Making a Kitchen Drawer Utensil Organizer

 My wife for years has wanted a kitchen drawer organizer.  We were still using the cheap plastic utensil organizer I had purchased in 1990 when I moved out on my own.  The biggest challenge was the timeframe.  I was busy making a bunch of other Christmas gifts and I didn't have much time to make it.  I planned to keep the construction simple with butt joints, glue and nails.  For it was, it didn't need fancy joints.

I was taking a woodworking class at Mount Diablo Adult Education (MDAE) and had access to machines.  My plan was to use machines to get the 1/2" cherry stock I purchase at Rockler cut to width.  For the length, I opted to use hand tools.  I wanted to have one side true and one end at a perfect 90 degrees and didn't trust the chop saw at the school to give me that.  As such, I cut the boards to 24" lengths via handsaw and used my shooting.  It only took 30 minutes or so to do the bulk wood.

When I arrived at MDAE, I had the wood all organized the same way.  It was then just a matter of ripping all stock down to 2.75" widths.  It went really quick - less than 30 minutes.  It would have taken me much longer by hand.  Normally I wouldn't mind doing this, but I was time constrained.

When I got home, I cleaned up the cherry burn marks from the table saw.  I also smoothed all of the interior surfaces with a hand plane.  I sorted out the specific widths I wanted and cut all the various pieces to length.  The beauty of this project is that it could afford some discrepancies in lengths given what the project was.  That helped quite a bit.

To make it easier to reach into the drawers, I cut some curves into some of the pieces using cross cuts followed by chisel, spoke shave, rasps, and sandpaper.  With that all done, it was a matter of glue up.  I was also going to be using nails to help secure everything in place and I predrilled the holes.

Glue up was a bit tedious but went well.  Only minor cleanup was needed with a hand plane to flush the bottoms.  Then, I glued and nailed on some cherry plywood for the bottom.  I didn't have time to finish it prior to Christmas.  I planned to finish it on 26Dec.  My wife liked the natural wood look and figured it would get a bit beat up from use no matter what, so she wanted it unfinished.  Happy wife happy life.  Oh, and my wife really loved this gift.  She didn't expect it and it was a pleasant surprise for her.  It took about 20 hours to make and the wood cost about $50.  

2023 Woodworking Goals

 I've never put together a woodworking goals for the year thing before.  Certainly do it for work.  I thought it might be nice to put something together for 2023 and then at the end of the year see where I land.  It's not a life and death list but a nice to have.

In terms of the big projects, I have three:  Christian Becksvoort's 15 drawer chest, Limbert No 355 bookcase, and Stumpy Nubs saw benches.  In terms of seriousness of doing these, I already have all the needed lumber in my rack so the money has been spent.  If I can get these three done in 2023 and nothing else, I will consider it a successful year.

I am a huge fan of Becksvoort's work.  I fell in love with this 15 drawer chest a long time ago.  I have some left over cherry from a Shaker Chimney cabinet I built in 2021.  The dovetail focus in 2022 was to get me ready to build this.  I feel ready and can't wait to start.

Another piece I really love is Limbert's No 355 bookcase.  I just love the three sides to hold books.  I have genuine mahogany (aka Honduran mahogany) that has been in my shop for 11 months so I am ready.  Both Fine Woodworking and a book (image above) have all the critical info I need to build it.  I build in late 2022 a small project from mahogany just to see how it behaves with hand tools.  I like the way it works so this will be fun project.  Biggest "problem" is to figure out how I want to finish it.  Bigger picture, I want to have my living/dining room combo room covered in book shelves.  Not sure if I want to do it in cherry or mahogany so this project will help me get a feel which wood to do all the book cases down the road.

There are many saw bench styles out there.  I choose the Stumpy Nubs version so I could purchase the plan and help support his work.  I really like his YouTube channel so I'm happy to spend some money with him to get the plans.  They are well written plans.  Better than I needed.  I was all set to do this build in mid 2022 and purchased quarter sawn white oak for the build.  Unfortunately, many of the kiln dried boards were still very wet (I now bring my moisture meter with me to check).  I cut them to rough length to help them air dry.  They have dried fairly well over the last 6 months but some portions still a bit too wet.  Hopefully by the time I get to this project the moisture content will have reached shop equilibrium.  If not, I will push the project out. I went with the oak as these benches will likely also serve as furniture for larger family gatherings, ao I wanted them to be nicer than just shop furniture.

Before I can get to these three projects, I need to get a few things done.  Firstly, I need to finish the subwoofer box for my nephew.  I'm fairly far along in its construction.  I need to remake one of the pieces as I glued and screwed one of the interior bracings to the outside - doh!  Easier to make a new one than fix this.  I could saw and plane it off and plug screw holes up.  However, it won't look as nice and I want to do a good job for my nephew.  Once this is done, I can glue up the carcass.  Then, it's just cutting and fitting and screwing on the top and bottom.  Then, finishing it with shellac.  Either I or my nephew will cut the holes in the top for the sub-woofer drivers.  I likely will need 4ish weekends to get this all done.

After that, I need to clean up my grandfather's workbench and do some shop organization to get it in place.  That will likely take a weekend or two.

Then, I will likely get the bandsaw set up.  It's still sitting on the shipping pallet.  It weighs 400 lbs and I am not going to try and muscle it onto the mobile base.  I purchased a 1 ton "winch" from Harbor freight and a sturdy metal tripod feeder top with pulley.  This should work well, and be easily dismantled and stored away.  Just need to get some metal tubing which I will likely infill with wood for the tripod legs.  

The other thing that will get done in 2023 is I am taking a class at Mount Diablo Adult education that starts in early Jan.  I've signed up and the wood is purchased.  We will be making a shaker table.  It will give me some additional experience learning how to use woodworking machines.  I mostly prefer hand tools but want to learn how to do donkey work on machines.  After 7 years of working with hand tools, I can do everything by hand but am trying to get some additional skills in machine work.

The last thing I would really like to do is take a summer woodworking class at the Krenov school if I can get in.  It fills up quick.  Longer term, I want to go to woodworking school for (ideally) two years when I retire.  Trying to get all my ducks in a row to be a strong candidate for the Krenov school.  Living in California, getting into the Krenov school would be a great thing.

If I can get all this done, it will be a successful year.  There at lots of other things that may or may not get made.  I have about half a dozen tools I could make in which I already have the parts and materials in house.  We shall see if I can find the time.  I'd also like to make another Paul Seller's keepsake box.  The first one didn't go that well and I know I can do better and have practiced the things I need to do to make it better.  Plus, it would make a great Christmas gift.

2022 Accomplishments in the Workshop

 This is the first year I am doing this.  Fortunately, I keep a woodworking notebook so that helps me recall what I did.  Without a notebook, I'd likely forget half of the things I've done.  Mostly I write for myself to consolidate my thoughts and to provide my family and friends (now and in the future .... look at great grandpa's chest of drawers ...) a way to see what I am up to.  Admittedly, Instagram (joeleonetti1@instagram.com should anyone be interested) is a bit more visual but I like the longer word format here.

I spent approximately 400 hours woodworking this year.  Toss in holidays, and other family commitments, I am happy with that number.  Forty of those hours were spent taking a class at the Port Townsend School from a dovetail class by Laura Mays and 45 hours were spent taking an evening class at Mount Diablo Adult Education (MDAE) evening class.  Both were great experiences and I look forward to more classes in the future.  In fact, I'm enrolled in a class starting next week at MDAE.  I probably did more woodworking in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid keeping us at home.  In 2022, we went out more and I'm glad that life is getting back to normal.

I spent a lot of time making boxes.  This was intentional.  I think my dovetails have been decent, but I wanted to get better.  The easiest way to get better at something is doing more of it.  As such, I took a dovetail class.  It helped me sort out the various ways one can mark, cut, pare, etc.  I think I am in homing in on what gives me the best tight gap free joints.  I will blog more about this in 2023 as I have a project in mind with lots of dovetails.  The one thing I really like about making these boxes is that they make great gifts to give to others.  I get a lot of joy in giving away some of the things I make.  Though I plan to spend a lot of time making in the future, I don't plan on selling items.  I'd rather make items for me and my friends and family.  In doing so, the hours spent don't matter to me as much.  If I have to sell, then I would naturally want to covert that to a hourly wage.  I like my day job and it pays me a good wage.  Happy to stay an amateur and not make a living from woodworking.

There are two boxes worth a bit more elaboration.  I made the Paul Seller's keepsake box.  The joints weren't as tight as I would like (made it early in the year before my class on dovetails).  The biggest humbling experience is I made it with Spanish cedar which is quite brittle, and I crushed the box quite badly.  I was able to make it look better with some inlay.  My daughter is happy with it and that is good enough for me.  The other box is a big Baltic birch plywood box for my nephew for subwoofers in his car.  What makes it challenging is just the sheer size.  It should be done very soon.

I also make a couple of "tools."  I finished both a long spatula for my wife and a 12" bow saw from a Tools for Working Wood kit.  Also around the house, I made a nice Krenov cabinet for some more storage space in the house, a stool for my young daughter to sit on while eating at the coffee table, a fancy looking antipasta board for my wife (she loves inlay so it has it),and some cherry kitchen drawer dividers.  Two other projects included some band sawn reindeer for a donation to the local wood school and a Paul Sellers style genuine Mahagony clock for donation to our local church's crab feed and auction in Feb 2023.

All in all I'm happy with what i got done.  Always feel like I never get enough time to get anything done.  When I look back over the year, I can't complain.  I've got some exciting plans for 2023 and will talk about those in my next post.