Recycled Reclaimed Cedar Side Table

 

Finished table.  22" H x 15"W x 38"L

Reclaimed Western Red Cedar Side table

Before picture of the wood used for the table. The green cast is from years of algae and weathering.

I have been saving a stack of old growth western red ceder for years.  The wood is salvaged from the deck on my house. The wood has been outside in the Pacific North West for about 50 years.  On first inspection the wood looks like trash.  From what I could see the grain was very tight I just could not bring myself to throwing out this wood.  The need for a few more pieces of furniture made me take a look at this wood again and I deiced to use it for some small side tables.  I made the legs from 1/2" tube steel, sanded with a clear lacquer finish. The transition from stair steps on a deck to furniture was quite dramatic.

Solid Oak Flooring on Concrete

Lecia M body repair

I had a heart stopping moment when I dropped my M4 on a concrete floor. It was a short drop and I was mostly worried about the lens.  At first it appeared that there was nothing wrong with the camera.  There was no visible damage at all!  I continued to finish the roll of film that was in the camera. But when I went to remove the finished roll the film cartridge could not clear the camera body.  My Leica M4 body got a small flat spot on its round end. The end that holds the film cartridge. The dent was slight but it was enough to keep the film cartridge from being able to exit the camera. An old photo.net article talked about the same problem. One of the recommendations was to make a wooden die and press the dent out. So I gave it a try and it worked great.

Vertical Book Case

Vertical Book Cases are very popular today.  I see a lot of them and they are all very clever in their design. The inspiration for my book case was from a display that I noticed in a retail space.  The building had awkwardly located concrete pillar which a designer turned into a vertical display. The materials for the display was one inch oak shelves and quarter inch steel plate.

My materials are 1 foot wide pieces of one inch thick oak stair tread material. These pieces of scrap material are from using four foot oak treads in a three foot stair well.  I know it does not sound like a smart use of material but its the result of shopping at warehouse outlets.  To complete the project 12 gauge steel was used to hold the treads.  The tall narrow heavy bookcase is not stable and would kill a small animal if it fell over.  Like a stair case the treads are stepped back and the case leans on the wall for stability.  Its not a great design but I was able to utilize scrap material to build something useful. I would have liked to use thicker steel but the resulting weigh scared me off.

Oak Hardwood Floor Repair

My house has 40 year old oak floors.  The flooring is 2 1/4 tongue and grove 3/4 thick.  The bed rooms and hall way have been covered over with wall to wall carpet some time in the 70's.  Removing the carpet reveled floors that are worn and scratched.   In general the floors are in good shape.  The flooring is tight and there was only minimal water damage in a few spots. 40 year old finishes are not as durable as today's urethane finishes.  The carpet tack strips left behind a ring of nail holes along all the walls.  Sanding, filling and varnishing has made all the old rooms look new again.  But there where a few spots in the floor with large gashes in the oak.  I did not want to have to replace the whole plank to fix the small damaged area's.  Instead I drilled out the damaged spots and filled with plugs made from new Oak flooring.

Damaged floor and plug for making the repair.  Forstner bit is exact size of plug which was cut with a round mortise cutter.

Make a drill guide to keep the Forstner bit from wandering. The drill guide is half inch plywood and is large enough that I could hold it in place with my foot while starting the whole.

Finish drilling the hole to 1/4" depth.

After the plug is glued in place I trimmed the top of the plug with a flexible Japanese hand saw.  Be careful not to mark the floor with the saw.

Sanded with a 5 inch palm sander to make the plug flush with the surrounding area.

Makethe plugs with a round mortise cutting bit in a drill press. The large plugs have to be removed buy cutting them out of the material. 3/8 tapper plugs were used to fix smaller flaws in the floor like nail holes or flaws to big for filler. I used several pieces of oak flooring to cut the plugs from. I would match the grain and color of the original floor to my scrape collection.  Light/dark oak, broad or tight grain. 

The  finished repair after varnishing the floor.