Puzzle Board on Lazy Susan - Father's Day

This one's more function over form

Let's cut to the chase: This is a 3 foot square of plywood covered in green felt, bordered with ash rails, and sitting on an attached lazy susan, The Manhattan Project it is not. It is, however, functional.

General Finishes - Weathered Gray

I made a handful of frames from some wood from my great-grandparents' barn in Oklahoma. Barn wood is unique looking. Over the many years it sits in the beating sun, exposed to windswept dust, and rain. Exposed to the elements like this, the bright tan color of wood weathers to a gray. Different parts of the wood fibers wear away, winter and summer growth rings have different density so they wear unevenly. This combines to create the unique appearance of barn wood.

Tiny problem though: when you cut barn wood to the size of whatever you're using it for, you're stripping away those years of weathering and exposing fresh wood to the surface. After the jump is info about how I tried to counteract this problem.

Rasps Part 2 - Auriou Rasps

I just finished discussing the types of rasp and differences between machine-made and hand-stitched rasps, ultimately to rationalize why I bought the high-quality Auriou rasps that I did. Now let's take a look at what I got. Hopefully I can justify why I chose to spend more for the quality tool I bought. In my defense, the baseline is "life is too short to buy crappy tools" so I ought to be able to say "they're good tools" and meet it. However, I do want to show *why* they're good tools.

Rasps Part 1

So I bought some rasps, which are hand tools a lot like files but instead of rough grooves they have an array of teeth that scrape wood away. I consulted the fine folks at The Dusty Life (who were crazy enough to put me on their podcast) about what to buy. Basically, I asked "If life's too short to buy crappy tools, is it worth getting great rasps?" I ended up getting great rasps.

A discussion on rasps, which is admittedly kind of a woodworking geek subject, follows after the jump. I broke up this post into two parts because it kind of got long. So, the first part is about rasps in general. The second will be more about the rasps that I bought and examples of them in action.

Dusty Life: Reprise

Holy crap The Dusty Life guys let me be on their podcast, again! This time we talk about the types of finish that are best for knife handles. And yes, I'm aware this is relatively esoteric and you folks may not care! Listen anyway, leave them a rating on the iTunes and such, which is kinda like leaving me a rating (I estimate that I have been on for approximately 1% of their total airtime, which is... not a lot).

Anyway, I've embedded the cast after the jump:

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray Gallery

Walnut with cocoa brown felt lining

I've created this post simply to have a consolidated gallery of all of the octagonal dice trays that I've made. After the jump are all of the pictures.

My elongated dice trays are available for sale on Etsy.

Octagonal Dice Tray Picture Gallery

Black Poisonwood (Caribbean Rosewood or Chechen) with red felt lining

I've created this post simply to have a consolidated gallery of all of the octagonal dice trays that I've made. After the jump are all of the pictures.

My dice trays can be found for sale on etsy. I have separate listings for the domestic and exotic materials.