Woodwork City

Free Swing Plans – Porch or Lawn

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:00:29 +0000

The following free porch swing plans come from the fine folks at Workbench Magazine. If you have ever wanted to build your own swing, you probably have concerns about strength and safety (as well you should). Following a nice swing plan like this should give you some comfort that you are following a trusted source who has tested the integrity of the design.

Free Swing Plans

With that said, the swing is also attractive and relatively easy to build. There are a lot of parts to this swing plan, but the basic design is straightforward. In fact, if you are a little creative, you can expand on the design of the back to suit your aesthetic.

Good luck building this swing. Click on the image to download the full plan (source: Workbench Magazine).

The 7 Most Popular Free Woodworking Plans

Wood Writer — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:33:31 +0000

Over the past 5 years, WoodworkCity.com has grown in to a source for free woodworking plans. We are often asked what the most popular wood plans are, and we have compiled a list of the 7 most popular woodworking plans at Woodwork City in the year 2011.

Top Free Wood Plans in 2011

In the past year, we have receive hundreds of thousands of visitors and we have compiled a list of the most popular plans by order of the most plan views. This measure will suit the needs of many, but keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that this is the list of the most popular woodworking plans, this is simply the list of the most popular free wood plans at Woodwork City. If you are seeking a list of free plans based upon sales data, you can try the Most popular wood plans at Amazon.com (based upon sales numbers).

Here is the list of the most popular plans at WoodworkCity.com over the past year (based upon plan page views).

We hope that this list is useful for many of you.

If you are searching for a specific plan, please request it using the comment section below. We will generally find a free plan for you within 24 hours.

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Portable Tool Base Review

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:42 +0000

This isn’t a wood plan, but I felt the need to share it with our readers. This is a sale item at Rockler.com that will help make your workshop a bit more efficient. We are an affiliate of Rockler, so we will make a couple of % if your purchase. We appreciate the support. This tool normall sells for about $60 at Amazon (HTC PortaMate PM1000 Universal Mobile Base). The sale listing below is good while supplies last. The price (when this was written) was $39.99

If you find yourself in a small shop (aren’t they all), you will always be working toward a more efficient use of the space. It seems that every woodworker will fill his or her space depending on what room is available (and then add 10%-20% more ‘stuff’). Nearly every woodworker will always be wanting to optimize his or her workshop.

HTC PM1000 Portamate Mobile Base, While Supplies Last!
Adjustable in 1″ increments to fit your power tools, tool boxes and more, this base will allow you to wheel equipment around your shop with ease. Includes four 12″ rails and four 18″ rails arrangeable..

HTC PM1000 Portamate Mobile Base, While Supplies Last!

About 9 years ago, I moved into a new home and found myself with a decent sized shop (15′x18′), but not big enough for all of my large tools. For a couple of the tools, i built rolling carts so that they could easily be moved aside. For my table saw, that didn’t seem like the best option since the saw needed to be moved out fairly often and it also needed to be stabilized once it was out in the middle of my shop. I found a nice rolling base at Rockler.com that did the job perfectly. With my saw coming in at over 100 pounds, and my saw needing to be moved out to the middle of my small’ish shop this stand works perfectly. It has a cam system that easily engages and disengages the wheels. The saw moves with ease and once the saw is in place, the cams can be flipped down and the saw then sits on the built in feet. It is super stable once down and a breeze to move when the 2 cams are engaged. Engaging the cams can be done with your foot, so you woodworkers with bad backs don’t even have to bend down to do so.

Take a look at this tool base. It is adjustable depending on your saw, so it should fit just about any make or model. 9 years in and I still love the ease of use of mine.

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Kitchen Cabinet Plans

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:29:55 +0000

Ever dream of building your own Kitchen Cabinets? Well, have at it. The construction of a kitchen cabinet is not too difficult and the end result can look as good as a factory build cabinet. I was inspired to build my own kitchen cabinets for 3 reasons.

Unique size needed (shallow cabinet)
Time (I have a lot of it over the winter months)
Cost of custom order cabinets (simply not worth the price)

The basic kitchen cabinet is essentially a box made of plywood or particle board, with a face frame and doors (and/or a drawer). In fact, there are companies out there that will handle the doors and drawers for you at a reasonable price. Rockler Hardware even has a custom door and drawer front program.

The plans to build your own cabinets can be found by clicking on the following image:

Kitchen cabinet plans

Good luck building your own kitchen cabinets.

If you have pictures, please send them along.

Side Table Plans

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:37:31 +0000

The following is a side table plan that could really be the basis for a number of side table / end table projects. This plan is relatively simple with a unique style. The plan includes storage, yet is still a beginner level plan. There aren’t too many difficult techniques to build this table.

Click on the image to view the full plan. Good luck building.

Side Table Plans

The material list / shopping list is below:
2 – 1×2 Boards, 8′ Long
3 – 1×3 Boards, 8′ Long
1×10, 24″ long
1×8, 26″ long
3/4″ Plywood 23″ x 17 1/2″
1/4″ Plywood 21 1/2″ x 24 1/2″
1 1/4″ Pocket Hole Screws
1 1/4″ Nails
2″ Screws
wood glue
wood filler
120 grit sandpaper
primer
wood conditioner
paint
paint brush
Tools:
measuring tape
square
pencil
safety glasses
hearing protection
Kreg Jig
drill
compound miter saw
sander
countersink drill bit

Fold Away Workbench

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:53:30 +0000

If you are like me, you can never have enough workbench space. I am a stacker and my workbench space tends to get taken up when I am in the middle of my projects. This fold away workbench might be ideal for the times when I need a little extra space.

This bench is made from standard items.

Depending on your size, you will need 3 butt hinges, 3 2 x 4′s and 1 piece of MDF that is about 14″ x 48″ (You could use virtually any 3/4 material for the top).

Click on the image to view the full sized plans. There isn’t too detailed a description of the construction. This project is simple enough to build based upon the drawing. If you have a non-standard wall cavity, be sure you measure to fit and give yourself about 1/2″ clearance from your rough opening size.

Good luck building this terrific folding bench.

Folding workbench plans

These plans come from Woodsmith magazine and can be found in their Woodworking tips section:
http://www.woodworkingtips.com/etips/2007/09/14/sn/

iPhone amplifier / Speaker out of Wood

admin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:46:11 +0000

This is a terrific project that I decided to build for myself. I never want to spend $75 on an iPod / iPhone dock that burns through batteries, but I would like an amplifier for my iPhone. This wooden iPhone dock is a fantastic project. The plans were inspired by others around the web including Koostik.com and a similar iPhone amp project at LumberJocks.com.

This project was a great one that allowed me to work with my 9 year old son. He was happy to work with the drill press to help with the holes and with the spindle sander to clean them up.

Wooden iPhone Amplifier

Download the full iPhone Amplifier Sketchup plan by clicking on the image below:

iPhone Amp Plan

I built mine by using 3 pieces of Cherry that were left over from a past project. I love working with Cherry and the finish always turns out terrific.

There are 3 basic pieces. I began with Part 2 since it had the most work and would be the least visible since it is sandwiched by parts 1 and 3. Follow the Sketchup plan (click the image for the file download, or

click here: http://www.woodworkcity.com/planpictures/iphone-amp.skp .

To construct your own, fabricate each of the 3 pieces from the Sketchup plan. Once you have your three pieces, align, glue, and clamp. After mine was fully set, I flushed up the edges with my chop saw. In addition to that, I wanted my iPhone amp to lean back a bit. This would help to retain the iPhone and give a more professional (finished) look to the piece. I set my saw blade at about 10 degrees and took a sliver off of the bottom. I also decided to put a routed edge on the speaker holes. I used a simple 45 degree chamfer bit.

Perform any finish sanding needed, apply your sealant, paint, or stain, and enjoy!

iPhone Amplifier Plans

Purple Martin House Plans

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:12:46 +0000

We have included a few bird house plans over the past few years. Most of them have been relatively simple as are most birdhouse plans (birdhouse plans)? In fact, I find myself using a lot of my cut off, or scrap, lumber for birdhouse scale projects.

Just the other day, a reader requested a a plan for a Purple Martin House. I actually found it kind of funny that we hadn’t included a Martin House Plan before. I located a nice resource that provides a free purple martin house plan. Enjoy. This is the perfect addition to a property and a great project for all of your excess lumber from your summer projects.

Click on the image for the complete plans. You will find the navigation for the steps to the plan on the top of each page.

Purple Martin House Plans

Past birdhouse plans

My Original Adirondack Chair Plans – 1997

admin — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:47:35 +0000

When I was a budding entrepreneur (does that ever change), I decided to build an Adirondack chair based on a plan in a woodworking magazine. I built the chair and immediately thought that I should sell the chairs. Before doing that, I decided it would make more sense to recreate a version of the plan from the magazine and to actually create full sized templates for each part. What spurred me to do so was the fact that transferring the pattern from the magazine page to my wood required a 1″ x 1″ grid and then marking the points. I was very literal in the translation of the plans, so this was painstaking for me. In the beginning, I varied very little from the plan. After building hundreds of Adirondack Chairs, I finally have an understanding that the parts can have a fluid line that doesn’t have to be exact, it just has to look right.

My first foray into selling an Adirondack Chair plan was via a classified ad in the back of a wood magazine. Fortunately, a few orders started coming in. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the plans completed. The number of orders that came in were enough to cover the cost of the ad plus about $20. In 1997, $20 was nice extra money for me. Ah… I still needed the plan.

I have always been computer savvy, so I knew that I wanted to create this item on my own via my PC and my home printer. Since the longest piece for the plan was 40″, I needed to find a printer that could print continues feed for at least 4 pages. I was fortunate enough to have a printer that could accommodate this. I would take a run of continuous feed paper (the perforated kind), tear off the tractor feed strips and feed it into my Epson inkjet printer. In addition to that, I needed to find a drawing program that was easy enough for me to learn quickly and would be able print the 4 continuous pages so that I could provide a full sized template system to my customers. I was fortunate enough to locate a 2d design program from the folks at Ashlar Vellum (http://www.ashlar.com/). They don’t still produce the product, but back in the day, they offered a “lite” version of their program called “Drawing Board” for free. It was my lucky day.

Once I created my templates and was able to print, I was in business. The instructions to build the chair were rather simple and only about four pages long. The material list and cut list were the only additional items needed. My first orders did have to wait about 10 days until I had a full Adirondack Chair Plan to ship, but back in the days of mail order and personal checks, that was not unusual. We sold many sets of these Adirondack chair plans for about four years. After that, we became a reseller for another plan company (JerPat’s).

If you are looking to build your own Adirondack Chair, you can choose from any number of free plans around the web. The following 4 posts should set you in the right direction. There are 11 Adirondack Chair plan varieties to choose from on the 4 pages below:

Good luck with your own project. Here is a picture of one of the first Adirondack Chairs that I produced from my original plans.

Adirondack chair

Free Garden Chair and Bench Plans

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:51:38 +0000

The following is a beautiful, yet simple, woodworking plan from the fine folks at Minwax.com, makers of Thompson’s Waterseal.

The plans well laid out and include items that speed a wood project. There is a material shopping list along with a cutting list. A woodworker looking for speed will appreciate both lists. One of the items on the list is a 2″ deck screw. I would strongly recommend changing that out to a 2″ stainless steel deck screw. You will find that they are much more expensive (relatively speaking) but the galvanized screws will react with the lumber. Especially if you use cedar as suggested.

Garden Chair and Bench Plans

Click on the picture of the chair and bench (above) to download the full set of plans for the garden chair and bench. This is a stylish, and compact, addition to any back yard, deck, or garden.

Good luck and feel free to contact us with project images.