How To Make A Paper Rocket Launcher

Paper Rocket Template

How to Build a Storage Cabinet with Doors - Plans Included

Download my Sketch-up Make Plans here: Storage Cabinet with Doors
My CutList file is here.

How to Make Vertical Bike Hangers

Our bikes were always in the way taking up too much floor space.  I show you how to build vertical bike hooks so you can hang your bike on the wall. This is a great bike storage solution for your garage. I included both metric and imperial measurements.

How to: PAW Patrol Birthday Party Carnival Game -Bean Bag Fire Targets

Craft for Kids - Introduction to Woodworking

Kids love using the hammer and a nail, punch or screw driver to emboss a design into a scrap piece of wood.

This craft is good for a range of ages from little preschool kids to big children. 3 years old and up.

Download a simple outline drawing of a flag. Search for "flag coloring image" and tons of images should appear. Size it to the width of your board keeping the correct proportions. We used an old piece of 3 inch baseboard trim so I resized the image width to 3 inches and printed the template.

I cut the wood to the correct length, sanded the edges and taped the pattern to the wood. I then let the kids hammer away.

The project can be finished with paint, markers, color pencils, or crayons. 

This design works great any time of the year. But is extra special as a Canada Day project. Happy Canada Day to all our fellow Canadian Makers.

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Easy Fix for Sticky Drawers

Cheap and easy fix for wood drawers that are sticky or hard to open and close. Lubricate the wood runners and drawers with wax. No sanding required. Works great for old wooded kitchen cabinets and drawers and antique wood dresser drawers. This is how I fixed my drawers.

Google Map Marker Birdhouse Template

Here's my video for a super easy to build, super awesome birdhouse.

Download: Google Map Marker Birdhouse Template

A few years ago I wrote a blog entry on this birdhouse.

Optimize Layout of Parts on Sheet Materials

Want an easy way to layout your parts to optimize the use and expense of sheet materials?  In this video: I show you how to add parts, add supply materials, easily create a cutting diagram using free easy to use software.  Print out your shopping list of materials, parts list, and cutting diagram.  The program works both metric and imperial units.

Download the free software called Cut List here.

Custom Carnival Game

This video shows the design details my my custom made carnival game.  I made this game for a local Dentist who sponsored our school.

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How to Build a Skee Ball Carnival Game

I built this skee ball game for a school carnival.  It's built in 3 pieces for easy transport.

Download my Skee ball ramp template here

Please consider supporting my You Tube channel by purchasing your Skee balls here (Amazon affiliate link)

How to Build a Strength Tester Carnival Game

Building a strength test carnival game.

Garden Tool Storage

French cleats bolted to the wall to hang garden tools.  Used 3/4 plywood for the cleats and pallet wood for the tool hangers.  Drying the garlic harvest (above photo)

Bentwood Rings

I made two bentwood rings after watching this Drunken Woodworker video. I don't have a lathe to make a wooden template so I had to think about what I could use instead.  My solution was to use sockets.  I have one of those big socket kits that has every size socket that you'd never use.  I think I've only ever used about five sockets since I got the thing.  I usually spend more time organizing them in the case then using the sockets.  I usually forget to lock the one flap that holds half the sockets in the case then when I go to close the case I dump them out everywhere.  Anyway, turns out I have sockets that fit mine and my Wife's ring sizes.

The light wood is maple (on one...I believe) and the dark wood is of an unknown species, to me anyway.  I ran out of maple as I glued the wood to the socket template one too many times. So the light wood on my Wife's ring might be Birch--I don't know yet.  I'm still learning.  I bought a mixed bag of veneer wood from Lee Valley and the wood wasn't labelled.

Proof the rings were made with love.

The rings were cut from these veneer sheets:
1)                  2) Maple?           3)

Pirate Sailboats

 Made nine sailboats for a child's pirate themed birthday party.  The sailboats were a big hit.  I've since made a tenth sailboat for a guest's sibling (to keep the peace).

3/4" pine cut on the bandsaw and shaped on the disc sander.  Mast is a 3/8 dowel 8" in length set a third, the length (8") of the boat, from the bow.  The sail has a pocket for the dowel and a pipe cleaner sewn to make the boom.  The kids had fun painting their pirate ships.

Book Ends

I made 4 of these pine book ends.  I used the book end template from the Woodworking for mere mortals site (I chose not to make the sides for the pictures).  This was my first project using my new air compressor and nail gun.  To save time I didn't bother to fill the nail holes--the books cover the ends anyway.  Used wood glue and 2" nails (Hey, no clamps were used on this project--score 1 for the nail gun.) I worked the aluminum with a hacksaw and 36 grit on the disc sander.  I used some automotive adhesive to glue the aluminum to the wood.  Used spray glue to glue on the felt on the base.  Finished with spray lacquer.

Hallway Art Display

 Took these photos the day I installed the kids art hanger boards.  This gives the kids their own space, in our main hallway, to display their works of art, drawings, paintings, colourings, etc.

Cut boards to length, rounded edges, counter sunk screws holes, painted white, and hot glued some painted clothes pins.

Potato Bin

I finished this project several months ago.  I'm calling this my first project woodworking project.  Although I've made things out of wood in the past (like this tie rack) woodworking hasn't been a consistent hobby.  My old house kept me busy with renovation projects and it didn't have a space for my tools.  I now have a space to work inside this was the project I started first in my woodshop. 

I started this project then finished some other projects along the way such as a cross cut sled so I could cut the 12” wide pine boards for the front and the back. I made a mistake and cut the back the same size as the front oops! (my little helper was busy colouring on the parts list so I was just cutting away.) I was told the potatoes would be left in the bag anyway so now it’s just a big “vent hole” in the back (saved me from drilling a bunch of smaller holes or using peg board like the plan called for.)

Based on these plans: http://www.woodworkingcorner.com/potatobin.php

Aromatic Cedar Tie Rack

It has been a while since my last post.  I've been busy this past summer.  I built a shed, closet shelves, french cleats in the workshop, to name a few projects.  I just acquired some used kitchen cabinets to further organize the shop and finally have a place for easy access to my tools.

I recently hung up my tie rack --getting my ties back to their rightful place in the closet.

I had made this rack several years ago from a piece of Aromatic Cedar.  I love the cedar smell and I've never had moths in my closet.  At the time owning a drill press was still a dream.  I had a table saw, a router, and a regular drill (no press -just freehand).  I remember when I finished drilling the holes and gluing the pegs in place I thought WOW! I actually got the holes straight....until I picked up the tie rack, looked at it from the side, and noticed that all the pegs were slanted to one side.  I think it looks good with all the ties.  My favorite tie is currently the all purple tie 5th from the right.

Note: Yes I leave my ties tied--saves time in the morning.

Directional Signage and Posts

I was asked to build some signs and sign posts for a school carnival.  I was supplied with wood cut from a backyard sawmill.  The boards for the directional signs were about 5, 8 and 10 inches wide and the post were a full 2x3 inches.

Having never made sign posts before I was a little worried that the signs would be a little wobbly and may tip over.  After searching around the interweb I found a few photos of some sign posts that looked pretty sturdy.

The options I found were:

1) Coat Rack

2) Plywood base

3) Wedding Sign (Four support legs)

I wanted to keep it simple so I ruled out the coat rack design.  When the wood arrived I wasn't given any plywood so that ruled out the plywood base design.  I decided to try the wedding sign design.

I cut the posts to 5 feet.  I cut four legs at 12 inches in length and screwed  them to the post and into the adjacent legs (note I did set the post up a 1/4 inch so it wouldn't touch the floor.

The directional signs as well as the top sign (You are here or welcome sign) are 2 feet long and the arrows are two 45 degree cuts.  I predrilled and counter sunk each hole in the signs.  I counter sunk both sides thinking I would also pre-drill the post holes too however when sanding both sides I remembered I wanted to keep it simple so if they want the signs to point the other direction all they need to do is rotate the sign 180 degrees --the holes don't need to line up -- there is lots of wood to screw into.

Once all the signs were installed the sign posts were very stable so I was happy.

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View more projects on my you tube channel.

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Google Maps Place Marker Bird House

As soon as I saw this post on Lumberjocks I wanted to make this bird house design.

I downloaded a photo of the google place marker. Imported it into Sketchup to use as a guide for the proportions. I'm still learning sketckup but once I found the "offset" button things went really smoothly --hint the inner boarder is an offset of the outline. I set the print to 1:1 and printed off a number of blank pages. If anyone knows how to control how to position a drawing on a page please let me know--I still have not figured it out other than printing only page 5 of 9 pages.

I spray glued the template on a piece of 1"x 10" pine; roughly cut it out on the bandsaw; then sanded up to the line. I then cut some scrapes to the shape of the can and attached to the back side of the facade; drilled some pilot holes and attached the facade to the can.





The can is a reused coffee can. I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage and attached some "L" brackets on the back. If I was to make another one I'd just drill the holes though the back of the can and then attach the facade.

Up until this project I've only spray painted things using one colour. I traced out the wood shape on a piece of cardboard and cut out the shapes to mask out the areas. I think it turned out pretty good as the paint didn't bleed as much as I thought it would.

Enjoy making your own google place marker bird house.

A Designer, Shu-Chun Hsiao, has installed his google map bird houses around his city, ccheck out his site here.