Awesome Pask Makes

For this Scrapwood Challenge, carpenter Neil Pask created a beautiful modern pendant lamp. He created its cylindrical shape by gluing small wood segments into circles that he routed smoothly. To create the organic perforations in the shade, he drilled randomly-placed holes and then painstakingly routed each one by hand.

Clamps are readily available at your local hardware store, but if you’re industrious, you could always make your own. Pask Makes shows off a square clamp he made from steel, and walks through the process of building one with handheld tools, then ramping up production with professional workbench tools.

Pask Makes shows us how wood skewers are good for more than serving kebabs. By stacking, cutting, clamping, and gluing hundreds of sticks, then planing and sanding the result, he created a beautiful cutting board we’d love to have on our kitchen counter.

We’ve seen how a skilled carpenter can create a traditional Japanese Kumiko lattice. Pask Makes wanted to see if the same sort of pattern could be created using another material – steel nails. He started with a wooden template to hold the nails in place, then welded them together and smoothed out the rough bits.

After making a small parts organizer, Neil Pasken challenged fellow builder John Heisz of I Build It to create his own. John’s version has 18 swing-out “butterfly” drawers, each with dividers for keeping parts readily accessible. Other than the tiny set screws, he built it entirely from wood. He also posted a build guide.

While his designs aren’t as intricate as the Japanese masters, builder Pask Makes is becoming quite adept at the Japanese craft of Kumiko. This time out, he wanted to hide an ugly water tank with a screen, and made quite the beautiful covering by cutting and assembling hundreds of pieces of plywood into repeating geometric patterns.

Builder Pask Makes shows off a technique based on ancient Japanese woodworking. He starts off by laminating boards of scrap wood, slicing them into strips, then assembling them side-by-side to create a pattern. Once thoroughly glued into place, he shaves off layers with a plane and irons them to create beautiful veneers.

For his latest Scrapwood Challenge, Pask Makes decided to see if he could build an electric fan from wood. But this isn’t just any fan, it’s got a ring-style design like Dyson’s innovative bladeless “Air Multiplier” fans. It could use a more powerful fan blade inside, but it looks really awesome.

Pask Makes likes to build objects out of scrap wood. He recently attempted to make his own LEGO-style building blocks, and came to find it’s much more difficult than you might think due to the precision required to make them stack. Watch his earlier attempt here.