

Created by a design team in Milan using specially-created software, the revolutionary material creates a high-end modern aesthetic, whether it’s applied to surfaces or bunched up into sculptural ceiling installations or freestanding structures. The design enables vertical and horizontal 3D surfaces, volumes and panels.

The multi-toned walls at Dubai’s Reign Restaurant are particularly stunning, showing the material in action as partition walls, curtains and cladding. There’s also an acoustic version called ‘sound-skin’, shown here at the On-House Home Theatre in Milan.

Want to play around with it yourself? You can order sample packs at the Wood Skin website.