From Ash Trays To Pin Cushions...

It's always good when you can find a purpose for an old item, it gives it a new life and saves it from the bin, which is I think anyway something we should do more of, it's not a new thing either, people have been changing things from their original purpose for many years, we tend to call it being thrifty or frugal these days, but it's not new but it is a good idea, it saves things from landfill, it save you money.

So here's something I recently gave a new life to - 

Not that useful these days.

A pair? of small brass shoe shaped ash trays with some nice engraving, they've had some colour added to the inlay as well, they are quite nice and obviously served a specific function, but these days fewer people smoke which isn't a bad thing, but what to do with a couple of old ash trays?

My first thought was pin cushions, my reasoning was that they are small and have a novelty value which is probably why they were ash trays in the first place.

To turn them into pin cushions was easy enough, all I did was get rid of the section on the back that would have held the cigarette, as these are brass I had to use my multi-tool.

Ready for modification - 

Time for some surgery.

It didn't take long to grind away the back section, I used a small sanding attachment to remove any sharp edges and that was it basically, the next step is make a cushion.

Ready for a cushion.

The cushion was made from some old red velvet as it goes well with the brass (better once the brass was polished) and stuffed it with some wadding from an old pillow, I haven't detailed the steps, but basically I stitched a sausage shape from the velvet and stuffed it with wadding, then it was glued into the shoe.

And this is what I ended up with -

I'm pleased with them.

So there we have it, a pair of quirky pin cushions, a good size for a sewing box or bag and a good use of old objects that don't really have a purpose anymore.

Thanks for visiting.

New life into an old box...

I thought it was about time I wrote a post, so here it is and as the title says I'm breathing new life into an old box, an old work box / sewing box to be precise.

Now some people will says that old pieces of furniture like this should be left as they are, and for the most part I agree but not always.

Here's the work box - 

It is a nice little work box on barley twist legs, has the added bonus of a storage drawer and a second shelf so it's useful and structurally sound although old rickety joints are easy enough to fix.

The finish or rather whats left of it is not so good, so it needs removing, which is what I'd just started to do in the picture above.

Before that I took out the old lining, now some will say I should have left it and had it been in in good condition I might have, however it had some staining same goes for the drawer lining, it also had an aroma of old so it had to go.

Removing the lining - 

Was probably quite nice in its day.

The lining came out easily enough, although it did leave some of the old card backing in place so to remove that I used a bit of warm soapy water and a scraper much in the way you do when removing wallpaper, so basically wet the card and scrape off.

Like so - 

It's a bit sticky.

The glue used can get a little slimy and sticky but I've found that it will wash off with soap and water and once done you're left with clean wood, which can be sanded and stained, or re-covered.

I also took out some of the woodwork as it needed replacing because I removed the lining.

Wood out - 

Was never meant to be seen, so they cut costs and used what they had.

With the clean up done it was basically sanding and a fair bit of it, which I did by hand and not using a powered sander the main reason is that over the years I've found the types of finishes used in the early part of the 20th century (which when the box dates to) kind of heat up with the friction of an orbital sander and once they do they clog the sanding pads quite quickly, so I just used some 80grit sandpaper and a cork block, it didn't take long and saved on materials, I could have used a chemical stripper but I try to avoid those where possible.

Top sanded back to bare wood - 

Roughly 10 minutes work.

Sanding revealed a lovely oak top, most likely quarter sawn oak, once the top was done it was just more of the same, so I started with 80grit going with the grain and once it was done I used 120grit and once I was happy it was pretty much done.

All sanded - 

Ready for some wax.

The only repair needed was replacing the wood divider that sits between the bottom of the box and drawer, I used a thin piece of reclaimed oak for that.

And it's all done -

Ready for a new life somewhere.

Once I'd sanded it I wiped it over to clean the wood and then I waxed it with an oak coloured wax which once dry I buffed to a shine, then I coated it with a clear wax and again buffed it to a shine, overall I'm pleased with the results and the box is ready to live on, it is still a useful and compact piece of furniture, some people may say it's not fashionable, it's brown furniture I disagree.

It's a lovely antique oak work box that belongs in a nice room in a house and not in the bin or on a bonfire.

Thanks for visiting.

Cutlery canteen up-cycle...

This is a project I completed a while ago, but I was pleased with the results and it was better than putting the box in the bin, it's worth thinking about other uses for things before chucking them out, especially when peoples finances are, shall we say stretched.

During ww2 the UK government at the time introduced the 'Make Do And Mend' campaign (amongst others) and perhaps in the world we currently live in it's something we should re-visit, anyway, below is a video I made of me re-purposing an old cutlery canteen.

Here's the video -

Turned out nicely, and had I not converted it, it would have ended up in landfill, which would have been a shame.

Thanks for visiting.

Sewing Box Renovation...

It's been a while since I've written a post on here, the last few have been cross posted from my Youtube channel, so I thought I'd do things the other way round maybe.

I have over the years repaired many things, and this sewing box that I recently acquired was in need of some attention.

Sewing box (cat for scale) - 

The box was made around 1930 / 1940 and it's made from Oak, and has it's original Bakelite casters, a nice thing, it was lined with a silk like material, however over the years it had become badly stained and I think maybe moths had been at it as well, the wood work also needed some tlc, nothing drastic just joints re-gluing and the finish was very patchy.

So as with most jobs like this it has to get worse before it gets better, time to take stuff apart, which wasn't that hard seeing as time had done some of the work already.

Pile of bits - 

You can see the green material, which was glued to very old board, what was also interesting is that whoever made the box had used 2 bits of board to fix the legs to the box part, which meant I needed to find a way of fixing the 2 bits back together, but first sanding the old finish off and removing the years old glue that seemed to be everywhere.

Right most of the sanding done, time to start putting things back together, a good idea when doing something like this is to use a tub with a lid for any screws and other fixings you take off, that way they don't get lost.

First the top section which makes up the box needed to be glued back together - 

I had to do this in stages, but it worked well in the end and once that was done it was on to fixing the box section back onto the legs, to replace the board I removed I cut thin strips of oak salvaged from an old table (made around the same time as it happens) and used these to glue and pin the 2 sections together, I used a load of clamps to make sure there was good contact between the 2 sections.

Many clamps - 

I also used strips of wood as wedges to push the strips of oak into the top section, this was also necessary as the top had a bow in 2 sides which is now gone.

In the image the black lines indicate the new strips of oak that fix the 2 parts together, the bits with red marks we just wedges.

 

I did also need to cut a new pieces of wood for the base of the main box, the drawer and the 2 smaller top boxes as these had been lined with the green silk and none were salvageable, another good tip if you do anything like this is to try and remove the parts in one piece as this will give you templates for any new parts you might need to make, just makes life easier.

Once I had it all glued and pinned back together it was just more sanding to remove access glue and then the wood needed to be stained (I used a light oak stain) mainly because the sanding process removed some of the colour, and after the stain had dried I applied a dark oak wax and buffed it to a nice shine, and then I've applied a further clear wax to help maintain the finish.

And here it is, all done and ready for many more years of service, very pleased with the end result.

Saved from landfill, now just got to sort the other one I have out (some assembly required)

Yes there's a bit more work in this one, but once it's done it should look similar to the one in the picture below, which was another sewing box I renovated a while ago.

Thanks for visiting.

How to tidy up a hole using a forstner bit.

This is a handy tip if you ever need to tidy up a hole in something wooden, in my case it was were holes had been made in the back of an Oak tv unit, I could have made things easier for myself by using clamps, but it worked out in the end.

If you don't have forstner bits then holes saw would work just as well.

Anyway have a look at the video -

Thanks for visiting. 

Simple wooden christmas tree decorations...

Simple to make wooden christmas tree decorations, these are made from scrap wood and don't require any special tools, they're easy for kids to make as well, and cats seem to approve as well.

These are a good use for some scrap bits of wood, and there are numerous ways you could make something similar to these, they can be painted or left plain and decorated with lights as we have, if you wanted something a bit more natural looking you could use sticks or small branches.

Here's the video - 

Thanks for visiting.

Cleaning up old door hinges...

A short how to on removing paint from door hinges, I use a blow torch because it's quick and I'm lazy, but you could just wire brush the hinges, or use a heat gun (the kind for stripping paint) solvents would work as well, like the liquid paint stripper you can buy, I just prefer this method.

Works on steel hinges, I'd be careful if the hinges are brass though as excess heat may warp the metal, easiest way to tell would be to use a magnet, a magnet won't stick to brass.

After the hinges are cleaned a small drop of oil, or spray of WD-40 will make them work like new and they'll be ready for use on another door, this would work on hinges used on windows as well, and the casement stays, basically any metal that is covered in paint could be cleaned using this method, but make sure you use a well ventilated area when doing this, and be aware that the metal will get hot, so wear good heat proof gloves, or hold the hinge in some grips.

Here's the video -

Thanks for visiting.

A video of a much needed repair to one of our sets of wood framed double glazed windows, the repair was carried out a while ago now and is holding up well, and I have since carried out a similar repair to one of the other windows on the house, which is the bonus of having wood frame windows, it's easy to carry out repairs like this, tends to be a bit harder on upvc windows.

You can see in the video that the bead that holds the glazed unit in has started to rot, so this is me carefully cutting out the rotten wood and replacing it with a new piece and making good.

The alternative to doing this kind of repair maybe to strip the paint off the wood and apply a wood plasticiser, there are products you can buy that essential soak into the wood and set hard, they also prevent further damage.

Here's the video -

Thanks for visiting.

Replacing a failed sealed unit...

This is a job I've finally got round to fixing, basically one of the double glazed units (sealed units) in our wood framed double gazed windows failed a while ago, by that I mean condensation was building up between the 2 panes of glass and rather than replace the whole frame i decided to just replace the sealed unit.

I found a company near to us who can make sealed units to whatever spec you want so I ordered one, much cheaper than replacing the whole frame. The sealed units in upvc windows can also be replaced in a similar way and it's cheaper to replace them rather than the whole window frame, how to's can be found online and a few minutes searching will find companies near to you who can make replacement units, you will need measurements though.

Here's a video of the process, obviously this will be different for upvc windows -

Thanks for visiting.

Box project ... ...

When ever I do anything wood work related our kids are always quite eager to lend a hand, doesn't matter what it is they like to help, as was the case with our recent foray into siege engine building.

So I decided to get the kids to make a box, and instead of them helping me I helped them, although I did kind of set the size of the box and methods used to build it, but this was mainly down to what wood I had available at the time, and because I wanted to show them a variety of techniques.


Here are the finished boxes -

Simply made, and functional.

Both boxes are made in the same way, but the kids decided they wanted slightly different colours, they are both made from lengths of tile batten fixed together with screws and wooden dowels, with a plywood base.

Admittedly I did make the grooves for the base myself with a router, but apart from that they did everything else, with a bit of help from dad, they even got to use my post drill and the sanding attachment for my lathe, which seemed to please them no end.

On to how we made the boxes, the first thing was to cut out two rectangle bits of plywood to make the bases (I used 5mm ply) if you decide to have a go at this then the sizes are up to you, but the kids boxes are roughly 6 inches (15 cm) by 7 inches (18 cm) to make the sides and the lid of the boxes I used tile batten.

To make the grooves that the base slides into I used a router with a bit the same size as the plywood (so 5mm in this case) this gives the base a nice tight fit, and with a bit of glue it makes it quit sturdy.

Making the grooves - 

Four grooves for the ends of each box (two each)

Close up - 

Groovy.

You can see that I haven't gone all the way to the lines I've marked, if I had you would be able to see the grooves on the outside of the box, and we don't want that.

Now onto the sides of the box - 

Straight (ish)

Because these parts make up the sides of each box you don't have to worry about them being seen as the end parts will cover the grooves when it's put together.

Here's how it fits together - 

The ends cover the grooves in each side.

Not a bad fit - 

Just needs screwing and gluing.

Onto the fixing, we used screws and glue on the first section of the box, and using the post drill the kids drilled the holes and counter sinks so that we could cover them with wooden pegs.

Fixing the sides together - 

Clamps would have made things easier.

Once all the screws were in we then filled the holes with wooden pegs to hide where the screws are, as the next picture shows we just glued a bit of dowel in each hole, we weren't to careful when we cut the dowel because the whole thing was going to be sanded anyway, and any bits that weren't flush are easily sanded to smooth them off.

Yep, clamps are definitely better.

Once that was done we had something that looked like a box, all be it a very shallow one, so to increase the depth we used dowel joints to add more lengths of wood to each side, we could have just glued the wood together, but adding a few dowels adds strength, and it teaches the kids how to join two bits of wood together, or at least one of a few ways in which you can join wood, I actually used this method to make our fire surround, which I made from floor boards and a couple of bits of 3x2 timber.

Making dowel joints is easy, it's just a case of making matching holes in the bits of wood you want to join, then using pegs to hold it together.

You can buy kits in most diy type shops that help with this, they come in various sizes, and they cost around £5, I have several in different sizes, and I've used them to make fire surrounds, gates and to join wood together to make sheets for various building projects.

Here's one of my dowel jointing kits - 

Simple to use and works.

The kits consists of a drill bit, a drill stop (the bit on the drill) and collars, these help to get the holes in the right place, the drill stop allows you set the depth you drill to, if you have a post drill you can set the depth on the drill itself, a post drill also comes in handy for keeping everything level and straight, but you can do it by hand, there are numerous systems that are easy to use as well, a quick search for dowel jointing will yield lots of possibilities, but to be honest I prefer doing things this way, sometimes the simplest way is the best.

Okay so next we set about joining bits of wood together with dowels, this is just a case of drilling two holes in each piece of wood (for longer lengths use more holes) I used an 8mm drill bit, and 8mm dowel for the pegs.

First lot of holes drilled - 

A few bits of dowel already prepared.

Next we use the collars, these go in each hole you drill - 

The points mark where you need to drill in the other bit of wood.

Once the collars are in the holes you just need to line up the other piece of wood and push down on it, so that the collar points mark the wood, then you can go ahead and drill the next lot of holes.

And as long as you're careful everything should line up - 

Looks about right to me.

To fix it together spread some glue along the wood and in the holes the dowels go into and tap it together with a mallet, you can then add some clamps to make sure it stays together until the glue dries.

It's best to use a wooden mallet, if you don't have one then use a scrap bit of wood, place the scrap piece on the wood and then tap it with a hammer, this way you won't damage the wood, just the scrap bit.

Fixing the sides together, couple of good taps with a mallet should do it - 

I know the shed is a mess.

After we'd added the sides we then fixed them at each end with screws like we did with the first section of the box, and again we used dowels to fill the screw holes.

To make the lid we measured and cut enough lengths of wood to cover the box, as it turns out this meant each lid needed four lengths of wood, we fixed these together by cutting another two bits of wood and laying them over the four strips and again we fixed them all down with screws and glue, the cross pieces also serves as a way of keeping the lid on the box.

The lid - 

Can't get much easier.

Box and lid done, just needs sanding and painting - 

Bit rough round the edges, sanding will take care of that though.

All sanded, ready for staining or painting - 

One rustic looking box.

After much deliberation the kids decided to use the vinegar and steel wool wood stain we made for staining the bathroom furniture I made recently, it's easy and safe for kids to use, best do the staining away from any other wood as it will stain that as well.

 Just apply the stain with a brush - 

A spot of staining on a sunny day.

You can also paint the boxes, or just leave them plain, although a coat of wax might be an idea to protect the wood.

Here's what the boxes looked like with one stained and one plain - 

They look good either way.

My daughter decided to stain hers and then use a clear wax on it, so hers is a little lighter than my sons, he decided to use some of my restoration wax on his box, the wax has given it an old look, and because we didn't go too mad with sanding both boxes actually look old, like they've been around a bit.

Applying some wax, again best to cover any surfaces - 

Don't worry the wax is safe for kids to use, gloves might be an idea though.

And there you have it, two hand made wooden storage boxes, the kids are very pleased with them, all in all I think they enjoyed making something for themselves, they are eager to make other things, which is good I was hoping they would enjoy the whole experience, and if nothing else it's a good way to build practical skills, which I still think are important, even in today's technology driven world.

The boxes again - 

Antiques of the future ? well maybe not.

Thanks for reading.

Homemade peg loom ... ...

The other day I figured I'd make a wooden peg loom, and after a little research I set about finding materials and tools.

I have to be honest I'm not sure what else you can make on a peg loom apart from long rectangle / square type things, so rugs and scarf's :-) but I do know it's pretty easy to make one.

All you need to make a peg loom is a length of wood, it needs to be wide enough to accommodate your pegs, and you'll need something to make the pegs from, lengths of dowel are ideal and all these things can be picked up from any diy shop.

Here's the loom -

Load of holes.

I decided that if I made a couple of rows of holes I could use different sized pegs, which in turn means I can weave different sized things and of different thicknesses, so I guess it's a multi function loom ?

To make the holes all you need is a drill and some drill bits roughly the size of of the dowel you plan to use, you can also use spade bits, again roughly the size of the dowel, spade bits are better for larger dowel sizes.

In case you're wondering, this is a spade bit - 

Bit old and rusty, but it works.

 I made a grid on my piece of wood, I put a mark every half an inch, be sure to leave enough space between each hole as you'll need room to remove the pegs, and you'll also need room for your yarn / wool etc.

The wood ready marked - 

Ready for drilling.

Close up.

So onto the drilling, basically you just need to drill a load of holes evenly (ish) spaced, I should have used a slightly larger piece of wood for my loom as getting all the holes on it was a little bit of a squeeze.

To drill the holes I used my power drill and a drill guide, I would have used my drill stand but it broke, but you don't need to use a guide, just try and keep each hole as straight as possible.

My drill guide ready to go - 

Drill guide not essential.

The other good thing about the drill guide is you can set the depth you want to drill to, but you can just wrap a bit of tape round your spade bit or drill bit.

Using tape for depth guide - 

Insulation tape works well.

I also have a depth guide for drill bits that's a little more secure than tape, I'm pretty sure you can buy depth guides for drill bits in most diy shops.

Drill bit depth guide -

These fix on very securely.

Once you have you drill set up get drilling, try and make the holes deep enough so that the peg won't pull out easily, saves everything falling apart if the loom gets knocked over.

Once you have the holes drilled you then need to sort your dowel out, I used 3 different thicknesses and I cut them to lengths of between 3 inches and 5 inches, 3 inches for the smallest dowel, 4 inches for the next sized up and 5 inches for the largest.

The dowel - 

Ready for cutting.

3 different sizes.

You can use a hack saw to cut the dowel or any type of saw really, it's best to make sure you have enough pegs to fill every hole, even if you don't plan to use loads of pegs, you might later on.

Dowel all cut to length - 

I use rubber bands to hold them in bundles.

Now you need to sand both ends of each dowel (which may take some time) this will make sure the wool / yarn doesn't get snagged on the pegs, if your pegs are a little too tight in their holes you can sand the ends, or use a sharp knife to trim them a little.

Sanding them like this is okay - 

Nice and smooth, sort of.

The last thing you need to do is drill holes in each peg, this is to thread the yarn  you will be using to hold it all together (don't worry I have some pictures of me using it to give you an idea of what I'm on about :-)

I found that having the pegs in the loom was the easiest way to drill the holes, you want each hole about 1cm above the length of wood, and you'll need to make sure that the holes in each peg aren't too big as this will weaken the pegs, you can use larger holes in the larger sized pegs.

Holes drilled in the pegs, nearly ready to weave - 

Ready to weave.

 It's really easy to use a loom like this, and it's easy to build it as well, so it would make a great project for kids to try themselves, although smaller children may need supervising when doing some parts of the build, like the drilling for instance, it's also cheap, I had most of the stuff, and the dowels cost about £4 for all of them.

 You can use all sorts of things to weave with, wool, rope, t-shirt material, you can find some great how to's online and by searching for weaving on a peg loom.

Now here's a few pictures of me weaving on the loom so you have half an idea of what to do with it.

To start get some wool and thread it through each peg - 

Use a needle to help with threading.

Just using 6 pegs for now.

Once you have your pegs threaded you can then start weaving, this is basically a case of winding the thread round the pegs, remember to tie the ends of the thread together, otherwise it'll all slide off the end.

Weaving begins -

Tie your yarn to the starting peg.

Then start winding between each peg.

And this is how you continue, once you reach the top of your pegs you can then pull them out and slide your work down, then put them back into their holes and start winding your yarn again.

About half way.

Carefully slide each peg out.

Don't worry about the gap as you can slide it altogether.

And once you've got to your desired size you can just pull all the pegs out and then all you need to do is cut the threads from the pegs and either tie them off of stitch them back into your work, again watching a few how to's will be an idea (I plan to watch some as well as I quite enjoyed weaving on the loom)

My finished piece, all be it a tester and very small :-)

Not bad ?

I found you can adjust the piece once you've finished it (before you tie it all off) you can bunch it all up or spread it out, it's quite flexible.

And there you have it, now the nights are drawing in and things are getting colder this might be an ideal thing to keep you busy at night and you can make yourself a nice rug :-)

It would also be possible to tie the threads to a piece of dowel and weave through each thread in much the same way you would with a traditional loom, and by looping the wool over the pegs instead of going through them you'll only need to tie off one end, and it has to be said there is a lot of satisfaction to be had in making your own equipment and then making something with it.

Thanks for reading.