Woodworking Articles

"I can't believe I ate the whole thing..." — When I built this cedar bird house last year, I was hopeful that it would attract blue birds or some other colorful song birds. So I was somewhat excited to see a “bird” sticking his head out of the house as I was doing some yard work recently. But as I got closer to the house I realized the bird was […]

Frogs in the Bird House

This entry was posted in Projects on June 6, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Side-by-side comparison of Milwaukee and Ryobi adapters — More than once I’ve found myself in a situation where I needed to drill a hole or insert a screw in a hard-to-reach location but lacked the technology to easily accomplish the task in a satisfactory manner. Typically, these are situations where there is insufficient room to position the drill directly over the hole so I usually resort to […]

Milwaukee and Ryobi Angled Drill Adapters

This entry was posted in Accesories Tools on May 27, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Exposed ends of carpenter bee tunnels — In addition to repairing nail holes in a collection of reclaimed redwood lumber, I was also faced with the task of repairing a number of voids in the wood made by carpenter bees. This task involved two basic types of repairs: 1) plugging holes, and 2) filling tunnels. The holes consisted of either entrance holes where the bees burrowed into […]

Repairing Carpenter Bee Holes in Reclaimed Wood

This entry was posted in Restoration Techniques on May 17, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Old nail holes in top rail of redwood bench — I was fortunate to salvage a number of boards from an old redwood bench in order to repurpose the wood into a newer, cooler bench but one of the challenges was repairing the various nail holes that were left behind after pulling out all the rusty old nails. I could have gone for the rustic look […]

How to Fix Nail Holes in Reclaimed Wood

This entry was posted in Restoration Solutions on May 13, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Setting up the jig to cut the tenon cheeks — An angled mortise and tenon joint can be a challenge to cut, especially for those of us who don’t make such joints on a regular basis. That’s where a jig comes to the rescue. Here’s a quick and dirty “semi-adjustable” jig that can be built in a half hour or less that simplifies the task […]

Angled Tenon Jig

This entry was posted in Jigs on April 26, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Before and after: redwood blank and finished DIY dowel — If you’re ever in need of a dowel but don’t have one handy, there’s an easy fix: roll your own! The DIY approach not only provides immediate gratification but also allows you to create dowels of custom size or species that may be difficult to find in stores or online. And you’ll likely save money. There […]

Roll Your Own Dowels

This entry was posted in Jigs Techniques on March 30, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

A grove of black and white oaks approaching harvest-able size — My brother John and I took advantage of an unseasonably warm mid-March day to go for a nice long hike in the woods near where we grew up in the mountains of eastern PA. As I am wont to do, I found myself examining various trees along the way, identifying them by species, considering why certain trees are growing […]

A Walk in the Woods

This entry was posted in Wood on March 16, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Cutaway view of carpenter bee tunnels in redwood lumber — When I reclaimed the lumber from an old redwood bench, I knew there were carpenter bees taking up residence in the wood but I had no idea how many – and how much damage they had caused. Boy, was I in for a surprise! The only external evidence of the bees was neat 1/2″ diameter […]

Carpenter Bee Damage

This entry was posted in Restoration Wood on March 6, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Bluebird house with 1-1/2" diameter double thickness hole — What to make when you have left over wood from an Adirondack side table project that was made from left overs from an Adirondack chair project? How about bird houses? In fact, I had enough left over cedar and cypress to make three bird houses. So that’s what I did. The houses were sized to […]

Bluebird Houses

This entry was posted in Projects on February 18, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Adirondack chair and matching table ready for finishing — After building some Adirondack chairs, I decided that an accompanying side table would be an ideal mini-project for using up the left over cedar lumber. So, I looked around a bit to get some ideas and settled on a fairly simple design that is similar to one that Norm Abram used but with longer legs. […]

Adirondack Side Table

This entry was posted in Projects on February 5, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

Traced curves cut with bandsaw and sanded smooth — In an earlier post, I described a simple method for laying out a curved piece for an Adirondack chair back support. I tried this same approach on another chair but this time the piece did not fit quite so well. After mulling it over a bit, I realized that the poor fit was probably because […]

Chair Curve Layout Redux

This entry was posted in Techniques on January 24, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

With the new year upon us, it has me thinking about what I want to accomplish woodworking-wise for the next 12 months. New tools to try, new projects to tackle, new techniques to learn, etc. Here’s what I have so far: Learn to scroll saw. I’ve always been intrigued watching someone cut out intricate shapes with […]

Woodworking Goals For The Year

This entry was posted in Techniques Tools on January 19, 2016 by Bill Kovalick

All season Adirondack chair made from cypress — What could be better on a hot summer day than a cold drink, a good book, and a quiet, shady spot to read? How about a comfortable Adirondack chair? Exactly. After mulling it over for a number of years, I finally got around to building some Adirondack chairs this past Fall. Yes, a bit late […]

Adirondack Chairs

This entry was posted in Projects on December 22, 2015 by Bill Kovalick

Dryer Booster Fan

This entry was posted in Projects on November 27, 2015 by Bill Kovalick

Entertainment center housing a 1980's era TV and stereo system — Most of the furniture from my early woodworking ventures had a red oak theme to it and this entertainment center was no exception. It was made in the late 1980’s and is fairly representative of entertainment centers of that time: an opening to house a nice sized TV (32″ was large back then), a series […]

Oak Entertainment Center

This entry was posted in Projects on October 21, 2015 by Bill Kovalick

Oversized oak bookshelf — When I made this bookcase some years back, I built it to fit a specific area of an office wall. However, if I were to do it again, I would have made two narrower bookcases rather than one wide unit. At the time, my thinking was that a single wide unit would be the most […]

Over-sized Oak Bookcase

This entry was posted in Projects on October 16, 2015 by Bill Kovalick

While building an Adirondack chair, I needed to create a curved support piece that would attach to the rear side of the back slats. I made the chair from a set of plans that provided templates for all of the other pieces but this particular curved piece was a refinement that I decided to add […]