This has nothing to do with the cabin project, but hey.

I recently built a rustic coat stand from local wood as a Christmas gift. The first step was finding the perfect tree. I searched our land for hours, looking for a Ponderosa Pine tree with whorls at a good spacing and branches pointing upwards at a good angle.

I finally found an unbelievably perfect tree: This single pine supplied two great coat stands. I used the upper portion of the tree for this particular stand.

As soon as I got the pine tree into my shop, I stripped the bark off using a drawknife. I let the tree season for a couple months.





I constructed the base of the stand using American elm from East City Park. The finished coat stand is in a house about 100 yards from where this tree grew for nearly a century. Talk about using local wood!



I half-lapped the two elm cross pieces and glued them together.

I cut a 2"x2" tenon on the bottom of the pine. This tenon fits into a mortise in the base of the coat stand. I glued the joinery with a healthy dose of Gorilla glue. In addition, I drove in two 9x3 screws up from the bottom of the base and into the pine tenon.



I finished the whole thing with a liberal amount of Landark penetrating oil.

Fun stuff!

I just completed a second framing pony. This one made with:

4x6 Engelmann Spruce bases and legs
4x7 Wany Ponderosa Pine Top
3x6 American elm braces
1" Locust pegs

I think it turned out nice. I decided to leave the bark on the wany edge of the pine top.



That spruce can have some amazing grain, as shown in leg in the picture below. The light spruce and pine contrast nicely with the locust pegs and the elm braces.





My shop now has 4 framing ponies, which are probably enough:



I love building with mixed species, primarily for the color and grain contrasts between timbers.