Woodworking

Milling urban trees at RE-CO BKLYN. All photos courtesy of RE-CO BKLYN.I met Roger Benton this past winter at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event held at Phil Lowe's Furniture Institute of Massachusetts. Roger was part of the LN show staff demonstrating hand tools and their use. For the past 3 years, he and Dan Richfield have operated a lumbering and woodworking business in Williamstown, Brooklyn, NY.You might not think of the middle of Brooklyn as a place to find a lumbering operation (and here I don't mean just selling lumber, I mean harvesting, milling, and drying it as well). This is what's known as urban lumber, harvesting trees in the urban environment and turning them into useful lumber, as described by Sam Sherrill in his book Harvesting Urban Timber: A Guide to Making Better Use of Urban Trees.In any urban area, there are yard and municipal trees that come down as a result of weather, disease, or construction and landscaping work. Rather than simply chipping them up or burying them in a landfill, they can be turned into perfectly good lumber for woodworking. Talk about your locally-sourced materials!Harvesting backyard trees. This is a job for professionals.In an office district.Roger and Dan's business is RE-CO BKLYN, Brooklyn's only sawmill, harvesting doomed NYC trees for unique lumber. They produce live-edge slabs from storm damaged park and street trees.This is a great alternative to combat the high environmental impact of global lumber sourcing. Dan says it reduces unnecessary logging and waste, deforestation and high lumber prices due to shipping expenses.They work with the city parks department and local tree services to harvest trees, and have been especially involved with processing many of the trees brought down by Hurricane Sandy. While I love the whole concept of urban lumber, I'm particularly glad to see someone salvaging something good from the storm that wreaked so much destruction on people's lives.Loading up a truck full of downed trees.Unloading at RE-CO BKLYN.The pile ready for milling.This provides a unique source of lumber for area designers and makers. They're the only source in the city for live-edge slabs, full-width boards with the tree's natural shape on both edges. Because they saw, dry, and store all the lumber at their Williamsburg location, they can keep costs down for local customers.Even humble yard trees have gorgeous strong grain.Preparing to load the kiln made from a converted shipping container.A finished load ready for delivery to a local woodworker.They also feature a full furniture shop, working from a custom-design background. Roger says their design/build team has created one-of-a-kind pieces for private and residential clients ranging from local homeowners to popular celebrities as well as hotels, bars, restaurants, retail stores and more.Working on a large custom table.Finishing a pair of smaller custom tables.If you're a woodworker interested in using some unique local NYC materials, or are interested in custom furniture made from them, contact Roger Benton or Dan Richfield at 347-770-5002, info@recobklyn.com, or through their website.

Hi all, So I have seen lately a lot of bitching about CL and Kijiji. Personally I shy away from CL, it just seems like people selling stuff on there are more desperate for human contact then to make a sale. However Kijiji, ”that shit is my pleasure! ” (for any friday fans out there). So I am compiling a list of Kijiji bargains mainly to show people there are great deals out there, you can get amazing tools dirt cheap, you just have to have the right eye. Dewalt router. Plunge/Fixed/d-handle base combo Amazon $301. I payed $60. Mint condition.http://www.amazon.ca/DEWALT-DW618B3-Horsepower-Plunge-Fixed/dp/B0000CCXU3 Bosch router table and stand.Amazon $210 (table) $150 (stand). I payed $30. Mint condition.Stand was still in original box unopened and table still had all its protective plastic wraps. Craftex CX series fence. 52” right rip capacity.Busy bee tools $280. I payed $30. Again mint cond, all plastic wrap still on. Delta table saw. Payed $120. (it has wings, just didn’t think to take a picbefore beginning restoration.Now this may seem like a dumb buy. I would say in hindsight it was, only because it’s a direct drive saw. It restored magnificently and with a good blade, works like a freaking champ. Craftsman 10” drill press.Sears $199. I payed $50. 9/10 condition (perfect all stickers protective films, just surface rust) Craftsman cordless VSR drill with 2 batteriesnot sure of retail but definitely more then the $15 I payed. So in summary we have $1620 worth of power tools for $305, with the exception of the drill all are in mint condition with manuals. oh and just for shits and giggles, when i was picking up the TS fence I also bought this lathe for $60 (total now $365 for $1800) and turned it into this

Different birdhouses for sale or for gifts.

Some different birdhouses made for gifts or sale.

Finish off the simple built router table from last week with a table fence that cost just around $10.

A maple kitchen cabinet designed to be a catchall coming from the garage to the kitchen. made of maple, and maple ply. My friend eventually polly’d it. This was my first opportunity to play with my new toy, the Festool domino. I loved it. It made all the lining up of the maple to ply very easy.

I’m building a 6’x6’ stand and so far I have a pretty solid frame built out of 2×4s for the top frame and 2×2s for the legs and middle frame. It needs to hold 300 lbs total, with 100 lbs distributed across the entire surface and an additional 100 lbs at two of the opposite corners. Each of the two load-bearing corners will be reinforced with an extra 2×2 leg. Now here’s the catch: once I’m done building it, it has to be torn down and shipped. After looking at the shipping rates, I think I’m going to end up spending $150 to ship all that wood. I was going to make the top out of 3/8” or 1/2” plywood, but after looking at shipping prices I’m thinking of making the main surface out of 1” housing insulation foam instead to cut down on the cost to build and ship it, with 1/2” plywood just at the load-bearing corners. (If I use 1/2” plywood for the entire top, shipping and materials will cost me an extra $50.) I should have posted here sooner to get everyone’s thoughts before I started construction, but I’m still curious: if you had to build a display table with these specs, how would you do it? Requirements:6’x6’100 lbs across entire top100 lbs additional at two opposite cornerseasily shippableeasy for anyone to reassemble with only basic tools—drill, screws, staple gun, glue gun, hammer, nails. Note that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a knock-down design, but all pieces must break down to fit into 2 boxes that are no bigger than 72”x12”x12” or 37”x37”x9” in order to be shipped cost-effectively (less than $150). Unfortunately, all parts must be shipped because none can be sourced at the destination location.

an american girl doll bed. My niece wanted this specific one i lucked out and had a youtube video how too. The video did lack the dimensions and i had to surf the net to find close to that. The wife did the fabric work of the mattress and pin board. I cut all the pieces first, and since it was the Krlyon spray paint, i painted all the pieces individually before assembly and then touched up as needed. I am working on a matching closet now.

The feedback I’ve been getting on the pens I’ve been making told me that a lot of people, maybe even most, like the pens best without the band, or center ring. I wanted to go a step further though. It absolutely pains me to cut some of the woods to make these pens because, no matter how well you line up the grain while assembling them, the wood never seems to look as beautiful as it did before it was split down the middle to cover the two blanks to be used with the slimline pen kits that I’ve been using.What I wanted to do was to figure out a way to use one solid piece of wood for a pen without spending more than I can afford for higher priced kits. I knew there had to be a way, but I just couldn’t seem to figure it out. Then I stumbled across this article, realized how simple it is, and couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten it till now.The first one piece pen I made was out of ziricote. I started with this wood because I just think it is a beautiful wood. Also, the last pen I made with this species of wood, I used a blank that was so pretty that I think it actually physically hurt me to cut it.I was quite happy with the result.The hardest part of making the one piece pen, in my opinion, is getting the seven millimeter hole drilled cleanly all the way through a four and a half inch long blank. There are several ways to do it. I will tell you how I done it, but keep in mind that it is not the only way.I think drilling the blank on the lathe would be the best way to go. I have a drill chuck for my tailstock, but did not feel confident enough in my ability to get it perfectly centered in my expansion jaws to drill such a small blank straight enough not to have a side blowout. I decided to go with the drill press. I had a long enough drill bit. The problem is that my drill press only has four inches of travel on the quill. So I drilled as far as I could with it. I drilled slowly and backed out often to clear the material. It is easy to overheat the bit going this deep. Then after I’d drilled four inches, as far as I could, I loosened the chuck, drew the bit out of the chuck about three quarters of an inch, and then finished plunging all the way through the other end of the blank.I was happy enough that I decided to then try a new wood that I had never turned before. This pen is made of chicarella. The blank looked amazing. However, after turning it almost down to size, it looked instead kind of bland. So I played with the shape and added some burn lines to dress it up a tad. Then my wife seen the pens. She absolutely loved the ziricote pen. The chicarella? Not so much. She explained though that it really wasn’t the wood she liked about the first one, but the one piece design and the smooth shape. Then she left the shop. This gave me ideas. She liked the pen design, but not the wood. I remembered that a while back she looked at one of my cocobolo pens and went on and on about what a beautiful wood that was.So…......Everyone ought to know by now. If I see an opportunity to make my lovely wife something that I think she’ll like, I do it. Here is her cocobolo, one piece, pen.

cherry credenza to match the cherry office desk. Large bottom drawer is a file cabinet. three side drawers for office supplies. The middle top is adjustable shelving for mail and magazines that come in. Really just a custom piece to organize the office. Just missing the hardware.