Decorative Scrolled Zodiac Characters

Based on Chinese lunar calendar, each year is assigned to one of the 12 zodiac animals.  If people know your zodiac animal, it is very easy for them to estimate your age.

Using laminate flooring board, I scrolled 12 zodiac Chinese characters with ancient seal script style, painted with black acrylic and glued onto the white backboard. I installed two dowels on each side. This makes it look like an ancient scroll on display. The side dowels were stained black.  One coat of transparent PU was applied to the colored area.

When dried, it was hung on the wall in my study. Here are the pictures:

Wood Leather Pouch for iPhone 6 Plus

When I received my brand-new iPhone 6 plus, I did not use it for almost one month. As many iPhone 6 plus users said the iPhone 6 plus is bendable if the phone is put in the pocket.   I was looking for a hard shelled belt pouch to better protect it. But all are not my favorite.

I decided to make my own, with wood and leather.

The one I made was walnut with leather, all hand stitched. I pre-drilled all the holes one the wood and routed grooves for the threading lines. Here are the pictures:

iPhone 6 plus vs iPhone 5 with the wood pouch:

The front side of walnut wood leather belt pouch

The back side of the pouch, showing the belt loop.

After making the first iPhone 6 plus pouch, I made another three with different wood and differ coloured leather.

The woods used here  are Bubinga, hard maple and walnut. The red leather is lady's style without belt loop. Inside are lined with flockings to protect the phone.

Mission Style Queen Bed

Mission furniture is my favorite style:  the simplicity of horizontal and vertical arrangements makes it very beautiful and unique for this style.

This mission bed features the  combination of the empire mission with the traditional mission. It took me 20 days to finish. Around 100 board feet of oak wood were used for this bed. I put inlays on both headboard and footboard. The inlay on headboard is wheat, which symbolizes the agriculture of Saskatchewan while the inlay on footboard is lines and squares, which symbolizes the industry of our province.  The wood for inlay is purpleheart.

The hardware used for connecting the bed rails with headboard and footboard is mortise bedlocks,  A router jigs were used to rout the recess holes for the bedlocks installation.

Three coats of danish oil were applied for the bed after thorough sanding.

The dimension of the bed is 210cm long, 171cm high for headboard and 170cm wide.

Test installation of the bed.

The foodboard after coating:

The close view of the headboard:

The bed is ready for use.

Olde Century Mission Table with Flower Inlay

This table was specially made for my wife as a present.

The table was designed based on olde century mission style. The whole table can be disassembled very easily. The middle stretch between two legs was connected with two pairs of bed bolts. The table top is connected with four-leg poles by pressing the beam into a notch and then anchored with dowels.

The dimension of the table is 202 cm in length, 72cm in width and 73cm in height.

The pictures below show the project almost done.

Two long beam was snapped into the notch and anchored with a dowel.

Expansion slots were cut at the underside surface of the table top to prevent the possible wood movement.

Bed bolts were installed on the middle stretch and leg sides.

The long beam was screwed onto the underside of the table top.

After the table top was finished. A pair of rose flowers were inlaid on the opposite corner. The inlay was done with various coloured veneers purchased from Lee Valley. All the pieces were cut based on computer generated pattern and the flower petals were shaded by using hot sand bath.

The finish was done with 1:1 ratio of danish oil and polyurethane (oil-based).

Greene & Greene Hall Table

This is a Greene & Greene style hall table.  The table was made of oak, African ebony and veg leather. The project was finished in May 2015 and took me almost two months from design to finish.

Two pieces veg leather were hand-stitched to the backboard and a diamond-shaped pattern was made with leather stamps. The leather top was dyed with an artist's spray gun. At first, I tried to use hand rubbing method to dye the leather and got a blotchy surface and I have to throw them away and  re-do the leather work. I found that spraying is a good way to get uniform dyeing appearance to overcome the blotch. 

To get square holes for inserting the ebony plugs, I bought a set of square punches from Lee Valley and the punch really saves me a lot of time if I use the regular chisel. The plugs were made based on Wood Whisperer's method.

For the drawers, I used top-loaded glide track and the drawers are very easy to move back and forth as a result. The drawer handle was made with a router table with a plywood template by using a profile straight router bit.

I used the high-gloss polyurethane for the finish after one coat of ColorFx Dye amber dye.