The book "Making Mechanical Marvels in Wood", by Raymond Levy, has plans for a variety of neat mechanisms. This is a steam engine piston and valve assembly. I made it mostly on a small Sherline milling machine with some band saw, drill press and router work. When the crank is turned the eccentric bearing pushes the rocker arm up and down which drives the valve linkage. The base and back are made of cherry, the stuff boxes of the cylinder are made from local valley oak, the other dark parts are made of apricot from the local old orchards (see gardens), the pins and crank handle are made from deer antler, and the light wood is hardwood dowels and birch.

My old workbench didn't have a vise so I was setting out to add a vise to it when I saw the June 2001 issue of "Fine Woodworking". It presented the plans for an absolutely awesome bench. It took almost three months to make it from scratch. The top is laminated particle board with 1/4" beech veneer. The top edgings are solid maple.

After clamping and glueing the top together, I planed it flat then smoothed it with a belt sander. The square bench dog holes for the tail vise are routed into the maple edgings before assembly and glueing. The round bench dog holes for the front vise are plunge routed 7/8" dia. and then copper pipe is epoxied into the holes for strength. This is an absolutely wonderful bench. The eight drawers are made of solid beech with dovetailed joints and maple plywood bottoms. They slide on maple rails. Everything has a coat of carnauba wax. The door panels are 1/4' maple plywood and the edges are beech and maple. The tail vise is a Veritas twin-screw model. I got the vise hardware for all three vises from Lee Valley (www.leevalley.com). The bench top is 100" long and 31" wide.

So by July the bench was done and this garden gate was the first project that I made on it. The gate has a circular opening that peeks into the garden and the fountain. Since we didn't want deer to jump through the hole we made it smaller which led to the idea of a cross where the central circle provides a glimpse of His glorious creation. The gate was made from two 6x6 redwood timbers. I ripped them into 3" thick slabs on the bandsaw. The center circle is made from six identical circular arcs fastened together with dowels and waterproof glue as seen in the lower picture. Grooves routed in the edges hold the lattice. Lag screws fasten the circle to the frame.

This is a mouse or rat trap. If you catch a lizard or some unintended victim you can let it go. If you have a snake you can provide live food. The bait is placed beyond the pan in the corner. When the mouse steps on the pan it moves the copper wire lever which rotates to release the door which falls shut by gravity. The wooden peg has a catch that prevents the door from being opened. It has proven to be effective. The pan can be triggered by blowing on it hard. It probably should be made of metal or plastic instead of wood since the wood will swell in moist areas or outdoors and freeze up. In that case it functions more like a mouse feeder.

This is a basket style dog sled made of ash. It is easier to steam-bend wood than one might expect. Here is a paper that describes how to build your own dog sled. Now if I only had some dogs and snow.

This is another mechanism in wood made from the plans in Raymond Levy's book "Making Mechanical Marvels in Wood". It is a hypocycloid made using roller gearing. Each of the three rollers, turning on a radius half that of the large wheel, trace a straight path back and forth in their own slot. The large wheel turns at half the rpm of the small one.