My Woodworking Blog - 1/1/2006 THROUGH 6/30/2006
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June 21, 2006:
I now have all the panels glued up for the blanket chest. It's gonna be
kind of tall (compared to what I'm used to anyway) to accomodate the
drawer I want to include in the bottom. I struggled with the cherry. It
was air dried and not stacked terribly well, so some of it wants to
twist badly. I was able to work around the twists and sapwood to get
enough nice panels for the front, sides, and top, and the back will be
kinda-ok with a few small defects (mineral stains, a small spot of bark
inclusion, etc) and a slight twist that should be ok after the carcase
comes together. This project is moving slowwwwwly, but it's getting
there.
It seems that (for now anyway) the leak in the planer gearbox has stopped. After tightening the case bolts there's no more dripping. I haven't needed to use it extensively since the latest leak, so I'm not sure that it's gone for good yet. But my fingers are crossed.
June 12, 2006:
Over the weekend I got enough decent cherry jointed and planed to make
the blanket chest. The design is starting to come together now,
although I think I'm going to "wing" this project more than most I've
done. I worked a bit on a basic Sketchup model to confirm the overall
dimensions, and I'll probably use that to build from without any
further detailed drawings. I think I'm going to hand-cut the carcase
dovetails, so I'm looking forward to a fun project.
After I finished giving the planer a good workout I discovered the telltale small puddle of oil under the gearbox. Bad words were said, and dreams of a lathe upgrade were dashed in an instant. It doesn't appear to be leaking from the same oil seal as before, but it's difficult to pinpoint the source this time. It appears to be coming from the gasket joint, so I tightented the bolts and cleaned up the drips. I don't have much confidence, but I'm hopeful that fixes it. If not a serious look at the tool budget is on tap to see if I can swing a Byrd head with a new non-leaking gearbox.
June 5, 2006:
Im finding that the downside to a blog is that if you don't update it
regularly it loses its appeal and starts to become dated and a chore.
I'm also finding that it's quite advantageous to use some sort of
canned blog software instead of manually writing it in html. Our
personal blog uses serendipity software and it's much easier to
maintain.
Since finishing the bench cabinet I've been piddling with a few small projects. I wanted to get a few boxes out of the way (literally) that have been partially completed for a long time (some over a year). So I finished up two bandsaw boxes and a set of shaker oval boxes. I have pics online but I haven't yet updated the gallery pages of this site (another item for my to do list).
I've also started to clean up the shop a bit with a few minor improvement actions. Small stuff like organizing my cordless tools (drills/drivers, trim saws, etc) and chargers. Also extended my clamp rack due to some good Bessey sales at Amazon and relocated my drill press in anticipation of a future lathe upgrade. I'm just about done piddling and am anxious to start the blanket chest in earnest.
May 24, 2006:
The bench cabinet is finished. I uploaded some pics and new verbiage to
the Twin Twin Bench page.
I'm very happy with the outcome of this project. It makes it even more
pleasurable to use the bench area.
Next up is a blanket chest for our youngest daughter. It will be roughly in the Shaker style with through dovetailed corners and one drawer on the bottom. Probably close to Moser's but I'll use my own spin on things to match the other furniture in her room. I might try to sneak in a quick re-do of my lathe tool rack and/or my clamp rack to accomodate some new tools, or I might do those during glue-ups or other "downtime" in the blanket chest project. We'll see.....
May 15, 2006:
I haven't written updates in a few weeks because I was getting sick of
hearing myself talk about my lack of shop time. Since the last entry
I've continued to focus my available time on the drawer case for my workbench. I was
able to get all the drawers finished (with D4-made dovetails at the
corners) and installed on 75# full
extension slides. I also got enough decent cherry sized for
all the drawer fronts. The only thing that remains is to fit the drawer
fronts to the boxes and carefully get all the margins/reveals tweaked
to my liking. That typically takes me a good bit of time since I'm
fussy with the margins, but it's a process I enjoy for some crazy
reason.
On another note, I'm now reading the new 2nd revision of Flexner's Understanding Finishing. His first edition has been my finishing bible for a long time, and believe it or not the second edition is even better. It's the first book I recommend when it comes to learning finishing (although the Jewitt Taunton book is also very good). Recommended.
My wife recently bought a new DVD recorder for our kids home movies, and I've been using it to log all the NYW episodes I have on tape and transfer them to DVD. I'm currenlty at something like 138 out of 210 total episodes. We went on a NYW taping binge in the late 90's, but we got away from it in the early 00's and so we're missing a lot of those years. Now that Nahm's not being repeated on HGTV I'm not sure if/when I'll ever get them captured, but I'll be on the lookout. Thanks to a friend with satellite TV I already have most of David Marks' Woodworks show on DVD, and those are generally excellent programs as well. Great resources to have on hand!
Apr 24, 2006:
I was able to wrestle 2 hours on Saturday afternoon in the shop. I'm
finally concentrating on the drawer case for the base of my TwinTwin bench. I got
the case completed thanks to the magic of pocket screw joinery, and I
also managed to get all the drawer stock planed/jointed to size. I'm
using baltic birch ply for the case with maple edge banding, "scrap"
sappy cherry for the drawer boxes, and I'll probably use some nice
cherry or maple for the drawer fronts. Hopefully this week I'll be able
to finish the drawer boxes and get them mounted, but the evil grass is
already green and growing fast, and tonight I have to give it the first
cut of the year. Yardwork season is back already, and other than kids
there's no greater drain on shop time.
Apr 18, 2006:
In the last week I have been in the shop all of ZERO hours. I did
manage to do some woodworking though. With the help of some skilled
family members I removed a couple dead ash trees from my lot - that's
woodworking, right? After they were down I purchased and installed a
wooden play set for the girls - link.
I got it installed in about a day and a half, and that was a ton of
work. I couldn't have gotten it done so quickly without an impact
wrench for all the bolted connections and my father in law who helped
with many of the heavy lifting steps. Our oldest daughter was swinging
on it last night and she seemed to have a great time.
Apr 11, 2006:
It's been a crazy couple weeks, and I haven't been in the shop more
than a handful of hours in that time. I managed to finish the laundry
room shelf and re-arrange my plane storage cabinet but I don't have
pics cause I'm not sure that I like it. I also was able to do the final
finish rub-out on my daughter's cherry bedroom furniture, and it looks
pretty good for a rank amateur. And after several years of putting it
off, I FINALLY rubbed out the tops of my living room sofa table and
coffee table. I sanded thru the thin layer of wipe-on poly on the sofa
table but recovered that pretty easily with some new watco and a fresh
topcoat. They look nice and feel smooth now. Hopefully I'll get a bit
more shop time in the next few weeks....
Mar 27, 2006:
I only managed to get a few hours in the shop last week. Spent most of
the time with the family. I did manage to finish the saw blade storage cabinet.
Twas a good way to use up some misc scrap wood I had laying around, and
it's gonna be nice to have the blades stored safely and conveniently. I
also took some pics of a box
to store my Leigh D4 Dovetail Jig - simple and very useful.
SWMBO has asked for a shelf for our laundry room and has bumped it to the top of the project list. I was able to get it put together out of leftover cherry and got a coat of stain on it last night. I HATE staining cherry but I had to match the color of some other cabinets in the room. All that remains is a few coats of varnish, so it should be hung on the wall within a few days, then onto bigger/better things.
Mar 20, 2006:
The framed mirror
is done and securely fastened to the wall. It turned out well in the
end. I used a type of wall
fastener I hadn't used before and I was a bit concerned about
getting them aligned on the wall properly, but all went well with some
careful marking and measuring.
I took some time on Sunday to work on a new storage cabinet for my tablesaw blades. I've had them stacked under my extension table, and it will be nice to get them somewhere more convenient. It's done except for the "drawer" pulls, and I should have it hung on the wall the next time I get down to the shop. Next up is a simple laundry room shelf for SWMBO, and then I'll either work on the cabinet for my bench base or a blanket chest.
Mar 13, 2006:
The framed mirror is completed and is about half way through the
finishing process. It went together fairly easily. The most difficult
thing was routing a non-square rabbet to fit the non-square mirror. The
mirror is larger than any I've used in the past, so I incorporated
mortise and tenon contrstuction to make the frame as sturdy as
possible. I have the base shellac coat done, and 2 coats of varnish are
on. I was hoping to get the final body coat of varnish on last night
but the first two weren't quite dry enough. So I'll get the third coat
on tonight and finish with a coat or two of satin varnish on Tues
night.
Mar 6, 2006:
Last week was a very slow week in the shop. The bulk of my time was
spent with the family, and it doesn't look like shop time will get back
to normal for quite a while. With the little shop time I did get I was
able to get enough rough cherry lumber flattened and thicknessed for a
framed mirror. The jointer performed well, although I think I need to
lower the outfeed table just a hair as I got a bit of tapering. I
probably raised it a bit too much when I originally set it up.
Now that the planer is repaired (and appears to be holding oil without any leaks) I was also able to get the shop back together. While I was at it I also changed out a 220V receptacle to a duplex and added a link belt to the bandsaw. It's nice to have things back to normal and ready for use.
Feb 28, 2006:
Last night I finished the repair of the gearbox oil leak in my Jet 15" planer. What a
PITA that was! I had the machine torn down into what seemed like 1000
pieces, and the parts I purchased for the repair were not the parts I
needed. So I had to go to a couple local bearing suppliers to find the
right bearing and oil seal (which wasn't in stock anyway). After
re-assembly I ran the planer for a few minutes and couldn't find any
new leaks, and this morning I ran down there before work and everything
looks fine. I'm gonna reserve judgement on success/failure until it
gets a few weeks of hard usage, but for now things look ok. If the leak
re-appears I'm gonna spring for a Byrd
head with a new gearbox, so I'm not sure if I should hope for a leak or
not..... ;)
While the planer was down waiting for parts I did a bunch of maintenance work to other tools in the shop. I finally got the oil changed in my air compressor and I redirected it's water drain piping to a 2 liter soda bottle to better contain the oily mess. I also tore down the bandsaw and tried to tweak things to remove a bit of its vibration. I'm anxious to bet back to woodworking now, and I'll be starting on the framed mirror at my next chance.
Feb 20, 2006:
The nightstands are done and installed in the nursery. Pics on are this webpage.
I'm fairly happy with them, but I rushed the finish a bit and will need
to rub it out and wax it in a week or two after the varnish fully
cures.
This weekend I sold the G1018HW jointer and took delivery of a new G0490 jointer. There was really nothing wrong with the G1018HW, but when the 490 came out this year for only $750 I thought I'd try to get one. In conversations with Grizzly it was confirmed that this jointer comes off the same manufacturing lines as the DJ-20, but it costs about 1/2 the Delta and it has some nice "upgrades" (pedestal switch, built-in mobile base, 3 Hp motor, etc). I'm not thrilled about the 4-knife cutterhead, but other than that I'm happy with the jointer. The parallelogram tables adjust smoothly and easily, and that should make depth changes a bit faster than my previous jointers. The long infeed table will come in handy, and the outfeed is basically the same length as the G1018HW. I'll need to run a few boards across it to solidify my opinions, but for now I'm pleased.
Feb 13, 2006:
Continuing to work on the nightstands. I got the wooworking done late
last week including my usual fussiness in fine-tuning the drawer
reveals. Since SWMBO decided against a shelf and a door the task was
much simpler. I'm currently in the midst of finishing them, as the
shellac and 2 coats of waterlox went on this weekend. Tonight will be
the final waterlox body coat, then Tues will be a gentle sanding and a
satin topcoat. I hope to have them installed in the baby's room Wed
night.
Feb 7, 2006:
It's been a while since I updated this mostly because our second
daughter was born on Jan 30th. Everyone's happy and healthy, and we've
been busy at the hospital and home recovering and adjusting. I haven't
had any shop time until last night when I got all of one hour.
The two nightstands are 95% completed. The carcases are glued up and ready for sanding/planing. The drawers are assembled and fit, although I need to attach the fronts and tweak the reveals. I wrote a bare-bones article on how I make dovetails for some of the folks in our local club and posted it here. The tops are glued up and cut to size, but I still need to plane them flat and route the edge profiles. I had an issue with the tops warping a bit after glue-up, so I routed a couple kerfs in the undersides so that I can pull them flat when they're attached to the carcase. I should only need a few more hours to complete the woodworking, then it will be finishing time for a few days.
After our first daughter my shop time was dramatically reduced, and it's already apparent that I'll be spending even less time there now that our second is here. I'm really missing the hours I used to get, but at the same time my children will only grow up once and I don't want to miss it. Sigh....
Jan 23, 2006:
We moved the dresser
upstairs and loaded it up with clothes over the weekend. It looks good
in the nursery, but it looks a bit smaller than the previous dresser
that was there. I'll make up for the size by adding a couple drawers to
the bottom of the blanket chest/toy box that's on my list to make. We
put two dings in the wood when we were moving it upstairs so I have a
bit of finish repair to do, but that shouldn't be a big deal and it's
pretty hard to tell now without a repair.
Got started in earnest on the nightstands over the weekend. I have the two carcases glued up, the blanks for the tops are done, and I have most of the moldings cut. The rest should go fairly quickly since we decided not to enclose the base behind a door. I'll need to get the planer gearbox leak fixed before I start on the blanket chest since I'm running out of surfaced cherry - not looking forward to that repair at all.
Jan 20, 2006:
Well, the dresser is finished. Check it out here. I'm fairly
happy with it although (as always) there are a few minor things I'd do
differently. I'm getting positive feedback on the web forums, and the
only consistently mixed feedback is the choice of the pulls. We'll move
the dresser into her room this weekend.
We had our monthly SEMIWW meeting last night. It was another very informative demo, and we had a strong turnout. I wasn't able to con someone into taking over the "Presidency", so I'll have to work on a Plan B.
I'm not sure if I'll finish the nursery nightstands next, or if I'll take a week or so and finish the base cabinet for my bench. I'd like to get them both done soon, but the nightstands are probably the more pressing of the two. It seems with every project that gets checked off the list two or three more take its place. I guess that's a good problem to have though.
Jan 16, 2006:
Had a productive weekend. The dresser is now finish planed and/or
sanded, and the finishing process has begun. I did the usual deep shop
cleaning to get rid of as much sawdust as possible before any finishes
were applied. I typically vacuum every square inch of the shop, blow
down everything with compressed air, and let the ambient air filter run
overnight. That works well enough to be able to apply finishes in the
shop without dust contamination.
The dresser now has a coat of 1# blonde shellac to prevent blotching, 3 coats of Waterlox Sealer/Finish, and 1 coat of a 50-50 mix of Waterlox satin and Waterlox S/F. The shellac was padded on, the Waterlox S/F was brushed, and I added about 10% mineral spirits to the final coat so that I could wipe it on without any risk of brush marks, bubbles, or fat edges. I lightly wet-sanded with mineral spirits and 320 paper on a rubber sanding block to level and imprefections prior to the final coat. Once the final coat is dry I'll check to see if it has the right amount of gloss and clarity, and make any necessary adjustments before installing the hardware and snapping pics. It should be in place in the nursery within a few days max. Finally.
Jan 11, 2006:
Spent tonight and last night in the shop. The dresser top is planed,
cut to size, and has its edge profile routed. Got all the drawer fronts
finish planed and ready for finish. All that remains is hand sanding of
the ply and mouldings, and getting the pulls for the drawer fronts
installed. The dresser is looking pretty good, and hopefully I'll be
done with finishing this weekend.
The PC monitor died from dust exposure last weekend - the second in two years to explode. This time I bought a new LCD monitor on sale, and I intend to build some sort of filtered surround to keep the dust from this one. I set it up the other night, and it's amazing how much better the screen looks (brighter, better contrast, etc) and the LCD screens take up so much less space. Hopefully this one lasts a long time.
Jan 9, 2006:
Got the last bit of adjustments made to the drawer reveals. Yeah, I
know I've said that before, but I really think I'm done this time.
Well, maybe....
Also started on the final planing of the dresser top. The glue-up looks good, and I'm happy with my selection of boards. I've got a nice theme going with some of the circular grain. I might be the only one to notice it, but I'm happy with it nonetheless.
I had a moment of stupidity last night while planing the top. I was working away with a jack plane and ran the front corner of the plane right smack into one of my holdfasts. I was using battens and thought I had plenty of runoff space for the planes, but noooooo. Worse yet, after I smacked the hook I cussed to myself but just kept planing. I didn't realize until I had a nice long gouge in the top that I raised a burr on the front corner of the plane, and it scraped a nice long divot. Doh - bad words were said! A fine mill file removed the burr, and a lot more planing removed the gouges. I'll chalk it up to a lesson learned.
Jan 8, 2006:
Didn't get any shop time during the week until Friday night due to a
busy week at work. Had a good weekend, though, with about 6 solid hours
in the shop.
I've got the dresser to the point where I just need a few subtle tweaks to get to the finishing stage. The base and top molding is complete, and the drawers are all installed and fit. Getting the reveals set properly was time-consuming as usual, and a bit of play in the drawer slides didn't help. I should start finish planing/sanding tonight (assuming I get some time in the shop), then do the final planing of the top (that's always the very last thing I do), and be ready for shellac and varnish some night this week.
While waiting for some of the molding to be run, I was able to finally get some sharpening and cleanup done in the shop. I've had a few lathe tools and a new plane iron awaiting sharpening for some time, and I also needed to get my sharpening station re-done since I got a new grinder and wolverine jig for Christmas. Also got my air hose re-hung, and recovered from a few other domino affects from when I had to make room for the TwinTwin bench. It's great to have the shop coming back together in relative order. I'll be working on a complete re-vamp of my on-line shop tour in the next couple months.
Jan 2, 2006:
It's a new year, and today is the last day of my Christmas/New Years
holiday. Back to work tomorrow - ugh. I'm in the final stages of a
double dresser for my second daughter who's due any day now. I need to
do another day or two of final fitting, sanding, and planing, then it's
a few days for finishing. After that I assemble the nightstands that
I've already started. Everything out of cherry and cherry ply, with
soft maple as secondary wood. Hope they turn out nicely, and I hope she
likes them.
Grizzly released their new catalog today, and we now have some details on a few new tools we've been anticipating. An 8" paralellogram jointer and a 20" lathe are tops on my list. The jointer looks to be a DJ20 clone, and I'm told they're made in the same factory. The 20" lathe is a bit dissapointing due to it's odd spindle size, poor speed range, lack of outboard capability, and inacessable spindle. Might need to keep saving for a PM or General.
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© Copyright 2006 Chris Billman