This piece was a surprise because, although I set out only to make something functional, it turned out to be one of my favorite pieces aesthetically.

Although I never really thought of wastebaskets in the context of woodworking, when a straw one recently deteriorated beyond repair at my Lake Michigan house, I got inspired to design and build a replacement.  It’s made of douglas fir, standing about 2 feet tall and tapering from 9 inches in diameter at the bottom to 12 inches at the top.  Because the wood is only 1/4″ thick, I was concerned that the glue joints wouldn’t be very strong.   Incorporating maple splines imparted additional strength.  To provide design interest,  the splines are offset horizontally from the joint and spaced irregularly from top to bottom.

After it was finished, and not having seen anything like it in the pages of Fine Woodworking, I planned to submit it as a possible project article.  As luck would have it, the day after it was photographed, my new issue of FW arrived with a big piece about making coopered items.  Oh well…

Launch Gallery