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One for the cause

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PAWS (Pashupati Animal Welfare Society,  https://www.pawsrescue.in/   ) has been doing wonderful work in the areas of treatment, vaccination & sheltering of stray dogs, despite being fully volunteer funded & perennially cash strapped.  So when they appealed over social media for some basic necessities required to run the show, I decided to pitch in in whatever way I can.  Got to know that the visiting doctor was having difficulties while operating, due to not having a dedicated OT table of proper dimensions. I got in touch with the secretary, Mr. Prasenjit Dutta, and offered to build & donate one to them. After discussions with Mr Dutta, finalized on the dimensions and shared the sketches with him. The final table would be very close in dimension to what was sketched up. Started up with sizing the 19mm plywood into pieces (ignore the coconuts !) Cut a 45 degree angle into the leg pieces and glued them up. Couple of screws had to be used to maintain straight

Box storage to extend the bed

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The baby was due to come home from her maternal grandparents place by mid 2018, and arrangements were being made to welcome her to the house.  One such action item was to get her sleeping provisions in place, plus some extra storage space had to be created as well. The bed we had was big enough for two, but a tad small for 3. It was an old bed, but being made of fine teak wood, there's no way to guess the age. So instead of getting a new bigger bed, I tried to hit 2 birds with a single stone, and built 2 box storage units with flat tops at the exact height of the bed, and got a bigger mattress. That way, we kept using the old bed, got extra storage space and had more than enough space to accommodate 3 souls. Started off with sizing the 19mm & 6mm plywood down to exact length pieces. The carcass is held together by glue and pocket hole joinery Although not evident here, the bottom is 6 mm ply sitting glued on a lip of 19mm ply, which is glued + screwed to the ca

The twin display cabinets

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Firstly, I never gave up woodworking - just took a 2+ year break from posting, with very few projects done in the meantime! This project was done sometime in late 2017 - early 2018. I had some scrap 12mm plywood & laminates lying around. Some award trophies & certificates were gathering dust in a box at the same time.  Decided to put the scraps to good use and build 2 differently sized display cabinets which shall have contrast coloring & wall mountable, with the front open. Built the carcass using pocket hole joinery and glue. The back is 6 mm ply which is glued and nailed to the carcass. Cut leftover brown and white laminates to size, and put them in. It was a bit tricky to do the inner walls, especially the back where there's no option to trim once the laminate is stuck. Put in solid wood trims on the front and stained + varnished them. Used 2 shelf hooks on the smaller one , and 3 on the bigger one. Measured, drilled , pu

Yet another shoe rack

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....that started as something else I had identified a vacant space in our dining room that could have accommodated a crockery / china cabinet, and had planned to build one. The cabinet was to be built from 19 mm plywood, with dado shelves and sliding glass shutters. Ripped the sides, top and shelves according to plan on my table saw Used my bigger B&D router mounted in the table saw gap which is fitted with freud undersized plywood bit to put in the 19mm dados on the two sides and started mounting the top / bottom with pocket hole screws + glue. However, at this point of time, my mother objected to adding another china cabinet in the dining room, and suggested that as the store bought shoe rack (made from particle board) has warped beyond usability, maybe I can transform this build into a big shoe rack with room for future storage. Thus I abandoned the crockery cabinet plan, and modified my build to plan a shoe rack with adjustable shelv

A mini cupboard for the spillovers

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...which shall soon have spillovers of it's own My wife has a big 3 door wardrobe, plus 2 of the drawers from the dresser built in 2016 ( Link to dresser build article ) - and yet has spillover clothes that were lying stacked out in the open. Decided to do something about it and utilize (or fill up?) the narrow space beside the big 3 door wardrobe. Started by making a tall but narrow carcass with 19 mm plywood for the sides and top, and 12 mm plywood for the back. All joints are with pocket hole screws and wood glue. Put in 3 shelves from 12 mm plywood, all held with pocket hole screws. Also cut out the door piece from 12 mm plywood (If I remember correctly, this was done as I had run out of 19 mm plywood. But I should have used 19 mm plywood here as then it would have allowed me to use cabinet hinges, which are impossible to install on 12 mm plywood). Measuring and putting up the door with regular hinges Door put in - now putting in think strip