feeding the duckies

First Woodworking Project: Mother’s Day Gifts

When I was a young boy, I fondly recall spending hours in the garage with my father’s bright orange K-mart electric drill. With this drill and a few other odd tools from my dad’s peg wall, I cobbled together my masterpiece: a new coat rack for Mom and Dad’s room; a very special gift for Christmas. This awkward and wobbly apparatus found a home in their closet where for all I know it remained until they recently sold my boyhood home.

It seems to me the best way to ensure I never need entrust my good jacket to such a Rube Goldberg-ian contraption, is to teach them early how such a thing is properly constructed. So when my eldest daughter and son expressed an interest in building their own wooden creations, I decided to take them into the shop.

But first a word about shop safety…

Naturally I used the power tools, however Sean insisted upon wearing his safety glasses at all times. That’s my boy!

Safety glasses

A Cherry Heart, a Painted Bird, and a Custom-Designed Violin

Sean’s project was a wooden heart constructed of cherry plywood and various odds and ends. Annalise designed a violin for her Mommy. Just like her dad, she spent time carefully designing her project going so far as to draft a full-size drawing. Nathan joined us after the build to paint a wooden “bird.”

Annalise's design drawing for her violin

Needless to say these weren’t constructed with K-mart drills or rusty hammers. The violin joinery is all Festool 5x30mm dominos. This is one solid violin!