Ongoing Small Shop Projects

  Many of the serious bloggers have large scale impressive projects featured in their blogs and shop videos.  I like bloggers like Wood Working for Mere Mortals which often feature smaller one weekend projects.  My workshop produces lots of planter boxes, storage boxes and book cases.  Also my workshop is used to repair or rebuild wooden items.

  I received a bee house as a gift from my Grand kids last season and it has sat in my shop until today.  Why, it needed to be finished.  The box was raw wood and as such would have lasted two or three seasons at best before disintegrating in our climate. Today I put the first of what will be several thick coats of varnish on my bee house.  Shortly it will go into the garden and provide solitary bees a familiar place which I hope they will inhabit for the coming winter.

  I think a bee house would be a good pallet wood project.

  I also added another coat of varnish onto the table top.

  I am using Varathane Water Based Varnish.  It seems to be okay, it sure is easy to clean up your brushes.  Maybe easy clean up translates into extra coats of finish?!

  Yesterday we worked in our garden hacking away at the crazy rose bushes and taking the chicken wire protection of our azaleas.  I also brought in a fish.

  This garden fish is to get a new dorsal fin and new paint.  I will spray the back ground colour on and the grand kids can add the details again. 

  The other issue this morning is a knife handle.  I have been given some wonderful deer antler. 

  First I need to select a section to make into a knife handle for Cousin Steve. He has requested something "cool" not necessarily useful.  I'm thinking I need a wee piece of brass for a finger guard.  There is a design floating about in my head, but at this point it is still floating.

  I will take one of these yellow knives apart and put a cool handle on it for Steve.  I bought these knives in Sweden a couple of years ago at a warehouse clearance store. The blades are excellent, the handles, ugly.

  Our weather is improving and bike riding is being added to the agenda, yah!

cheers ianw

  

Telephone Speaker and Bee House.

  Last week I glued and clamped the phone speaker made from nicer wood together.  This small speaker seems to double the volume output of my phone speaker.  This wooden speaker also holds the phone firmly, so it can sit anywhere.

    Inside the box I placed two small dowels to keep the phone from choking the sound waves and reducing the sound.

I painted the inside black for aesthetic reasons. 

  Next job is to make an equivalent speaker for my tablet. 

  Yesterday's project was a bee hotel for our back yard.  It is firmly believed by experts that bee houses/hotels are good for solitary bees, and all bees are good for our gardens.

5 by 16 by 5 inches,
 that is a whole bunch of plant stems.

  I used part of a bundle of the pallet lumber I collected during the summer and nailed it together.  Along time ago I was taught to pre-drill holes when nailing thin stock or nailing into an edge.  I adds a bit of time but....nothing splits and the thinner nails don't wander or bend.

    I don't have bamboo available so I used stems from plants from our back yard garden.  There are spaces of random size for the bees to crawl into for protection. 

  As I gathered more information about bee houses I found that some builders cover the outside to protect the bees from predators.  I opted for a louvred front, there is plenty of room for bees to get in but it should be almost impossible for a bird to snack on the bees.  

The house is in an out of the way corner of the garden. The bees should be able to live undisturbed and I hope happily.