A WoodWork in Progress

  A friend of a friend had a few projects they needed done around the house, and they had heard I was able to do some handyman type work, and possibly building things. I agreed to do the work for them, depending on what they needed. They have a home gym in their basement, with free-weights, barbells, exercise balls and a squat rack. The issue for them is that they have a number of barbells on a rack that takes up a lot of space in their room. It is approx 3' x 3' and this brings the barbells far out into their work-out area. It's a pain to navigate around it, and a bit of a hazard, since they catch themselves on the bars often.  Previous barbell rack This existing rack is probably meant for a larger space, possibly a commercial gym space. To make full use of it, you would need to be able to access both sides, which is obviously not possible in a home gym space. I came up with a plan that would allow for the barbells to be stored on a wall-mounted rack, secured to the wall s...

I was bored, and decided I wanted to do something with some of the nice wood I had in my collection. I also wanted to do something with box joints. I had seen some videos showing how to make box joints with a router, and it looked like something I wanted to try. The advantage of a box joint is that it is very strong, because there are many different contact points for glue to hold. It is also quite attractive. Box Joint One video in particular worked well for me. The Make Something YouTube channel has instructions on how to make a jig for the router. What I needed next was something to build. Sitting at the kitchen table with my wife, we decide that a new box for our pens and paper that we keep at the table would be a good project for this. I told my wife what wood we had to work with, and she drew a sketch of what she wanted. My wife's request. A sliding lid was not going to happen. He idea was padauk (the red coloured wood) and the dark brown walnut. The lid would be...