tim the Toolman's Woodwork Page

First, a word about shop safety. Be sure to understand and follow all the safety instructions for your tools. You'll find them in the manual; you remember, that wad of paper that fell out of the box when you unpacked it in a fever of anticipation?

Pay Attention! I don't want to have to come over and slap you around for your own good. Medical care costs money, and worse yet occupies time you could have spent better making something. As an example of not paying attention, consider the following:- a friend that was into building miniature houses was visiting to get some help making suitable scale furniture. She was not exactly dressed for the shop; let's just say very lightly dressed indeed. Because I was distracted I put a craft knife down in a dumb place and it rolled... and rolled... and fell off the bench and knicked her knee. It could have been a very nasty cut indeed. Heavens, it could have cut me! So, pay attention.

Over the last few years I've built quite a lot of furniture, ranging from small tables through bookshelves and etagieres to a big desk set. I've also made a number of small boxes for jewelery or momentoes.

I'm rather proud of this set of shelves and matching table



which were made to match the teak dining table set from Danish Imports in Mountain view. I've also made a similar design corner table to add to the ensemble. The geometry for the tapered shelves was quite complicated since each shelf has a veneered ply centre, a solid teak front face made of four sections and teak side/back edging. Each one has to fit precisely into the space made by the triangular arrangement of the legs at the right height. The center for the top shelf seemed way too small wen I cut it but I trusted the numbers and it turned out just right.

Sometimes I get time to make pretty boxes. Here is one I made for my friend Adele, of spalted Maple for the top, birdseye Maple for the front and back and East Indian Rosewood for the ends.


I made this small pine cupboard, modelled after an antique and built with full tenonned faceframe and door frames. It was fun to build, looks terrific and I'd be happy to make one for you if you're interested! It would be an easy design to scale up or down, to add a hutch to, a glass front door or paint.

One interesting project was a new workbench, with a Veritas twin-screw vice (no rude jokes now, this is a family website), tee-slot clamping fitments, GFI protected outlets and a full set of drawers. At one end it has a downdraft dust-extraction area connected to my big dust collector in the corner; this turns out to be very useful and you should really consider it if planning a bench of your own.

Tim's Tool List -

We all love neat tools and I'm no exception. I try not to buy something just because it's neat but every now and then I fall prey to plain old tool lust. These are my primary tools:-

Robland X-31 notes

I used to have a Robland X-31 combination machine from laguna tools; this includes all the major wood shaping tools you could fit into one unit. It's broadly similar to the CU300 but sort of the Chevy to the MiniMax's Mercedes. There is more about this interesting device at CharlieB's Woodworking Index. I used to make batches of a useful little add-on to set the saw blade height for the saw; something I no longer do as of 2004 because I simply don't have any time available. Plans and parts lists are on the X-31 interest group site at Yahoo should you wish to make your own - or batches for others.

email me at tim@rowledge.org