Pleasant View Woodworks was recently transformed into Grampa's Workshop with a visit from some dear little buddies and girlie. :)

Everyone got to try some sawing, hammering, sanding, and finishing on their special project. Special thanks also to adjunct shop supervisors Jonathan, Eric, Hannah, Sarah, and Deb.

Some budding new woodworkers! :)

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers. (Proverbs 17:6)

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. (Psalm 127:3)

I am doing sub-assemblies of pairs of boards first to make the final top glue-up more do-able.

Cutting the domino mortises in the edges...

Test fitting dominos and dry assembly...

Spreading glue, putting boards together, applying MANY cauls and clamps, removing glue squeeze out...

My sweet, able helpers :)

Boards for the dining table top...

Used the track saw to cut one straight edge on each of the seven boards.

Ripped the other edges straight on the table saw, bringing the boards down to final 6" width.

Then got them sorted and arranged, ready to start the edge gluing next

Face-jointing and planing the seven main boards for the dining table top. Got them down from 8/4 to a little over the final thickness (which will be 1-1/2"). Produced 4 drums full of pretty red oak sawdust!

My new project build? A dining table for my son, Jonathan.     :)

It's inspired by the Heirloom Table design, with some variations, from Woodsmith magazine.

Time to start milling a lot of heavy red oak boards!

Procuring and breaking down 125 board-feet of red oak, 8/4 and 6/4, for my next project, getting ready to start the build. Can anyone guess what it might be? Hint: it's a pretty big one. :)

The lumber supplier had very little 6/4 red oak on hand. I needed 3 boards @ about 5" or so wide. But he just had this one big honking board @ 17+" wide, very unusual. It looked in good shape, so I got it and used the tracksaw with a long guide rail to make my 3 narrower boards.

My wife did a nice cross-stitch many years ago, but hadn't yet framed it. Time to resolve that by making her a new frame for Mothers Day!      :)

To prepare for this build, I first made a miter sled that helped me cut perfect (enough) 45 degree miters on the frame pieces. Thanks to William Ng for the design and procedure for this sled.

After milling the four frame pieces and cutting them to a little over-length, I used the table saw with a flat tooth grind on the blade to cut rabbets on the back side edges. Then I routed an ogee molding profile on the front inside edges. Then I used the miter sled to cut the frame pieces to exact length and cut the miters on the ends.

After gluing up the frame, I cut and glued in splines across each corner joint to reinforce them.

Then I applied some Early American stain, followed by some water based poly finish, and it was all done, just in time for Mothers Day!

This year my wife has received two nice paintings created by a talented friend of hers, but she has needed frames for them. So I dug out some red oak from the scrap bin and set to work...

Cutting out the parts and cutting miters on the ends:

Routing decorative profiles on the edges...

Gluing up the parts:

Cutting in some splines at the corners to reinforce the joint strength:

Staining and finishing:

A couple years ago, my wife's mom bought her a table with a rustic wood top (mounted to an old iron Singer sewing machine table base) from an antique store. At the time, the top appeared to be in pretty good shape. It was a slab of red oak with natural live edges along the front and back.

(This is a different table than the one I made the top for a couple months ago.)

After a few months of storage in my wife's sister's garage, we picked it up, brought it home, and set it up as a bedside table. However, over the last couple years, the top developed some severe splitting and warping. I brought it to the shop and checked it out. Apparently the table's original maker had rushed the slab into service before it was dried and stabilized. So it did most of its drying (and shrinking and warping) with us. And the maker had secured the slab with screws through holes that did not allow for wood movement. So, with the tension between the wood movement and the rigid attachments, the slab just self-destructed.

Time to remove and rebuild the top.

Cutting out the two main split areas; jointing and planing to flatten the resulting 3 pieces; and milling up an extra piece to restore the width that was removed...

Gluing and clamping the pieces into a new solid slab. (Had to fabricate some special clamping cauls to accommodate the live edges.)  Scraping the glue lines, and trimming both ends to flush them up...

Sanding and finishing; cutting the mounting holes on the iron base into slots to allow for wood movement; attaching the top to the base...

All Done!