Awesome Woodworking

No, this isn’t one of those primitive building videos where someone creates their own tools to make other things. Omozoc’s latest video uses stop-motion animation to make it appear that a woodworker is crafting an object using their hands as their only tools. If only we could use our fingers as tiny routers to curve the edges on things.

Ben from Woby Design has made some pretty amazing stuff out of skateboard decks. His latest build is a round tabletop made from skateboard decks arranged on end and cut into wedges. He also wrapped its cylindrical plywood base with colorful deck slices. The way the CNC machine cut it into a perfect circle was so satisfying.

Woodworker Ryan Hawkins shows us the time-consuming and laborious process that went into building a truly stunning piece of furniture. He built the 24″ x 48″ coffee table from maple, cherry, and walnut wood, incorporating a herringbone pattern into its top, inspired by a design from cutting board artist MTMWood.

Woodworker Frank Howarth has two cats: Cinnamon and Waffles. He wanted to give them a place to hang out in his craft room, so he built a series of hexagonal units that hang on the French cleats that he previously installed. The modular system allows for reconfiguration without permanently mounting its units.

There’s a whole community dedicated to hacking IKEA products to make them look better or more useful. In this video from Woodboy, he shows us how he turned a cheap IKEA desk lamp into something that looks like it came from a high-end lighting store. All that remains from the original is the LED light bar and wiring though.

Woodworker Frank Howarth was wanted to turn a slice of a fir tree into something different than a typical coffee table. So he set out to create a giant version of a LEGO gear. After patching a crack in the wood with bacon-shaped ties, he encountered a frustrating obstacle while cutting the pattern but persevered.

A typical electric guitar body measures just under 2″ thick. Burls Art wanted to build the thinnest guitar he could out of wood. He used black limba wood for the body, which he cut and planed down to about half the regular thickness. He had to use special low-profile pickups due to the height limitations.

Woodworkers and carpenters, here’s a great addition to your toolbox. These multi-purpose tools include gauges for 8:1 and 6:1 dovetail joints, a saddle square, and a sliding and locking T-bevel blade for transferring and marking angles. The rear of its blade has a notch for marking with a pencil or an awl. Available in two sizes.

When is a trash can not just a trash can? When it’s a beautiful work of art. Frank Howarth needed a place to toss the garbage in his family room, so he used his woodworking skills to conceal a plastic pot. He formed its hyperboloid shape by cutting maple into segments, which he glued into rings, then turned on the lathe.

We’ve seen how colored pencils can be turned into some cool objects, and here’s another one for the collection. Sit back and enjoy as artist Andy Phillip takes hundreds of the pencils, bathes them in resin, and then turns them on his lathe to form a colorful torus. We rather enjoyed watching those resin threads go flying.

Woodart Vietnam shows off another incredible sculpture and its creation. In case you’re unfamiliar with Attack on Titan, the terrifying beast that you’re looking at is the Founding Titan, the massive, skeletal monster that thrives on the screams of humans.

Most benches look pretty ordinary. Woodworker Chris Salomone wanted to build something a little different, so he came up with an abstract modern design for a wooden bench made up of a series of layered triangles. The finished piece looks like something straight out of a high-end furniture showroom.

Creating bent wood objects typically involves cutting a repeated series of slots known as kerf cuts to help the wood to flex. But one side effect of this process is that it leaves unsightly gaps which must be covered up. JAR Made shows off a neat technique using a tapered router bit that makes those gaps nearly invisible.

Woodworker Michael Alm previously showed us how he makes beautiful patterns from pieces of plywood. In this video, he shows how the technique can be used to create some truly extraordinary handle scales for axes and knives. We wonder if you could make a baseball bat using this method.

Stop-motion animator Omozoc created this short film which makes it look like wood can be chopped up as easily as vegetables, nails can be tapped in with a spoon, and sanding could be done with a butter knife. The animation was made from 2854 individual images, and no computer visual effects were added.

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.

Woodworking Art continues to fill out their garage with awesome handmade wooden vehicles. Their latest build is a miniature version of the Ferrari SF90 Spider. It has lots of wonderful details, like a retractable hardtop roof and working suspension and steering. Its seats even slide back and forth, and we love the red brake calipers.

Looking for a unique idea for a Christmas tree? Woodworker TyeMadeIt shows off a tree he made by cutting 288 wooden stakes to different lengths then stacked them on a pole and twisted them. Since making the one shown in the video, he’s been commissioned to make custom ones for clients. Build video here.

There’s something so satisfying about woodturning and lathe videos, watching artists carve away at a solid block of material to reveal smooth shapes and interesting patterns. Watch as woodworker Olivier Gomis turns sticks of lumber into what he refers to as an “average size” bowl.

After showing us how to make some geometric patterns with plywood, builder Michael Alm is back with another neat woodworking tutorial. In this clip, he walks through several other patterns, each of which is contained in a hexagonal shape. Surprisingly, it’s not nearly as difficult as it looks.

Generic Woodworking has built some pretty amazing mechanical wooden models, including a drill-powered wooden car, complete with a working engine, transmission, and steering. He recently upgraded the car with a functional odometer, which can track the distance that its wheels have traveled. See it in action at 10:55.

Woodworker Olivier Gomis shows off his build process for a really amazing sculptural piece. By arranging and gluing boards into funnel shape, then lathing out its center, he created a wooden vase that approximates the oft-seen images representing the curvature of spacetime.

Paul Katz not only knows how to build things from wood, but he likes to document his progress on video. But he doesn’t just shoot ordinary footage. Instead, he records his work a tiny bit at a time, capturing a frame each time he makes a small change, resulting in cool stop-motion animations of his process.