Purple and Green: A Simple Treasure box revisited

The last time I mentioned the treasure box it was looking more like a casket for a small animal,

But since then it has been painted and is now in use holding what every my 4 year old daughter feels is special or what she wants to keep away from little brother.  We painted the box with some left over sample cans of the colors used to paint my daughter's room. Here is the finished box complete with 1 little brother who is trying to find out what's inside.

A Bird Feeder for Bella

One of the reasons I was building bird feeders was to give one to be auctioned as part of a benefit for my friends who daughter passed away after a short 13 days on this earth. I know its not a lot but I feel like it was a way I could contribute and help.  

Cedar Bird Feeder

In talking with my parents they mentioned that they had plans my grandpa had drawn for a bird feeder similar to the one he built for them in 1977. After getting a copy of the plan it is very clear where I get my tendency to over-engineer and over-design things.  According to my parents grandpa wanted to sell plans and kits for these and other bird feeders, I think it would have been interesting if the internet had been available to grandpa to market the different ideas he had during his life time.

Grandpa's plan had places to hold those seed blocks but I decided remove those from my version of the feeder, and in doing so each bird feeder could be made from a single 8' 1x8.

The cedar 1x8 available at the big box stores are surfaced on 3 sides, which means that one side is rough.  Before I started cutting any pieces to length I quickly sanded the rough side with some 40 and 80 grit sand paper on my random orbit sander. Below you can see the difference after the quick sanding.

The bird feeder goes together quickly, in the picture below I still need to add the latches that hold the roof on, and the plastic that holds the seed in.

This is close the same style my grandpa built my parents and the birds seem to really like this style of feeder, it gets emptied before all the other feeders they have. I really enjoyed studying the plans that grandpa drew and then building from them.  I see myself build a lot more of these bird feeders.

Flat Sole

Last night I made it out to the shop after the kids were in bed. After getting a fire going in the stove I started cleaning up some and decided to get my to work on bench plane that needs tuned up.
I had got a glass door off an entertainment center, the glass is used as a flat and true surface to sharpen chisels and plane irons, after cleaning the glass I just used spray adhesive to attach a sheet of 80 grit sand paper to the glass.

The bench plane I was working on was one my wife bought for me at an antique store, I don't know if it is an antique or just a old tool, but it needed it sole flattened along with the iron sharpened. I used a black marker and put reference lines on the sole of the plane so I could see when the complete sole had been surface. After the whole surface has been flattened with 80 grit I will work my way up through the grits.

 

Here is the plane after last night's work, I still have more work to do before I can move to the next grit as shown by the 2 spots of marker still showing.

The same technique of attaching sandpaper to glass is how I plan to sharpen plane irons and chisels.

A simple treasure box

My 4 year old daughter likes to collect rocks and other items she finds outside. So she needed something to keep these treasures in.  I had some scraps from some Christmas presents I made and a new table saw to work with, so I made a box that will be for her to keep her treasures in.

I ripped some pine 1x8's to 6" wide only to find that my miter saw wouldn't cut a board that is 6" wide. So I ripped the board down to 5.5" side. The joints were just butt joints and I also screwed the boards together. I used a router and a router table to cut a groove for the 1/4" plywood bottom. The top/lid was cut from a 1x10. After assembly I plugged the screw holes and eased the edges with a 1/4" round over bit.  I still have to get some hinges for the box and then I think it will be painted with leftover paint from my daughter's room.