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Rustic woodware at no cost, and easier than you thought !!

Rustic woodware at no cost, and easier than you thought !!
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Raw wood (i.e. as it comes from the tree) gives a nice, rustic aspect to objects made with it. It's cheap, easy to find, and easy to use.

In this instructable I'll show you how to make wood stuff by using wood directly collected from the ground (that is, died branches) and cortex (dead tree skin). The idea is to show you basic tips, convince you that you can do great things with no prior knowledge about woodworking, and provide some motivating examples.

If you want to do real woodwork and you're a beginner, check Some Basic Woodwork Skills, an instructable by Nachimir.

During the slides you'll see a few projects I've done so far:

  • a test tube rack (in which I store species to cook with) using some cortex I found in an eucalipto forest (pic below) Can you tell me what's the name of that in english??? Is it "tube holder"???
  • a table for "picadas" (in Argentina, a set of chopped salami, ham, and cheese, plus some bread and pickles, which are ingested right before lunch, usually before barbecue)
  • a digital photo frame
  • a rustic lamp (sorry, coming soon!)
  • a spoon (sorry, coming soon!)
  • a seat for my garden
  • a plants holder
  • my "real fake tree"

This instructable is in memory of my mom's father, a woodworker whose tools I inherited and I use sometimes.
 
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Step 1Basic materials

Basic materials
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The followings are basic materials. Next slides may show a few other useful tools.

  • Some wood (can be logs, branches, recycled wood from ruined furniture, and cortex). The choice will depend on the availability of the materials and, most importantly, on what you want to do. In the examples here, I used eucalipto cortex (ca. 5mm thick) for the tubes container and for the food tablets, a v-shaped branch for the lamp, and a small log for the spoon.
  • Some glue and nails when the project requires separate pieces of wood to be joined.
  • Basic tools: One or more saws (look at captions in pic), sandpaper (may be a rough one and a soft one), a hammer, a plane, and extra things you may found useful at some point (like scissors for example, not shown in the picture).
  • Extra things your project may need (like lamps and wire for the lamp, or a screen for the digital photo frame)
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37 comments
Aug 20, 2008. 9:00 PMRishnai says:
There are food-safe varnishes available. You see them on some woodenware. The main concern is chipping (like on a cutting board) or not being dishwasher safe. Otherwise, the volatile chemicals, being volatile, evaporate. Of ocurse, a bad choice would range from unpleasant to near-lethal, so perhaps stick to ye olde salt...
Mar 8, 2011. 9:10 PMstatic says:
mineral oil from the pharmacy, should be safe finish for wooden ware. Intended for consumption, to lubricate the digestive track, to make things "move" better.
Jun 17, 2010. 8:11 PMKasm279 says:
Is the Pocket PC an HP Jordana?
May 6, 2010. 7:28 PMred-king says:
flax oil (sometimes sold as linseed oil, but NOT boiled linseed oil, which has chemicals added), and grapeseed oil are some of the food safe wood finishes i can think of that would be suitable for this.

When using flax/linseed oil make sure you don't leave a oily rag out. Put it into a sealed container with water, as they can catch fire.
Jan 21, 2010. 10:19 AMsixstringsandrhyme says:
MAN, that is a cool planer!   that thing is antique!!!
Nov 1, 2009. 10:18 AMsharlston says:
did you use a plane to get the wood so thin?
Jun 15, 2009. 9:11 PMluvit says:
what's really in those tubes? mm?
Apr 22, 2008. 6:21 AMDainiusGB says:
i am way, WAY, =WAY= ahead of you here.

Over march break last year i built an entire TREEHOUSE out of driftwood. I made a table for my keyboard out of wood i found lying around on the beach, I made my chickens a fake tree that they could sit in and play in (although they didnt use it) out of branches, my neighbor built himself a BED out of driftwood.
me and my friends built a puppet theater that was about 13 ft long out of huge peices of driftwood!

well see theres a lot of driftwood where i come from!
Apr 21, 2009. 2:55 AMporcupinemamma says:
Yes , yes! I'm with lucianoabed, good plan man :0)
Apr 21, 2009. 6:36 AMDainiusGB says:
sry i happen to be miles away from those things atm, and last year i thought they were a lot better. Plus the puppet theater got scrapped recently because it was too big, and my neighbour has now moved away and i dont know what happened to the bed.
Apr 21, 2009. 2:59 AMporcupinemamma says:
Love the combination of nature and science in your project. Very well done! Thanks. BTW,does anyone have a link where I could buy test tubes? Oh, and you could use a baby bottle brush to clean the tubes-wait-too big hmmm what would be a smaller version of a baby bottle brush? Will think about a solution.
Mar 12, 2009. 5:23 PMgoatgirly says:
sweet!
Aug 20, 2008. 8:48 PMRishnai says:
Just to let you know in case you ever need a new blade or whatever and don't know where to look, that saw on the left is a hacksaw. It is meant to cut metal, including most steels, if you ever feel the need. It's my precision all-purpose saw of choice, too!
Aug 23, 2008. 11:02 PMRishnai says:
And that works? You have just singlehandedly solved my glass-cutting problem. I've got two cases of bottles to cut up, but I didn't want to ruin my blade.
Aug 24, 2008. 9:35 PMRishnai says:
Oh, I see. I was thinking more along the lines of cutting a tube for a bottleneck slide. I can't seem to score them and break them evenly.
Jan 24, 2009. 8:08 PMThe Porsche Fan says:
you could try this (please tell me if it actually works)
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1031180/beer_bottle_glass/

or this

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/968599/how_to_cut_a_bottle/

Metacafe is a pretty cool site
Jan 4, 2009. 9:27 PMkillerjackalope says:
You could try a file and a drill, I've had luck filing glass before and cutting it with a file, though it's tedious by hand you could pop together a lathe type thing for it from a few skateboard wheels to allow the bottle to spin freely, then spin with a small motor or by hand, I think the key is going slow but I could be wrong, also it'd be easy to incorporate a water drip to make a smooth edge in one go, a triangle file makes nice bevelled edges, a round one makes flat cuts with a little arc left on the inside, not great for some stuff but taking a half cylinder out of stuff can look nice, a flat file leaves a square edge and a scoring wheel makes a really precise cut, however it's hard to control as is, I'd imagine even harder on a moving bottle...
Oct 15, 2008. 11:17 PMspecopps117 says:
Very nice, but 1 question. Do you have any idea where i can get those tubes that were holding your spices?
Aug 7, 2008. 10:11 PMjennakp says:
do you know how to lighten roots ? some were lighten, i guess, from being outside but i want them almost white.
Aug 20, 2008. 8:45 PMRishnai says:
Old-school bleach or lye, I suspect.
Aug 2, 2008. 5:25 PMUltraMagnus says:
nice, although not really my style. for items that will be in food contact, another option would be to use a natural drying oil such as tung oil
Apr 22, 2008. 9:18 AMjab0592 says:
Hello the tool you don't know the name of is called a plane! (over ere in england though lol)
Apr 21, 2008. 3:47 PMRaisedByRobots says:
Thanks for the info on curing wood. The spice rack is very beautiful.
Apr 21, 2008. 1:40 PMrakol1 says:
the tool is called a plane...
Apr 20, 2008. 8:03 AMCharles IV says:
Wow these are good looking and useful!
Apr 19, 2008. 9:05 PMshooby says:
This is awesome - very resourceful, I especially like the bench.
Apr 19, 2008. 6:13 PMjoejoerowley says:
Oh yeah that object is a test tube rack I believe. Just wondering, when did you post your instructable because I posted this one yesterday and still has not shown up.
Thanks
Apr 19, 2008. 8:05 PMjoejoerowley says:
Sure. I was actually talking about the recent list. I subscribe to the RSS feed for all of the new instructables (thats how I found this one) and I didn't see mine on the list which was kind of weird. Thanks Joe
Apr 19, 2008. 7:39 PMLinuxH4x0r says:
Looks good!
Apr 19, 2008. 5:53 PMjoejoerowley says:
Cool! Great Instructable! Maybe I will make one for mothers day! Thanks Joe

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Author:lucianoabcd