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.