• Staple gun and staples
• Utility knife
• Saw
• 1/4 inch dowel pins
• Dowel jig (not necessary, but very handy!)
• Drill and 1/4 inch bit
• Tape measure
• Square
• Wood glue
• Tung Oil
• Optional: stain

• 2 oak 2×2′s, 3 feet long
• 1 oak 1×2, 11 feet long
• 2′x2′ square sheet of 1/2 inch plywood
• Sheepskin

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my shop lately, working on a number of projects simultaneously, primarily a guitar that I will be excited to unveil in between one or months from now. However, I have to be working on multiple projects at once so that when I run into a roadblock with one, or just get frustrated with it, I can shift gears and work on something else for a while. I also try to complete a few smaller projects while working on the big ones so that I never go very long without the oh-so-wonderful feeling of actually finishing something. This is important, as it keeps me going back out to my shop, cold evening after cold evening.

I have been a longtime admirer of Matt’s work over at Wood & Faulk, and I decided to riff on an idea that he shared a while ago, his Woven Leather Stool.

I initially was going to just imitate his project exactly, but a trip to Tandy Leather reminded me just how expensive leather is, and I decided to hold back and instead use an Albanian sheepskin that I got for a birthday present years ago. It has gone to boarding school in Hungary with me, followed me to college, and even temporarily served as a dog bed, although that was very short-lived because the dog quickly discovered the similarities between  a sheepskin and a rawhide chew. I’ve never had a very good use for the sheepskin, however, so I thought that if I was going to lug it around the world, I should at least put it to good use, so I decided to replace the leather in Matt’s design with a woolly seat!

The construction of the stool is very simple. I first cut the wood into the appropriate lengths. I wanted a stool that was roughly 18 inches by 12 inches, and 15 inches tall. That means I needed the following boards cut to length:

• 4 2×2 boards, 15 inches long
• 4 1×2 boards, 12 inches long
• 4 1×2 boards, 18 inches long

Here they are; cut, sanded, and stacked neatly for your enjoyment. It’s important to use your square to mark your boards so that you get square cuts, otherwise your stool will wobble, and worse yet, annoy you.

I sanded the boards so that they were smooth and not splintery at all, and I took the hard edge off the corners so that it would be more comfortable. Oak is hard, and a sharp edge–while not dangerous–can be very uncomfortable.

Next, I stained all the boards. It’s best–and easiest–to do this before assembly. I wanted to match the stool to an oak desk that I already have, so I stained them. This is entirely optional. After the stain dried, I oiled the wood with a tung oil finish. Wipe on, wipe off–it’s that easy. It gives the wood a nice shine and “lightly finished” look.

Once all the pieces were stained, oiled, and dry enough to handle, I used my dowel jig and drill (with the 1/4 inch drill bit) to drill holes for the cross-braces. Two quarter-inch dowel pins will be glued in place on each end of each board and will hold the frame together. The important thing is to make sure that all your holes are drilled in the same place on every board. The smallest deviations will make a big difference when it comes time to sit on your now wobbly and weak stool.

Once I drilled the holes for the pins, I put together the pieces without glue just to see if everything fit right.

It did. I took it all apart, glued the pins, then reassembled it for real this time.

Now it’s on to the seat!

I laid the plywood on my work table, then set the frame on it, upside down. This makes it easy to trace the outline of the stool onto the plywood, so that you have a perfect fit. I cut out the penciled-in rectangle with my bandsaw, but you can use a hand saw if you must, but it won’t be very fun. Then I notched the corners to fit around the stool legs (again, use the tracing method to make it fit perfectly) and laid my new, smaller piece of plywood on the sheepskin.

I used a staple gun to staple the sheepskin to the edge of the plywood, then trimmed off the excess with a utility knife, like so:

All that was left was to set the seat on the frame. I did not fasten it with anything other than gravity because I want the option of changing it someday if it tickles my fancy. For now, it looks good, feels better, and matches my desk a lot better than the old white kitchen chair that used to be there did!

Anyway, I’ve been suffering from an ever-growing list of projects that I want to finish, and they’re all getting stuck behind my current guitar build. Yesterday I decided that it was time to simply finish something before I get too bogged down. Too many ideas and too few concrete accomplishments can be counter-productive. I needed a finished product, so I put the final touches on a coffee table that had sat at 80% completion for about, oh, six months or more. It’s been sitting in the basement gather dust and junk ever since I finished building it. Unfortunately, it was too ugly to actually use, so we didn’t want it anywhere else in the house.

That needed to change, and last night it did.

Here’s what I was working with. I got the idea to build an industrial factory cart. Something that looked like it had seen many hard years in a factory, because old industrial stuff is cool, I guess. I wanted it to look re-purposed, so people could look at it and think, “Man, this guy finds cool new uses for old things, that’s so smart and green of him!”

Of course, it’s not re-purposed. I used new lumber for it, distressed to look old. I’ll at least give myself credit for using new lumber that I bought for cheap because it was the cast-off stuff at the hardwood store. So at least I was using scraps…sort of.

First thing I did when I built this table was distress the wood. I needed it to look used and abused, so I, well, abused it. I lined the boards up on my drive way and drove over it with my Buick, repeatedly. I smashed it with my hammer. I gouged it with a belt sander. I put 40 years of fake industrial wear and tear on that wood in about 45 minutes.

Constructing the cart/table was simple enough. This isn’t something that requires any great woodworking skill. It’s supposed to be rough around the edges, so there is plenty of room for mistakes.

I put some big old caster on it, and that’s how I left it for a very long time.

Last night I decided to finish it off. The table is made of poplar, which is ugly wood that needs painting or staining. Unfortunately, poplar won’t take a typical stain very well. It reacts with the stain and gets really splotchy. A friend of mine tipped me off that gel stains work well on poplar, so I bought an antiue walnut gel stain and rubbed it on in my living room while watching Minnesota beat up on Indiana at the fake Assembly Hall last night. Here’s what I ended up with (besides a headache from breathing in too many gel stain fumes).

Turned out looking a lot like antique walnut, I’m pleased to report! It feels good to check something off my project list, and this coffee table can double as a furniture dolly, or a very dangerous summer bobsled.

Hello again. You probably thought my blog had died for a second time. It hasn’t, I’ve just been busy making things. Last night I finished (well, almost finished) my second blog-worthy project. Here’s how.

I needed a new way to transport and easily set up my guitar effects pedals. I had been using this guy…

…which to the untrained eye is less than ideal, but to the trained eye is also less than ideal. Much less.

I decided to build a wooden suitcase-style case to replace the garbage I had been using, but I didn’t have any money to go buy new wood. Thanks to my mom, however, who recently brought over a baby changing table that she found on a curb somewhere, that Elise and I did not need, I DID have some scrap wood.

I hacked into the changing table and ended up with a few useful boards.

I used a piece of plywood that my dad gave me when my family recently moved to a smaller home. My garage absorbed a lot of what had been in their garage.

I wasn’t worried about the fact that the wood I was using was pretty ugly and mismatched and kind of dirty. None of it was going to be showing on the finished product. It just needed to be structurally sound, which this scrap was. Is.

The next step was to build two identical half-boxes. I was going for a vintage suitcase design, so I looked up vintage suitcases online and finally found a really weird tutorial on how to turn an old wooden suitcase into a bright yellow suitcase (who would want to do that? I don’t know. Not me.), but despite the odd premise of the tutorial, it did have some very useful pictures of a disassembled suitcase. I used those to guide my work. I also realized that making a case like this is one of the most simple woodworking tasks ever, and I was over-thinking it and completely missing the obvious…ugh, I just have to see things to be able to visualize how to put them together sometimes. Most times.

Anyhow, I just nailed the thing together. I pre-drilled pilot holes for the nails so that I would not split the wood, and I used a ton of nails, but it was a pretty easy construction.

After I nailed the plywood faces in their places (that rhymes, on purpose), I fastened the edges in their…I can’t think of a rhyme for edges that isn’t complete nonsense.

Then I put my pedals in place to see how it would look, and to see if they would fit.

Ok, so this is the part of the show in which I grossly neglected my photographic duties, and so there is a large gap in the visual documentation of the process. Sorry.

Having built the wooden frames, I proceeded to line the inside with a luscious red plaid flannel that Elise bought for me on Black Friday at Joann’s. I am the only man I know who bought fabric on Black Friday, and that’s all. But at $1.50/yd or something like that, it was to good of a deal to pass up!

I then covered the outside with a heavy canvas that Elise had lying around. I may or may not have killed a whole bunch of my brain cells with spray adhesive fumes, but it was all worth it. Look at this beauty!

The next step in my plan was to trim the edges with leather. Elise and I went to the local Tandy Leather Co. and decided that leather-working is super cool and that we needed to learn how to do it. What better way that just dive right in, right?

I spent about 4 hours or so at Tandy, talking to Amber, one of the extremely helpful employees there, about how the best way to trim my case would be. I ended up picking out a nice, sort of dirty-black, oil-tanned cowhide. I bought some upholstery nails and other hardware (hinges, corners, draws) and tried to absorb as much information as I could from Amber. Then I went home and started cutting, which was a little unnerving because that hide was expensive! But I didn’t make any mistakes and didn’t waste any leather, so all is well.

(This is another one of those times that I did a really bad job of photo-documenting my work. Sorry.)

I ended up leaving the sides canvas covered, and binding the edges in leather. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I used contact cement, upholstery nails, and little staples that look like stitches to hold the leather in place.

My pedals are very happy in their new home.

If you would like one of these custom made for you, let me know. I can adapt the design to accommodate musical instruments, or you can just have use it as a suitcase.

The "Surly Dog"

(For sale for $800)

Four days ago, I finished building my first bass guitar. I made it out of a cheap starter bass that I bought from my friend’s brother a year ago. I have a bad habit of taking apart guitars with the intent to rebuild them.

I went ultra-simple with the design on this one. No volume or tone pots, just an on/off toggle switch.

Unfortunately for many of my guitars, they never get rebuilt. I was afraid that my bass was going to share that fate, but two months ago I steeled my resolve and started building a new body for it.

I was not going to let another guitar die in vain.

I started by building a laminate body blank out of scrap walnut, cherry, and maple that I had in my garage. Using scrap wood to make something beautiful is extra satisfying, I think.

After gluing up the body blank and planing it until it was  smooth and even, I started sketching body outlines on the wood. It took me a while to find a design that I liked, but I am pleased with the result.

I roughed out the shape with a jigsaw, then used a belt sander and rasp to smooth out the shape and get rid of any jagged edges. I did this the hard way, because it wasn’t until after I shaped the body and routed the neck pocket–freehand–that I learned that real luthiers use routing templates instead of trying to free hand everything.

I bought a template for the pickup cavity, which made it almost too easy. However, I’m ok with “too easy.”

I reused the neck from my old starter bass, but I re-shaped the headstock with an angle grinder and sanding disk. I got a little carried away, so the headstock is very small now. I just pretend I meant for it to be exactly that size.

Here you can see the laminate construction.

After I shaped the neck and routed the body, I sanded everything down with very fine sandpaper. 400 grit, then 600 grit. Then I applied a Danish oil rubbed finish. I used an old t-shirt to spread Danish oil over the wood, then wiped it off with another piece of t-shirt. After letting it sit over night, I scrubbed it with ultra fine steel wool.

Rinse and repeat. Well, just repeat. I didn’t rinse anything. But I repeated the process 7-8 times to get a nice glossy shine on the wood, which is now sealed and waterproof. And beautiful.

The next step was to design and cut out a pickguard. I used 1/8 inch plywood and just sketched shaped on the wood until I landed on something I liked. Then I cut it out with a jigsaw and sanded the edges smooth. I routed a hole for the pickup, then drilled holes for the toggle switch and pickguard screws. I covered it with white canvas, which will probably get really dirty, really quickly, but the texture of the canvas is a delightful contrast with the glossy wood.

I installed the neck and bridge, then shielded all the wiring cavities and one side of the pickguard with conductive copper tape. I laid out the wires and installed the input jack, and I was ready to try my hand at wiring.

Unfortunately, I did not know how to do this.

Fortunately, YouTube exists.

I watched a quick video on how to solder, and went back out into the garage to give it a shot. Two hours or so later, I had an ugly–but functional (or so I thought)–wiring job under the pickguard.

I put on the strings, plugged it into my little practice amp, and heard a chorus of static. I was crestfallen. Not to be deterred, however, I opened it back up (which involved taking all the strings off again–grr) and looked inside. I noticed a spot where a hot wire was touching the shielding tape, and I hoped with all my heart that was the problem. Five minutes and a few pieces of electrical tape later, I plugged in the bass again. This time, no static. I flipped the switch a few times. It was so quiet I was afraid that it wasn’t working at all.

I started putting the strings back on and one of them dragged across the pickup. My ears were assaulted with a horrible scratching noise. It was the most beautiful horrible scratching noise I had ever heard, because it meant that my wiring job was working.

I strung it up, tuned it up, and played a little bass line along with the drum machine built in to my amp. The tone was simultaneously bright and deep. I was a happy camper.

So there you have it. That’s the story of my first bass build. Sorry I don’t have process pictures to share, but I’ll be sure to take some on my next build, whatever that turns out to be!

Oh, yeah, and a note about the name. I call this the “Surly Dog” bass because it growls at you when you pick it up, just like this guy:

Rest in peace, little buddy.

Did you know that eggplant (aka the most beautiful and wonderful thing that ever came out of dirt) makes for some fabulous fries? It does.

Elise found a recipe online that we decided we needed to try immediately, lest we waste another moment of our lives NOT enjoying what surely sounded like a little slice of heaven on earth.

We picked a ripe eggplant from one of our three bushes, and sliced it into little spears, like french fries. We then lightly seasoned them and dusted them with a little flour before deep-frying them on the stove. After about a minute, they were ready.

Salted, dipped in honey, and accompanied by a cold beer–I haven’t had anything better than that in a long time!

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