Wine Barrel Hoop Yard Globe

I've made a few neat things out of this wine barrel that I got for $35 off of Craig's List. So far, a few candle holders, a couple clocks, and a wine rack. Since I broke the barrel open I've had several ideas for what to do with the hoops. If I were to cut them up they'd make nice accents on the candle holders or wine racks. I might even find a way to use them to make Roman numerals on the clocks. At this time, I don't have an easy way to cut them up so I decided to use them whole.

The hoops are oxidized and weathered and should make some wonderful yard art, I believe.  Perhaps placed between the jockeys and gnomes, but in front of the crudely painted, not-so-funny, plywood cut-out folk art.

In an earlier post I commented that my wine barrel anatomy was sub par. Not so anymore. Prepare to be amazed:

Since the two bilge hoops encompass the widest part of the barrel they were the outside of my globe. These were followed in succession by the quarter hoops and finally the head hoops. I measured the diameter of the bilge, quarter, and head hoops individually, multiplied it by (go team hold that line) 3.14159 to get the circumference, and followed that up with some wicked division (by 2 & by 4) to figure out where to drill the north and south pole holes in the bilge, quarter, and head hoops, to make the poles fall on exact opposite sides. I used some extra mounting bolts from my TV for the poles. Unfortunately, I didn't have any nuts that matched the thread so I had to run to Home Depot and spend about $2 for a dozen nuts. I place a nut between each pair of the bilge, quarter, and head hoops and tightened the whole business down with my drill. 

To finish it up, I rotated the bilge, quarter, and head hoops to roughly space them equidistant apart, and then tossed it in the flower garden.

Bike Tire Belt

Yesterday I noticed a funny bulge in the rear tire of my road bike. I had a sudden swell of pride arise within me when I realised  I had worn out my first bike tire! It felt just like the first time I had to replace my running shoes. Because I had run 700 miles in them, not because they were the same color as my lawn. I put 2,732 miles on that tire in the last three years, and I'm damn proud of that (in case you're thinking that's not that much, I also put in 2,700 on a spinning bike in the gym). Being this was the first time I had to replace a bike tire I learned this tidbit - road bike tires cost the same as car tires, but are 1/20 the size.

A few years ago my fiance bought me a belt made out of a road bike tire. It's been my favorite belt for some time now. I figure that turning this tire into a belt would be a fitting tribute to the blood, sweat, and gears that tire has been through with me. That tire was there when I was hit by the car. And it was there through the three triathlons I trained for (and the two I competed in (refer to the part about being hit by a car for why I didn't compete in all three)).


If riding a bull for 8 seconds gets you a buckle, I think 200 hours on a bike should get you the whole frickin' belt. So today, I turned it into a belt.


It took me about an hour to make, and as always, I'm sure I can do the next one much quicker.

The hardest part was cutting through the steel cable that makes up the bead that holds the tire on the rim. I tried cutting it with my tin snips, to no avail. Then I tried wire snips. This eventually worked, with some manipulation, but it was very difficult. The best way through it was using my Dremel and a cutting disk. Once through the bead, I was able to cut the tire very easily with my tin snips.

My fiance has a special hole punch/rivet squisher/snap fastener tool that I used to punch the holes in the belt. Then I cut a small 1/2" section out of an old mountain bike tube for the strap. She also had this belt that was long past its prime. I'm assuming it didn't have a great deal of personal meaning to her (like she'd used it as a tourniquet to save a life, or to snag a large ring of skeleton keys from a bumbling guard's belt in some sort of epic prison escape).

Since the belt was shot, I removed the buckle and connected it and the strap to the tire using... now I hate to have to digress here. In past posts you've had to deal with such juvenile things as "high torque movements." But even in my most juvenile moments I can't make this kinda stuff up. I asked my local Ace Hardware guy for a specific type of nut and screw to attach the buckle to the belt. I explained what I needed to him and he said "Ah, you need a sex bolt and mating screw." I said "Beg your pardon?" I'm beginning to suspect that some middle-management suck-up in the parts department of Acme Hardware and Clock Parts asked his son's 8th grade gym class to name a couple of parts in their spring catalog.

So, sex bolts, mating screws, and all, I now have a trophy representing the 5,400 miles of cycling I've put in over the last three years.

Wine Stave Candle Holder

I seem to have hit some writer's block on this particular post, and therefore haven't posted in over a week. Perhaps you don't mind. For starters, I just did a post about candle holders. Also, part of my humor revolves around being self-deprecating.  Since I made these candles holders as Christmas gifts for my soon-to-be in-laws I couldn't hardly write "look at this crap I built for the most amazing in-laws a guy could ever ask for."



In reality, I'm very proud of these candle holders, otherwise they would still be sitting in my work shop with the candle holder that I wasn't too proud of.







I've gotten quite a few miles out of this wine barrel so far (a couple clocks and a wine rack). And I've still got a couple ideas left in the chamber. As you can see from the picture there are 17 staves in just half the barrel, so there's quite a bit of lumber in it.

The incredible purple color of the wine lends itself well to being used for decorative purposes.

For symmetry I chose the staves that were approximately 3" at the middle (the staves varied from 2.5" to slightly more than 3.5"). Since the tea light candles are 1" I wanted there to be about 1" of wood on each side.

I cut off the ends and used one of them for the base. Using complex math that I still don't understand, I determined how far apart to drill each of the holes so that they would all be equidistant from each other and the end of the stave. Miraculously, I got it right by adhering to the old carpenters creed of "Measure 67 times, cut once."

Because the staves are curved, I had to brace it before drilling. The hole for the candle must remain parallel with the table or the hot wax will drip out of the candle.  Once the holes were drilled I ran a wood screw through the center of the center hole and into the base. Because the wood is fairly rough I used a highly flammable spray lacquer (nah, I'm just kidding. I don't know if it's flammable or not) to give it a nice sheen.

Free, Free Log Candle Holders

I made these candle holders from wood outta this guy's => truck. There was a sign next to the wood that said "Free, Free". Not sure why. Extra free, I guess. Hence, Free, Free Log Candle Holders.

Oddly, these are the places I get my inspiration.

You can't tell from the picture on the left, but these have a fantastic, colorful design in the wood grain, as can be seen in the picture below.

These were a snap to build. I used my miter saw to cut them in 3", 5", and 6" lengths. Then I used a 1" Forsner bit in my drill press to drill the holes for the tea lights.

We'll be using these as decorations for our wedding so I'll need many more. However, I have got to let the wood dry out before drilling the holes again. The wood is very green and sappy (but affectionate). This made the wood chips very sticky and they got stuck all over my helper monkey's arm.

This also made it very slow and difficult to drill with the Forsner bit. The bit got so hot that I couldn't touch it with gloves on. That's a good way to dull a good bit, and Forsner's aren't cheap!

Repurposed Work Bench

This project comes thanks to a local restaurant that did a remodel and was throwing their crap out.During their remodel they were tossing out this old cut table. It's 3" thick butcher block, 36"x30".  Based on the depth of the cheese, chicken, and hog fat, his table held the meat slicer and cheese grater for 35 years or so.




I set about trying to scrape and wire brush this table clean. That was going poorly, as demonstrated by the work accomplished in the top left quarter of the photograph. Actually, "poorly" doesn't aptly describe how it was going. The result was similar to trying to lick cold hot dog fat off of the roof of your mouth. You kinda just push it around and it gets worked into the crevices, and hours later you still taste "meat".









Fortunately, right about the same time I scored this table my wonderful sister-in-law gave me a supa-sweet belt sander for Christmas. So I thought "Gee whiz, I'll give the belt sander a whirl." Actually, what I thought was "$#&! this sucks. If the belt sander doesn't work you're firewood!" It worked real well. As depicted on the left (if you look at the very top of the photo you can see the first stages of the cat condo!). I did have to wire brush the sanding belt occasionally to remove the build up of fat and sawdust (aka "Taco Meat" at Taco Bell).

There are two great things about the build up of fat that was on the table. 1) Near as I can tell, it is completely water proof. It got wet in a thunderstorm and the next morning the water was beaded up all over the surface. And 2) it smells like bacon when it gets hot outside. Pretty sweet, I know. And it gets even better, stick with me.

Now it looks like this.

To stain the wood I spread coffee grounds on it every day for a month. My work bench smells like coffee and bacon when it gets hot. It's awesome! I have the only work bench on the planet that smells like breakfast! Take that Bill Gates ($19,105 if you're wondering, Bill).

Smells like this!

A Couple Easy Items

Some of the things I throw together are very simple and only take a few minutes to make.

I've stated before that our house is quite small and finding space can be a bit of a challenge. Which is why the shoe tree has been such a treat. When you only have 625 sqft every foot, square or not, is precious. My dresser drawers are literally only 14" wide. Thankfully, I'm not exaggerating, 'cause if I were they'd only be 12" wide. My point being I need every square inch of space I can get in there. My rolled up belts were taking up space in the dresser that could be occupied by a pair of pants. So I dug through my box of laser printer metal and found this little buddy that each of the toner cartridges somehow were attached to. I think.  

With a couple of screws from said printer, and a heaping helping of convincing, I attached it to the side of my fiance's dresser (which is vastly larger than mine). And just like that, I have room for another pair of pants! Took me all of about 2 mins to mark, drill, and mount.

I do have to be careful of how many things like this I put in plain view in the house. I don't want it to look like a dumpster tipped over in it. Or like a laser printer blew up either. This would have worked nicely on the back of a door for coats or towels, inside of a cupboard for measuring cups or spoons, or even in the laundry "room". But I needed dresser space, so belts it is.

Here's another quick and easy one. I've mentioned a time or two  that I got some cool stuff from a local restaurant when they did a remodel. Their counters had menus under 11"x21" pieces of Plexiglass. They were also throwing out their old touch up paint because they were changing the interior colors. My fiance loves to craft and paint, so she rescued the Plexiglass and paint from ending up in a landfill and suggested we make some art. We laid the Plexiglass out side-to-side on an old drop cloth, cracked open the paint cans, and went to town! Not only did we create some pretty cool art work, but we had a boat load of fun doing it!

7 Bottle Wine Stave Wine Rack

I bought this wine barrel off of Craigslist for $35. Now I write the following with all seriousness. If you find it funny, it's not. Stop laughing because it's seriously serious. Seriously.

Craigslist is already a pretty sketchy way to do business. You have no idea what kind of people you might be dealing with on either side of the transaction. When you go to pick up your article, do not, under any circumstances, lock your keys in your truck on their property about a quarter mile behind their house. It looks real, real bad to sit there for 35 mins after the transaction has been completed and they've returned to their house. Unfortunately for me, it was about 35 degrees, with gusting winds. And guess who didn't bring a coat? This required me to hunker down behind my truck to try and stay out of the wind, which I imagine looks exactly like hiding a body. Lucky for me, cops weren't called and my beautiful fiance drove all the way out to Eagle to bring her brain dead future husband his spare key.

Today I built a wine rack using the staves. My original design was to use the two staves side-by-side, but I couldn't get it to look right. It just looked like I nailed some wood together. So I took to the internet and tried to get some ideas. Thanks to Google, I have discovered that I don't have a single original idea in my head. If I think of it, someone else has already built it... better. Vegan zombies? Graaaaiiiiinnns. There was already a shirt. Shower wall hair art? Three blogs. Take a printer apart? Well, that one does seem to be original. Anyway, I killed two birds with this project. 1) I needed something nicer than a cardboard box to display the reception wine. And 2) I needed a groomsman gift for my best man (sorry to ruin the surprise, buddy).





I selected the two widest staves from the barrel then scrubbed them to remove dirt and dead bugs. I took a scrap stave left over from some candle holders I built, and cut it into half-inch dividers to keep the wine bottles from rolling around.





Then, I measured, marked, and glued the spacers in place. Since the wood is rough cut and wine bottles are heavy I didn't expect that glue would hold up if a bottle hit one of the spacers with any force. So I screwed the spacers from the back as well. Normally I would screw and glue at the same time, but since the staves are curved, and I suck at circle math, I glued the spacers before putting in screws. I wanted to make sure that the angle for the pilot hole was perfect.




Here's the finished product. I like that you can see the lines in the bottom stave where the bands protected the oak from weathering. And the natural wine stain adds a very cool touch.










I am aware that several of the bottles on this rack are empty. That's because I'm no wine snob. I don't have a cellar full of wine. I have a trash can full of empty wine bottles.