Woodworking Tools, Materials and Projects
For The Do It Yourself Crowd
It's Friday night, friends are over, the game is on TV and everyone's gathered in your den, the centerpiece of which is your custom home bar. Built with your own two hands and designed to reflect your personality and eye for detail.

Every family room or den can be improved by the addition of a home bar. There are numerous materials you can use and several different designs you can use to achieve the exact look you are looking for. Your home bar can be as simple or as complex as you desire (or as your skills allow.) This article will describe the steps to take to design and build a home bar - there are many plans available on the internet that will give you specific step by step instructions for particular designs but this article will help you decide just what you want in a home bar and what materials and design features you wish to incorporate.

How experienced are you In DIY?

The answer to this question will help you decide just how complex a project you are willing to undertake. Bars come in all shapes and sizes, you will need to decide if you want a simple bar just to hold your drinks, bottles and glasses that is not fixed to the floor, the next step up is a bar that has been fitted to the floor and may incorporate a carpeted or otherwise covered step for your guests to rest their feet on when they are sitting at the bar.

The next issue is if you want to make it a wet bar (a bar that contains a sink so that you can wash glasses etc in the bar.) Do you want your bar to be a simple stand alone one or do you want to incorporate a shelved wall behind it on which you can display your bottles and glass collection? Research Some designs and then pick the features you want in your bar. Your bar can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it. Home bars can feature things such as sinks, mini dishwashers and even taps for pouring beer, as well as cleaver lighting to highlight your collection of bottles and glasses. Will you want all shelves behind the bar to store things on or will you need a few drawers to hold napkins, swivel sticks, etc? Will you want a microwave in your bar so that you can heat snacks for your guests.

Will you need to hire outside tradesmen to install the features?

Some of the above features you will be able to do yourself, but if you need the services of a plumber to arrange water to your sink or dishwasher, or an electrician to fit your lighting features you may have to hire these professionals for this part of the job as many local authorities will not allow a home owner to adjust or make additions to plumbing and wiring.

Decide on the materials you wish to use.

There are almost as many materials to make bars out of as there are bar designs. You will have to decide how you want your bar to look and pick suitable materials. You can use basic plywood, laminated board, traditional building timbers and you may even like to investigate some of the more modern materials such as plexiglass and even metal sheeting to dress up the front surfaces of your bar. (A bar top built from plexiglass or an equivalent plastic may allow you to light it from underneath.) It will only take a little imagination to create a truly unique furniture piece that will enhance your home.

Research Plans or Design Your Own

The next step will be to either search the internet or design and woodworking magazines to find a plan that you can use or even adapt to what you want. I definitely would recommend that you look at as many different designs and plans as you can get your hands on - you do not want to find the perfect addition to your bar the day after you build it. If you cannot find a suitable plan, you will have seen enough by now to either adapt an existing plan to your needs or draw up your own custom design.

Source all of your materials and tools

Once you have decided on your final plan source all of your materials, and make sure you have all of the tools you will need for the job. Remember if you are using materials other than wood, glass tiles for example you may need a glass cutter - ask advice of the people who sold you the materials as to what special tools if any you may need. You will also need to ensure that you have the correct adhesive cement for any materials you may use for decorative features or finishes.

When you go to the wood yard to obtain the timber you will need for your bar ask them if they have a cut to size service (many places do this free but others charge a nominal fee.) Having the materials cut to size will save you time and of course the chance of making mistakes when cutting timbers to length.

Build Your Bar

You now have all of your materials, tools and fixings. Go ahead - it's time to build your bar. Just remember there will be a drink waiting for you at the end of the project. Bottoms up and enjoy!

LumberJocks.com

Woodworking Projects at LumberJocks.com


Great Dane Feeder
by Straightpiped
2 hours ago

This is my first project. It is half done but some other things came up so I wanted to post up the partially completed product. My wife and I have two great danes, we got the second one back in April. The older dog has always had an elevated food/water bowl cabinet that her mom’s friend made for her about 4 years ago, it was made out of MDF with a white laminate. To keep the story short it was crap. So now that we have two Danes we wanted something that could feed them both that looked nicer. This is just the bottom half. I am going to make a top for it that with reach roughly 6.5’ tall. It will look alot like a china cabinet. It is made completely out of pine. Center bowl holds about 1.5 gallons.

Tyson

BTW- I learned alot on this project, both things to do and not do.



How we make a chest in Norway & My first Scollsaw work
by Halling51
4 hours ago

This is how we make a chest in Norway.
“Chest site:”http://rukkedalen.com/kiste.html

The scollsaw work is not so easy to see. But this was my first detailed work with my new scrollsaw Excalibur.



Serving Tray
by PetVet
5 hours ago

I wanted to try my hand at marquetry and this is my first attempt. I am not pleased with the outcome, and would appreciate some constructive criticism to help me along.

1. The fans on the corners don’t seem to be the right size? Too big or too small?
2. The center cries out for something, maybe an oval fan or a shell?
3. The book matched veneer’s seams show, especially the end grain. I overlapped these and cut them together, but still the seams show. Should I have tried to cut them on an angle like in double bevel marquetry?
4. The inlay looks lost sitting next to the frame, I think next time I will put veneer outside of this. Any other suggestions?

I coped the mahogany frame on the table saw. This worked fairly well, although it sure takes a while. The veneer is mounted on 1/4” plywood. I used birch veneer on the bottom and birds eye maple on the top. I will not use birds eye maple again, as the eyes are a bear to cut through. Live and learn. I finished it with the salad bowl finish followed by mineral oil/bee’s wax.

Here is my temporary solution to improve it’s looks:



Cedar toybox
by bocephus
9 hours ago

I bought this cedar to make my daughter a blanket chest, but never made the time to start the project. After the birth of her twin daughters, I made a toybox/blanket chest, killing two birds with one stone. The challenge was cutting and gluing panels to avoid knots where I had to cut dovetails. It turned out so good I am considering making a second chest so each of the girls has their own.



Cutting board with gadget
by Justus
10 hours ago

The concept for this cutting board is derived from the live-long quest for a simple separation of goodies and waste. By using two plastic containers you can simply shovel the waste into the right one and the goodies into the left one (or vice versa, your choice). The containers simply go into the dishwasher. The craftmanship here leaves room for improvement: You could use end grain boards, invent some more elaborate methods of removing the containers rather than my simple lifting the entire board (I use the inside rim of the top board as handle). The second picture shows just that while the third is an inverted view. The cutting board is gkued from three commercially glued panels, top is beech, the two bottom ones are some local softwood (fir/spruce). The trick was to find containers whose height matches the combined height of two panels.

I am thrilled to see whether my idea is taken up by the community.



Web clamp providing some torque by friction
by Justus
11 hours ago

Ever been bothered by wielding annyingly long pipe or bar clamps? Do you also always seem to have the wrong size of clamps? How cool would it be to have a web clamp that actually clamps like a pipe clamp?

The main problem is, that the arms of the pipe clamp do have to sustain some torque, i.e. the pipe should not bend. The straps of a web clamp bend with no effort at all.

The thought did not leave me and after some less succesful prototypes I came up with this version:

The trick is in the shape of the batten where the strap is running around – think of the triangular sections as if they were wheels where the strap in wound on. At university we learned, that the friction put onto a wheel by a rope depends on the tension of the rope and the angle of loop – twice around would be 720° – as an example. By making the strap taking a longer way at the bottom and putting the lock such that the moving strap is pointing upwards, pulling the web together creates the torque necessary to keep the arms on the object to be clamped.

If you need low to medium clamping pressure on very large or otherwise cumbersome objects, this may be your tool.

Glad to have proven my point I rewarded myself with a pair of Bessey parallel clamps.