Here are four projects I wanted to share from this week's videos.
A Tiny Project That Sells
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I started the week with a walnut and ebony charging stand for my Apple Watch. The two pieces come together with a Japanese half-lap joint (aigaki) that lets the whole thing stand on its own. One small detail I paid attention to was cable routing, the cord runs underneath the joint, so the whole thing stays clean-looking. That joint also comes apart by hand, which makes this a nice stand to bring along when traveling. This one wasn't really about me selling it, it was more the thought that this could be the kind of small piece that actually sells if someone made it. You don't need walnut or ebony specifically either, any wood works, and as long as you keep the base circle and the joint shape consistent, there's a lot of room to play with different designs.
Adjustable Angle Drill Stand
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A drill press takes up real space, so buying one is a bit of a commitment. So I built a stand that lets a hand drill hit the same kind of accuracy. It uses a long shank with a pivoting section that locks in at whatever angle you need, and holds it there reliably. It's simple enough to build in no time, so I'd encourage you to give it a try, but if you want a true 90-degree angle, the precision of each part really matters. Plywood works well here, just take the extra care to cut things accurately.
A Unique Template Made with Hole Saws
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What comes out of this one is a small wooden case with an unusual shape. The hard part was the template for a rounded slot cut, since both the inside and outside edges need shaping. My solution was to use hole saws of different sizes on the same axis to cut a ring-shaped jig, then split it in half and join the two halves with a straight section to get the slot shape I was after. This video is less about the finished piece and more about the discovery that a hole saw, used the right way, can do more than you'd expect.
I Started Stocking Wooden Hinges
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An all-wood hinge is genuinely difficult to make accurately. This time I made a lot of thin, small pieces with careful precision, then glued them back together with a stepped offset at the tip, so the joint ends up working almost like a box joint. I finished it off by mounting the hinge on a small wooden box, giving me a box that's entirely wood, no metal anywhere. If you've got a strong preference for keeping metal out of your work, this is a method worth trying.
A Note from Taku
These four this week each touched a different side of what makes woodworking fun for me. Building something like the Apple Watch stand, where I'm thinking about whether it could actually sell, uses a completely different part of my brain than the drill stand or the hinge, where precision itself is the whole challenge. The hole saw template especially stuck with me, the real takeaway wasn't the finished piece so much as realizing what a tool can do when you use it a little differently. I hope something here sparks an idea in your own shop. See you next week.