Let the Recycling Begin

You might remember these guys from an earlier post…

Well now they look like this…

That stack represents about a third of the wood I harvested from those old dressers, and should be plenty of stock for this next project.  After ripping all the old edges off of each board I planed them down to 3/8 and 5/8 inches thick.

I’ll be modifying a candle holder design of Steve Ramsey’s (www.woodworkingformeremortals.com) so that it can be broken down and stored flat in a small box made from this same Oak.  Steve used Maple and Brazilian Cherry for his.

You might recall that these dressers belonged to my lovely bride’s grandmother.  They were passed down to her parents, and then to us not long after we were married.  The plan is to build a candle holder and a storage box for all three generations of these amazing ladies.  I had previously mentioned something about three generations of underwear, but I’m only recycling the wood, not my own bad jokes.

I like the scale and proportions of Steve’s original design, so I’m following a close approximation to his original dimensions.  This first step was to rip some of the 3/8 inch stock down to two inches wide.

I was able to get five clean, solid boards from the pieces I selected.  I ended up with a couple extra boards that include the transition seams where two boards were joined together. 

The odd thing is that many of these boards are made from smaller pieces joined together…and none of them are nice, straight joints.  Almost every board has several pieces joined together at some really weird angles.  It made it a little tougher to maximize any long, straight, solid stock.

The next step was to cut the parts for the candle holders.  I used the cross-cut sled with stop blocks to ensure all the parts are cut to the same size.  I first cut the three smaller pieces from each board at four inches in length.

I then moved the stop block and cut the longer pieces at ten inches.  I cut enough parts to make five of these candle holders, and each set of parts is cut from the same board to ensure color and grain matching on each one.

For the small platforms that will hold the tea-light candles I’ve selected some Sapelle.

After jointing one face and edge on each piece, I ripped them down to two inches wide.

Then it was back to the cross-cut sled to cut a whole herd of two inch by two inch squares.

Here we have our five sets of parts for the candle holders.

 

Stay tuned for the next step…cutting the bridle joints and the insets for the candle platforms.  I’ll be looking for a pretty snug fit since these won’t be permanently joined with glue. 

Special thanks go out to Steve for being so generous in sharing his designs and to my lovely bride for allowing me to repurpose all this beautiful old Oak.

Pete