What's a French Cleat?

Don't worry folks, I'm still here! I've been busy the last couple of weeks as I prepared to separate from the military. I've still been working in the garage, focusing on my cutting boards, but today I wanted to talk about a project I'm working on for my neighbors. It's called a floating mantel. And don't worry, it's not magic. 

So what's a floating mantel? Essentially it's just a way of mounting the mantel without externally visible brackets or supports. It looks like the mantel is just a solid beam coming out of the wall or "floating". Now to the question in the title of this post. What is a french cleat? When you look at the picture below you'll see one half of the cleat attached to the top board of the mantel with a Kregg joiner. The cleat itself is just one solid piece of wood, in this case a 1x10 that I cut down the middle lengthwise at a 45 degree angle. One side of that board goes on the mantel, and the other side goes on the wall that you want to mount the mantel too. When you're ready to mount the mantel, you simply slide the cleat on the mantel over the wall mounted side, and you end up with a nice perfectly flush surface! 

I'll admit, I didn't know what a French cleat was until my neighbors asked me to build one for them... As it turns out (thankfully for me) it's a very simple and elegant way of mounting something to a wall. I opted to use a Kregg joiner with wood glue to make sure the mantels I'm building are very strong and can support plenty of weight without fear of bending or breaking. 

The rest of the mantel is essentially a box. Albeit a slightly more complicated version of a box because the idea is to make the mantel look like one solid piece of wood. I do that by cutting 45 degree miters around the edges (you can see that in the above picture). The top of the mantel, the face (the vertical piece on the front) and the end caps all have a 45 degree miter and in theory would line up nice and flush. Here's where I encountered a challenge. I don't have a miter saw. 

I'll digress for a moment. When you're using a table saw it's very difficult to run a long piece of wood across the saw. It's difficult to control and one little slip up means your whole cut is ruined! That's where a miter saw comes into play. Cutting the 45 degree edges into the ends of the wood is immensely easier with a miter saw. You simply set your wood on a stable surface and the saw does the rest! Like I said earlier... I don't have a miter saw (yet). I had to use a couple of extra surfaces to help guide the wood along the table saw and I really had to focus on making as straight a cut as possible. For the most part it worked out pretty well. The seams didn't line up just perfectly, but they were pretty dang close. 

 

The pictures above show various stages of assembly, first putting the face on the board, and then the end caps. I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's a tool for every job! And for this job I got a new tool... an 18 gauge pin nailer. It uses compressed air to drive various sized nails which are very small into the wood. Really it's purpose in this project was just to tack the 45 degree surfaces together and in conjunction with some clamps, make the edges as invisible as possible. I think it turned out pretty well, and with some sanding the edges all but disappeared. 

Sorry for the messy garage in the pictures, but hopefully you can see that after I did the finish sanding with 400 grit sand paper and then putting the first coat of stain on the wood, it really turned into a nice finished product. It looks like a solid piece of semi aged wood! 

Now I just have to finish it's identical twin (you can see the edges of it in the pictures above). Please let me know what you think! This is my first try at making a mantel and I personally think it turned out pretty great! Hopefully my neighbors think so as well! 

Updates from the Shop!

It's been a while since I posted a new blog. I've been pretty busy crafting a new clock and two new cutting boards. The business is going pretty well so far. I've sold 1 clock and (as of today) 8 cutting boards! Now I'll admit that I still have a ways to go before this business is profitable. But it's looking good so far! 

Now onto some updates... 

First, the clock.

 

I think all in all it came out pretty well. I wanted it to look like it had been hanging up on a wall for years. I still need to sand a little bit off of the polyurethane, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out!

Next, my newest cutting boards... 

This one turned out pretty neat looking. The Purple Heart wood is such a cool color and such a unique wood. Especially once I turned it on the end grain. 

Here's the one I finished up today. Another really pretty end product. With this one I used African Mahoganey and African Padouk. Another beautiful end product. Especially with the Padouk. I really loved the way this one turned out too. I also did a few videos explaining how I made it on my Facebook page Nick's Woodworking Designs. 

Well that's all I've got today, sorry it's not fully of my usual details. But I've got more work to do! Until next time! 

My Supplies....

Today's post is going to be about the buisness aspect of my woodworking. As most of you probably know by now, I'm working hard to turn my woodworking into a business. I'm working on a couple of clocks, a shadow box, and (obviously) a lot of end grain cutting boards! I really love working in my garage, but I'm also enjoying the business aspect. Making a sale (I've only had a few, and they've been with people I know...) is an awesome feeling. Knowing that someone out there likes what you're doing, and they are willing to shell out their hard earned dollars to buy it...that's a humbling experience for me. It's also a motivation. Motivation to make the best product I can make. I research better techniques, materials, skills etc. I want my customers to be extremely happy with the product I deliver! 

My only issue now is that my sales are dependent heavily on face to face enteractions. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to make a sale no matter what! But I realize that the long term efficacy of my business relys heavily on reaching an audience out there in the trons! So my issue is this... Tomorros I run out of materials.... And I can't buy more unless I sell at least one more piece of my inventory! SO! Here comes the shameless plug.... I've got four cutting boards for sale, one of which I'll put the finishing touches on tomorrow. 

And here they are....

 This one isn't finished yet! More to come!                             

These can be found on my etsy page, which can be found on my main page. Please feel free to message me. We can discuss pricing, shipping costs, etc. I'm pretty flexible :) Look forward to hearing from you!                                                   

Where did this Come From!?

A lot of people have been asking me lately, why woodworking? How did you get into this? Why cutting boards? Amongst these questions and many others I wanted to give everyone a little insight as to why I'm trying to "monetize" my woodworking.

Without getting into to much detail, I'm on the cusp of leaving the job I've had for most of my adult life (military). And for most of my adult life I've enjoyed doing one thing more than most (besides spending time with my beautiful wife and family); flying! I've been a pilot for the better part of ten years and now you're probably wondering what flying has to do with woodworking? Well as a pilot, I seek out jobs as a pilot, because, like the age old adage, "it's not work if you love what you're doing".

Now that I'm nearing the end of my time in the military I've been working towards getting a job, as we all do! I'm fortunate in that I found a job as a pilot and I'm very excited to start the next chapter of my life. However, this next chapter comes with a some costs...mostly monetary if I'm honest. But in the long run it's going to be a great career that will afford me and my family a lot of wonderful options in the future. But this monetary cut has been weighing on me. And this stress got me to thinking about other ways I could supplement my income, while still doing something I really love, and I'm really passionate about....

Here's where woodworking comes into play! I've been restoring and building things out of wood for a while now, and like I said in one of my earliest posts, I have a passion for it. I enjoy creating something from my mind, imagination, and passion. And I take a lot of pride in what I do. Now this led me to want to learn more about my chosen hobby, which lead me to Facebook pages about woodworking.

One day I'm looking at Facebook and I see a video post from one of the woodworking pages I follow, and it's about CUTTING BOARDS. Yep, I saw someone else make this really cool looking end grain cutting board. I did some more research and I found that these cutting boards were all over the place and seemed to be pretty popular. Well I decided at that point that maybe I could create my own unique designs, and maybe, just maybe, someone would actually want to buy one from me. It's a similar story for clocks as well. Although I haven't made any recently, just today I started two, and I expect to finish them this week. I'll post about those tomorrow, so stay tuned for that!

Back to this post. I set a modest goal for myself, I want to bring in just a little bit of extra money each month, and I want to do it by doing something I really enjoy doing.

So there ya go folks! I've had a couple of sales, and I hope I have many more in the future!

Expanding Operations!

It's been a few days since I posted. So I just wanted to bring everyone up to speed on my most recent projects. I'm sticking with the cutting boards for right now. I broke down and added a jointer to my repertoire, which has really helped improved the speed and quality of my products. I had some exciting news as well, I sold a cutting board! No big deal :). In all seriousness, that sale enabled me to turn around and invest in some new hardwoods to make larger cutting boards. And by larger I mean at least double the size of the next biggest one I had made up to this point. 

The first one I made from Ash and Peruvian Walnut. I kept it pretty simple with this design, slight checkboard or zipper pattern, .25 inch round over on the top, and a couple of finger slots for gripping at the bottom. Simplicity turned out to be a great answer because this cutting board turned out beautiful. 

 After the seasoning process. Underside view.  Before I began the seasoning process. The next one I did featured a little more variety in my wood selection. I used Jatoba, Red Oak, and Poplar. I also went for a little book matched design as well. This one is my largest yet, coming in at 22.25 inches long, 11 inches wide, and 1.5 inches deep. I'll probably cap out at this size because this thing is a beast!!! Unless of course someone wants to custom order a larger one haha. This one was also a pretty simple striped design, which I think turned out well. It's pretty heavy as cutting boards go, that's largely due to the Jatoba, which is a very dense hardwood. Reading up on Jatoba I read that it was hard to glue, so I made sure to focus on covering every edge with my food grade (FDA approved) glue, and I made sure to let it sit for at least 12 hours. The end result turned out really well. I stuck with the .25 inch round over and the finger grooves on the base as well. Sometimes simpler is better! 

 Underside view. Topside, highlighting the book matching.  Another shot of the before and after seasoning. Well that's all I've got for today folks! I hope you like my cutting boards. As always, they are on sale on my Etsy page at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicksWoodworkDesigns?ref=hdr. If you're really in love with one, just send me a message on their and we can talk details! I'm also happy to take custom orders, again, just message me and we can talk about what you want! This week I'm going to focus on expanding my handmade wall clocks as well as shadow box. Believe me, I will be making MANY more cutting boards! Keep an eye out for more posts in the near future! 

Thoughts on Woodworking...

When does your garage become your woodworking workshop? I've been mulling this over for days now.... Is it after you've completed a certain number of projects? That can't be it... Is it after you have a certain number or a certain type of tool? I can't see that being the answer either... Maybe it's after you've received at least one complaint about the amount of sawdust being blown out of your garage on a daily basis? Or maybe it's after you've sold something that you've made yourself????


I have to admit upfront, I don't know the answer to this question. I've completed many projects (admittedly recently they've mostly been cutting boards). I have all sorts of tools, from a table saw to my newly acquired bench top jointer, never mind the countless hand tools I have at my disposal. Fortunately I haven't received any complaints about the saw dust, although I will say I've been more focused on vacuuming up after I finish a days work in the garage (vice my historical leaf blowing technique). Lastly, I have yet to actually sell one of my products. Though I do think it's just a matter of time (fingers crossed).


I think what makes a garage a wood working workshop depends on the individual. For me my garage became my workshop the day I started on my first refurbishing project many moons ago. I found that I really enjoyed the work that day, and I use the term work loosely. I can't answer that question for you. But I do know that everyone who engages in the innumerable kinds of wood working that exist out there has a workshop they do it in. For me, it just happens to be my garage. And hey, I'm ok with that. I don't need a fancy shed in the backyard to work out of (my wife will tell you otherwise). All I need is a little space and the passion to keep learning and trying new things.


Today I finished up two new cutting boards, like I said earlier, I haven't sold a darn one! But I think they sure did come out pretty! And I did all of it from my workshop!

As always, if you like what you see, please check out my Etsy page at https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicksWoodworkDesigns?ref=hdr_shop_menu.


What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!

Learning Lessons....

Today is a test of who actually reads my post and who doesn't. Why is that? Because this post isn't about finishing a project, it's about the mistakes we learn from along the way. Today's post isn't about an active project I'm working on. It's about a project I started, but failed at! I haven't taken any pictures of why my project failed.... YET!

Everyone knows I'm working on cutting boards a lot lately. And I'm doing it with the hope of selling them and bring in some extra money. I feel like I have a pretty decent skill, and the tools to put it into practice, so monetizing on that isn't a bad thing. In line with that, I was working on a larger cutting board similar to one I've already put together (and posted about). Here's a shot of it in the early stages. 

By the way, that shot also has a pretty sweet shot of my toes. No big deal...Anyways, I decided on this particular project to utilize my biscuit joiner. I thought it would make a stronger joint and a better connection across the board. Everything came together well, I had no issues with putting it all together, but just when I thought everything was nearing completion.... DISASTOR! 

Nearing the end of this project I decided to put a thin trim on the edge of this board, I'm into the trim right now, I think it looks really nice to have one solid border all the way around the final piece. It gives my cutting boards a really nice sense of....closure? I dunno, I just think they look cool! 

Now we get to the meat and potatoes. After I put the trim on and having given the glue ample time to set, I decided to run my cutting board through my brand new planer! Some of you reading this post may be thinking "NOOOOOO Nick, DON'T DO IT"! And to that I say... "where you you when I was making this decision?". All joking aside, I ran my cutting board through, and the first thing that happened was it ripped the back edge trim right off the cutting board. This didn't panic me to much, I can repair that. But why did it rip the edge off? 

It ripped the edge off because of the way the planer works. It has a clockwise spinning blade with an edge on it, that edge is what does the work on solid surface. Planing things out. Well in my effort to level off the board, I tried to take a little to much off, and that spinnning edge caught the lip of the trim and flung it right off! Like I said earlier, I wasn't to worried about it, it wasn't expected, but I knew I could fix it. However, I still needed to level out the board so I ran it through one more time.... This is where things get interesting...

Remember earlier when I mentioned that I used my biscuit joiner? Yeah well that was a HUGE mistake.... Anyone who uses a biscuit joiner knows that it leaves gaps in the wood. This is a result of cutting a larger oblong shape into the wood, with which you would ultimately place a biscuit. The result of that is you end up with weak points in the wood. In a cutting board that is already less than 1 inch, this weak points become rather substantial. When I ran my cutting board through the planer one more time, those weak points were uncovered. A large section of the weak wood was chipped off (caught by the edge of the planer along a slightly taller surface). You can actually see the biscuit that I used in that section of wood!

I don't wanna drag things on. I know most people probably don't want to read super lengthy articles... Buuuuut. I learned a lot from this project. And the lesson is simple...don't use biscuit joiners all willy nilly! And if you do... think about how those will affect your project! Here's where I learn how many people actually read through my articles...If you read this article, all you have to do is post a one word comment on what you think of this post! I.E. "boring, informational, fun" etc. Looking forward to hearing from you! 

Carrying On!

This post is more or less a follow on from yesterdays chevron cutting board. Before I made yesterdays cutting board, the original slab of wood I had, I cut in half. So I ended up with two halves to make two unique cutting boards. I did this because I don't have a jointer (as I mentioned yesterday) nor did I have my planer, so I needed a two smaller, more manageable pieces. Part of me wishes I had the ability to mill the larger piece of wood because I could have made one larger chevron cutting board. I think part of the reason mine aren't selling right now is because they are smaller... But they still look really cool, and they are certainly functional! Just not as big as I think some people are looking for. 

So with today's cutting board I cut larger slabs, at 1.5 inches vice yesterdays 1 inch. I also cut these pieces at 20 degree angles instead of 15 (like yesterdays). This gave the chevrons a wider, but more angular look. I also added two pieces of trim, one mahogany and one birch. I did this initially because I wanted to give it some more size. Doing that caused the final size to come in at 12 inches long, 7 inches wide, and just under .75 inches tall. Again this one is on the smaller side, but definitely larger than yesterdays, and more functional. 

 Here's a side by side of the two cutting boards. The one on the left is the new one, without its additional trim. The one on the right looks larger because it's on stands.  A more up close shot.  Here it is after I put the extra trim on. One thing I'm still working around is the fact that I don't have a jointer. I think I'm still managing, but I still end up with small slivers between the wood at times. I still think the final products come out well. But I look forward to the day where I can joint the wood as well as plane it. Maybe if I can tempt some people to buy these cutting boards I can buy my jointer! We'll see!

Here's the final product as well as a lineup of the three most recent ones I've made. 

 This is with a coat of food grade mineral oil.  Newest one is on the left. Like I've said before, these are all for sale on my etsy page, which can be found on my blogs home page at the top! So if you're interested, go check it out! 

Another Cutting Board!?

That’s right folks, another one! I’m churning these things out now, I’ve really got the process down. And I got a new tool to help in the process! Thanks wife :). This one is a chevron style cutting board. It’s on the small side at about 10.5 inches long, 6.5 inches wide, and about .75 inches tall. You may be wondering why I’m making these smaller right now. The answer to that is pretty easy, I don’t have large pieces of wood to work with. When I make these end grain cutting boards, they get turned, you guessed it, on their end. So in order to get a taller cutting board, you need wide pieces of wood, around the two inch mark, this gives your more height across the cutting board when you glue it together. 

Here some shots of the board coming together.

Doing the initial edge fitting

Getting everything set and glued together

You know one of my favorite thing about working on these projects is to see what the project looked like at the beginning and compare it to the final product. With this cutting board you can definitely tell a difference! As you are about to see. But before you get to the pictures, I wanted to explain how I get a bunch of pieces of wood together to make it look like it does. 

See up until today I was missing two semi important tools to really get a fantastic, perfectly joined cutting board. Today I got one of the two tools I needed, a full thickness planer. What does a planer do? It basically makes two sides of an object parallel each other. So if you have a flat surface on one side, you’ll end up with a flat surface on the other. This cutting board didn’t get that kind of treatment, everything was done purely by hand, and with the use of my table saw to make straight edges. 

The other tool I need, and will ultimately get, is a jointer. A jointer will basically take any surface and make it nice and flat. Why is that good? Without a nice flat edge, you can’t really get a good seal/bond on your wood when you go to glue it together (like above). Now I still don’t have a jointer, but I still get my pieces pretty darn close. So how do I do it? Well that’s a great question person reading my blog. I use my table saw! I built some sleds which are basically just platforms, check out the picture below. 

Here’s one of my sleds

I took painstaking efforts when building my sleds to make sure that they were as close to square as I could make them. I’ll grant you they still aren’t 100%, but they are like 98%. So using my sleds, I’m able to control my smaller pieces of wood, and make each edge pretty much perfectly square. So when I place one edge up against the other, you guessed it. It comes out flush. Using my table saw definitely works. But it’s a bit of a pain, especially when you start working with pieces that aren’t square, like the chevron cutting board in the post. So for that particular set up, I had to come up with a rig to assist me in straightening the edges. Again, pretty painstaking, but I love the work, and though it may not be perfect. I’m really proud of it! 

Like I said earlier, this one is on the small side, but I think it’s very functional. And can be used as a cutting board, or even a serving dish! I use food grade mineral oil to prep the board, then a butcher block conditioner, and finally a coat of beeswax that I let soak in and then polish up. This cutting board will be for sale on my etsy site (on my main page). As always, let me know what you think! I look forward to hearing from you. 

A new End Grain Cutting Board

As you can probably guess by now. I'm really getting into making these end grain cutting boards. Today I finished another one and guess what? It's for sale! Just check out my etsy site, which can be found on the main page of my blog.


As far as the construction went, this one was a lot smoother. I will say that after making this one and another one from the same materials (still working on that one), I decided to purchase a bench planer. I'm able to joint the wood pretty well using my table saw and sleds, but I think having the planer will really make life easier, it'll save me time, I'll use less over all material, and I won't have to sand nearly as much! These all sound like pluses to me! I'm really happy with how this one turned out. It's a little bigger than my previous cutting board coming in at 8 inches wide 10.5 inches in length and 1 inch tall. I rounded off the trim and used Howards Butcher Block Conditioner, which really made the wood pop! In terms of materials, I used mahogany, red oak and white oak (white oak on the trim), and birch.


I have another much larger cutting board that I'm in the process of finishing. It's the same materials, just put together a little differently. Take a look at the pictures and let me know what you think!

Making Real Progress

So today I went crazy in the garage! I made a couple of sleds, which really helped speed up the progress on my two new cutting boards. 

Above are some shots of my sleds (I actually made a third one that was longer length wise). I can't believe how much quicker I was able to square everything up, including all of the little pieces you see in the left picture next to the smaller sled. Once I had everything squared up, I used my biscuit joiner and lots of glue to secure everything. 

So this post isn't going to be super flashy but I just wanted to update everyone on what I'm working on. These will go on my etsy site for sale in a couple of days, tomorrow I should finish them both. If you're interested in buying them they will be available here: 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicksWoodworkDesigns?ref=hdr_shop_menu