General Craft & DIY discussion

I came across 2 X 4 Backyard Projects: Simple Outdoor Furniture You Can Make in One Day & was surprised by the author's name, Ian Kirby. This isn't the sort of book that I associate with him. I've run across a lot of fine woodworking articles by him & made a copy of one of his articles on making dovetails by hand to keep out in the shop for reference.

I'm going to see if our library has a copy of this. I love simple, quick projects & the premise of this is interesting. I doubt I'll do anything exactly as he describes, but I'm sure I'll get some great ideas.

I wonder how well he designs exterior projects. One of the finest carpenters I ever knew, Uncle Bob, did fantastic interior work & furniture, but everything he built outside rotted out quickly. My wife still uses the fantastic saddle horse he built for my mother 40 years ago, but I had to replace a deck he built after only 10 years. His joints trapped water & he didn't use appropriate woods. Such a shame, because it was the prettiest deck I'd ever seen for the first few years.

I've built a lot of bookcases over the years since I love reading & collecting them. When we moved into this house, I turned one bedroom wall into a bookcase.

You can see them here on Google Plus:
https://plus.google.com/photos/109051...

The shelves are made out of 1"x8" #2 pine. The shelves have 10" between them. After a lot of experimenting, I've found that this is the best size for a mixture of books. A few larger ones won't fit, but most hardbacks will & I can pile 2 or 3 paperbacks on their side on top of the others for more room.

I finished all the wood before I put the shelves together. I used a Minwax stain & then put a couple of coats of latex polyurethane on them. That doesn't bring out the color of the wood as well as the oil base does - it's whitish cast tends to wash out the color, but it doesn't stick to the books either. That was one problem I've had with oil based paints & urethanes. In the hot, damp summers, books would start sticking to them, even with a coat of wax.

I used to move a lot a developed a system to convert a wall to a floor to ceiling bookcase Between two walls with no fasteners. It's like a house of cards, 8 feet wide and ten feet high, each shelf being an 8'x1"x12" pine board with 1'x12"by whatever height boards stacked evrery couple feet on the shelf. Add another shelf and repeat. The weight of the books holds it all in pace, the walls become the sides and without the books, it falls down ready to go to move to the next place.

Now that I'm in my forever home I might maybe someday if I get aroundtuit make tham more permanent. Until them they still work great!

That sounds like a great system. I took one floor to ceiling book case through 4 houses, although at this one it's actually out in the shop & I use it to hold all my nails, screws & finishes now.

I've always had to nail bigger book cases to the walls - the monsters you know. Kids, dogs, cats, ferrets, & who knows what else in our houses have made me very wary of anything that wasn't nailed down or very durable.
;-)

What could be more "misscellaneous" than tractor book ends combining wood and steel!

The steel was attached by roughing up the metal and using a dremel to create slots for a puddle of clear two-part expoxy. Now a little enamel clearcoat to prevent rust and I have two HEAVY paperback sized book ends!

Very nice. They look heavy enough, too. I hate light bookends unless they have a thin metal piece that goes back under the books to help stabilize them.

They look real sharp clear coated, and yes, good and heavy! I have a bunch of cats sitting on books bookends, indonesian discards from a shop I used to do business with that are too big and don't weight enough... they take up too much shelf space so these will replace a couple in tight areas.

What will you do with the cat bookends?

Hi Alexandria!

Most of the cat bookends are still in use and I've painted most of them with either a sylvester style cat or an orange tabby cat and with the "books" they sit on given titles like "cat on a hot tin roof" or "of mice and men" etc. They're cute but they never sold when my friend had them in her shop.

A few have been dissassembled (carved cat from the books it was sitting on) for consideration of becoming something else.

I never throw out anything! It will become something else.... cat door stop? cat knick-knack? cat hood ornament? ....who knows!

Sorry, they're too big to become cheshire cats on your pocket watch/necklace project...

It's a shame...But perhaps you could use two as decorative napkin holders for your table? If you use them as hood ornaments please post a picture. That would be funny.

Ok Alexandria.. will do! It is a shame as I think they were designed to be more decorative than useful, while rebuilt they could be useful folk art!

I was playing around and if I cut the head off, which is turned right, and glue it back on straght ahead, add a weighted "pillow" for it to sit on, the book end could become a narrow useful bookend with cats looking out from between the books!

Though with Spring just around the corner the fun stuff will fast get sidelined as the farm gears up for warm weather... they'll sit around a while and who knows what other possibilities will occur to me in the meantime.

Foxtower wrote: "...Though with Spring just around the corner the fun stuff will fast get sidelined as the farm gears up for warm weather..."

Ain't that the truth. It took me until the New Year to wind down enough to get spinning again. I did some cat hair today. I didn't have much, but got a feel for it. Then I filled the rest of the bobbin with Alpaca spun really thin. I'll have to do another & then ply it back together at least a few times to make it thick enough for yarn. I've only done 1 skein of 2 ply yarn, so doing 4 ply should be interesting.

I seem to have acquired another daughter & project. Funny how that works. My daughter & her husband are spending the long weekend with us, so I get a call from one of their friends. It went something like this?

"Hi, Dad. If Erin brings it up, could you fix my sewing box for me, please? It's an antique from my grandmother & the joints are coming apart. Oh, the hingey thing is coming off the inside drawer thing & one leg is loose."

"Yes, dear.... Who are you?" I mean, what else could I say?
;)

Jim I am new to this group my name is Chrislin I just read about your dye I have used dye on clothes before and if you add salt the colors stay darker I have no idea why sometimes you need to heat the clothes after rinsing in the dryer to seal color I have seen yarns hung out in the sun to seal color so they don't run I enjoy most crafts gardening and I love sewing I was excited about your group

Welcome, Chrislin! I hadn't heard that about using salt or the heat. Good to know. Thanks.