Band Saws and Cute Tools

***DISCLAIMER: All these pictures came from my phone, sorry for the poor quality***

Now that the garage wall is finished, I can go back to working on shelves for the garage.  I need to get them done so I can pick up everything I’ve scattered throughout the garage when I tore out the existing shelves.  My goal is to have them done before it snows, because if I don’t, everything currently on the floor will get shoved over to one side and my car won’t get a spot in the garage.  I’ve gotten this much done so far:

Now, I cut down all the remaining boards to length on my super-awesome miter saw, but I don’t really have a saw that can cut with the grain to get rid of the excess width.  I mean, I could use the Sawzall, but he’s a bit wild and I need precise cuts for this project (or at least close enough to square).  So I assemble as much as I can and then take the boards that need to be trimmed out to my friend’s house and use either the band saw or the table saw.

Today, I needed the table saw, but the boards I was cutting were already pretty narrow and I rather enjoy having 10 fingers, so I asked my friend if he has some sort of pusher I could use.  He did, except he broke it last week.  So he handed me a chunk of wood and the pieces of the pusher and told me I could always make a new one on the band saw if I wanted.

Now, usually when I use the band saw it’s to make small cut-outs and I clamp down a board to use as a guide- I’ve never free-handed anything before.  However, I really really REALLY! want to make a band saw box (I’ve already got one all drawn up!! It’s cute!), so I figured this would be good practice.  Here’s how it turned out:

Not bad for my first try!  What makes it even better is that the nail hole looks just like an eye- I didn’t even plan that!  But look! he has a face!!

Also, it looks like he should have teeth and possibly be eating something, like this:

Yup, I just made a cute pusher!  Because like my shelves, things I make are both cute AND functional!