Tools4Wood Leap Year competition

In celebration of Leap Year Tools4Wood, in conjunction with Bosch, Home-Dzine and Home Handyman Magazine, are running their biggest competition yet.

 

Below are some of the amazing projects already submitted as entries to the Tools4Wood Leap Year competition. The winner and top six places are decided by the amount of 'likes' on the Tools4Wood Facebook page on the 30th of April 2016.

Hendrik Nel

This is a matching baby cot and dresser that I built for a friend. The cot extends with additional panels (not shown) up to the size of a toddler bed. The side where the cot stands close to the dresser is finished with a matching curve, but also has 3 shelves that can be put to use later on.

 

 

Shane Turner

My wife has always complained that I never build her anything - she would love a head board / love a new coffee table ! Been married for over 20 years means she has had to deal a lot with my little hobby ! I really enjoy wood - the ability to build something from planks chosen at the timber yard inspires me - but well its not a cheap hobby. So my plan - build things for other people - let them pay and then use that money to build up your tools - easier said than done - but over the past years I have managed to buy some things that have helped.

Along came a friend with some Blackwood - well dried and been lying around for years. I managed to get the wood - get it planed down to an appropriate thickness and start something for my wife.

It was to be the dining room table - the one we had we bought when we got married and was starting to look really bad. The top was easiest to do - once I had selected it would be round - choosing some nice planks - and joining them - forming the top. Now the legs - well the wife wanted something different - I was stuck on boring centre piece - but then after searching and searching the net - we found an example of the legs chosen - easy to look at something and then agree to build it but - how to create the strength needed. Then of course the angles - what angle to cut the legs - time to go back to Maths 101 - and use the sin and cos functions - wow what a headache - managed to find an App for my ipad that helped determine the angles - all eight legs join around a rectangle of wood - I used a combination of biscuits and dowels and tons of patience - it was a glue up from Hell !

Well a few days of sanding - some nice oil and the table was done - all in all it took me about 2 months to do - working in the nights / and weekends. 

 

Clive Husband

This is the kitchen unit I made for my granddaughters for Christmas – had to make two!! Taylor is one year old while Keira is two. The units were made by myself (with extra hands from my wife!) from a picture I found on the internet. I found it challenging to determine sizes for the different aspects of the unit as I couldn’t get my mind around the fact that the height to the first shelf is only 50cm which seemed too low - both granddaughters are in JHB so could not measure them! The size of the units are H1200 W1060 D400.

 I used 16mm MDF with hardboard backing and shelves in the oven and cupboards. The taps were made from dowel sticks with threaded bar to enable them to turn and the oven switches also have threaded bar to enable them to turn. The oven and microwave doors have plexi-glass inserts, and the microwave has a fixed turntable for effect.

The vinyl stickers were printed, and apart from the granddaughters names, we differentiated by changing the birds, flowers and personalised the message. The units are on castor wheels for ease of movement.

Michelle Leslie

 I would like to share how we turned an old fishing tackle box and office storage into a kitchen island for our little rondavel on the South Coast. We found a beautiful wooden fishing tackle box in need of some serious TLC and a small office storage unit with no handles at a secondhand shop in Centurion for R250.  The storage unit was a bit wonky; the doors didn’t fit properly and there were dents and dings that called for lots of elbow grease, wood filler and lots and lots of sanding.

Trying to sand water stains on the tackle box lid didn't work, so we used Acrylic Gesso and painted it over the top. Once the Gesso had hardened we sprayed the lid black and had a piece of safety glass cut, which we screwed onto the lid for a no fuss, no mess work surface. The inside got a good wipe down and two coats of white primer. Wood filler was used to fix the holes from the original handles.

The veneer was peeled off the storage unit and the back reinforced unit using a piece of masonite. Then we got creative. I wanted a white weathered look to match the cupboards in the kitchen and the easiest way I've found to do it is to use Annie Sloan Old White Chalk Paint, silver Gilders paste and clear wax. We gave the storage unit 3 coats of chalk paint and then added streaks of the silver paste, streaking in the same direction as the wood grain. We applied the clear wax over the paste going in the same direction which creates a white washed, weathered, grey kind of look.

 

Gideon Brits

The idea was to design a kitchen island with plenty of drawer space, a spice rack, storage for recipe books and all that must fit into a not overly large kitchen. The lady of the house is happy.

Dimensions for this mobile kitchen trolley are 600w x 1200l x 900h. The wood accents and butchers-block top are in African Mahogany. The framework is made from pine with the centre column from MDF and the drawers from melamine.