FIXED..

On the suggestion of a co-worker, I wound up just cutting 1/4" off each side of the cutting board. That was enough to get rid of the big divot the runaway router left. And then, I bought a used router from a guy in Belton. It was a long trip for a router, but it was a pretty good deal ($20) for an early 1980's Craftsman router that looks like it was used once, maybe. It came with two bits, but honestly, I haven't even looked at them very close. On first glance they didnt seem like anything I'd be using anytime soon. Anyway, that router fits the table I have, so I am now with a functional router table. The routing went just fine with the table, but I still had to touch things up with sandpaper to make it smooth.

Here's what it looks like:









Using a dremel tool with a small carving bit to "sign" my name on a piece always makes me nervous, but I guess they've always came out OK so far. Kind of rough and sort of looking like the work of a 3rd grader, but legible. I signed in the cherry, since I figured that would be the easiest. The walnut may have been better, actually. It was hot when I was carving the initials in, and after I was done, I noticed the surface was rough--after I had sanded it all smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. I finally realized that my sweating palm, resting on the cutting board as I was signing it, raised the grain of the wood. So I had to re-sand the whole thing again, and then get mineral oil on it before I got sweat on it again. There are so many ways to ruin a project!

I think I'm safe posting this here before I give this to them, because I haven't really "advertised" this blog yet.



I wasn't that excited about these big tan rubber feet, but I tried 2 hardware stores and Home Depot, and this was the best I could do. Anyway, they serve the purpose of keeping it from skidding around, and allowing air circulation underneath. Overall, I'm really happy with the way the joints came out. I was worried, because I don't have a jointer, so it's near-impossible to make everything square.





This will probably be my last project before we head west, and I don't anticipate having room or time to set up a shop for at least the next 3-6 months. I hope I can still get in some small projects here and there. Maybe a good time to do something small that uses nothing but hand tools...

-m

BAD ROUTER!

Gosh almighty! OK, new rule: no operating a router after a couple of beers. This is what happens when you do:



Or at least, this is what happens when I do. In case you were wondering, that big ol' divot isn't supposed to be there. That's what happens when impaired judgement makes you think you can rout a 3/8" roundover on a 1 1/4" wide cutting board. It just plain doesn't work.

One of my coworkers told me today that the difference between a good carpenter and an excellent carpenter is that an excellent carpenter knows how to hide his mistakes. 'Bout the only way to hide this one is to put the whole thing in the woodstove... I'm going to take 1/4" off each side, and re-rout (using a router table this time), and hopefully it will still look OK. Here's what the top looks like after a rough sanding:



Yeah. I know better than to try to rout an edge like that by hand, but the table I have doesn't fit the router I have. Long story. I'll have to borrow a router again, as I did when I was working on the crib.

I'll have to see if it still works as a gift after I get done hacking away at it. I'm not so sure....

That thing is going to last forever, though. With the top all being end grain, I had to sand for almost 10 minutes with 50 grit on my belt sander to even out the spots that were sticking up less than 1/16" above the adjacent strips!

OK. Lesson learned. It was a painful one... I hate routers.

-m

LITTLE PROJECT...

I'm working on a gift for some friends right now--a cutting board. It's a plan from Wood Magazine. It's a deceptively simple project. Deceptive because it looks like it took lots of cutting and lots of effort. It's actually fairly simple and straightforward. Really, it's more a test of how accurately your equipment is set up and performing than it is of your woodworking abilities.

I drove down to Pomona on Saturday morning, to Mark Frieden Hardwoods, since that's the only place around where I've found hardwoods for a decent price. I have to put in a plug for this guy. He's a farmer that also has a kiln & a good selection of hardwoods from Missouri and beyond. I bought a total of about 5 board feet (hard maple, cherry, and walnut). I asked about Kentucky Coffeetree wood, since he had a huge piece last time I was in there. He said he had stopped carrying it for lack of demand, but had about a board-foot left. He threw that in for me to play with, at no extra charge. There was a 7/8 piece of purpleheart there that was probably 11" wide and 7' long. I almost had to buy it, just because I've never seen pieces that big. Really nice guy, and I love walking around that shed full of mixed hardwoods. I'm becoming a real wood junkie. It's really fun to get lumber that's got rough edges and fairly rough-planed surfaces, and turn it into something beautiful.

Anyway, the way this thing works is that you glue up strips of maple, walnut, and cherry of differing widths, to form one big laminated plank:




I like the way these laminated planks look. I would like to make something (cabinets? a folding screen?) that makes use of that look. Once I ran it through the planer it looked as though it was one piece of wood with some very sudden color changes. So I guess I did OK getting things cut straight, etc. Not bad, considering I don't have a jointer.

Next you crosscut strips from the plank:



Then you turn every other strip end-for-end. The differing widths of the maple and cherry strips staggers the wood to produce a funky pattern. Here's how it looks laid out flat, right before gluing up:



These pieces get stood on edge, though, so that the cutting board surface is all end grain, which will make it really durable. The plans call for you to glue this up in three separate sections, then glue those three sections together, for two reasons (I guess): 1) because waterproof glue generally has a short "open time" during which you can move things around and get clamps on, and 2) to make sure there's adequate clamping pressure. I knew #2 wasn't really an issue, since f clamps like the ones I used have something like 1,000 psi of clamping force. I also thought I could get everything together within that 7 minute open assembly time that TiteBond III has. It turns out that it was pretty easy. I laid the strips out flat so I could put glue on each one, then turn it up on edge next to the previous one. The clamps and cauls were all laid out and ready to go.

It worked just fine to do it all at once. Check out the deflection on the bars of those f-clamps! Plenty of pressure there.... I actually kind of bruised my palms twisting those handles! It would have added an extra session, at least, to do it the other way, and wouldn't have made any difference. Joints either fit together, or they don't.



I should finish this up tonight, and then it needs a few coats of mineral oil. It's been sort of a fun project because it was quick, and it also allowed me to work with three different species side-by-side. If you look close, you can see that the cherry burned when going through the table saw. The walnut tore out a little in the planer. The maple was the easiest to work, overall, but had a little splintering going through the table saw.

Oh, and this is a good time to update my review on a couple of my tools. The Ridgid table saw (TS3650) is still performing like a champ. I've used it enough now to trust its accuracy. It's nice to be able to trust the measurement the fence guide shows. The Ridgid planer (TP1300LS) is still working really well, too. Except for a little tearout, and some snipe (which is mostly due to the operator not paying attention during infeed/outfeed), it produces a glass-smooth finish. It didn't bog down with that wide laminated plank, either. I am really happy with both.

-m

CRIBBAGE, ANYONE?

I am posting this retrospectively, or retroactively, or posthumously, or whatever the correct term is for blogging about something that happened a long time ago...

Awhile back, I made a cribbage board for my friend, Chris, as a going away present. He was probably my best friend here in KS while he was here, and now he is off to law school. Anyway, he had once made a comment about how I should make cribbage boards out of all the oak cutoffs I had laying around. So I took the cutoff ends from each end of the crib legs (each of which was made of 3 pieces of laminated oak), and glued those up, then ran them through the planer. Of course, I couldn't be satisfied with just drilling some holes, and calling it good. I chose to make it a little more challenging, and try something I'd never done before: inlay. I used my tablesaw blade (1/8" wide), raised to 1/8" above the table, to cut grooves in the blank that I had made by gluing together those cutoffs. Then I cut some 1/8" strips of walnut from that pile of old reclaimed walnut timbers I bought awhile back--I don't think I posted about that. They were in a big pile with some white oak timbers, all of which came from an old house in Lawrence. Man. Houses were built to last back then. Anyway, since my bandsaw is pretty iffy, accuracy-wise, I had to cut quite a few, and do lots of fussing with each piece of inlay, but eventually it came out OK. Not perfect, but acceptable.

Then I trimmed the extra length off the side, and added some walnut trim around the whole thing:






I realized, though, that there was no place to store pegs. I pondered this quite awhile. I decided to cut off the end (including some of the oak and walnut trim) and put it on with a hinge, then drill a hole back into the blank for storing pins. Well, that didn't work, for a number of reasons, the first of which was that the hinge just wasn't sturdy enough. So I settled on a beefier hinge, and just having the walnut cap flip up and down. That worked lots better. I inset a rare earth magnet in the cap and the blank, so that it would snap and stay closed. Then I drilled the hole back into the blank for the pins. That was a little tricky, since I couldn't get off very far without punching through either side of the blank. It worked fine.

I thought about trying to turn pins from oak dowels by mounting them in my drill press and going after them with my chisel, like a mini, vertical lathe. Some experimentation made me think that would be too hard, and produce tool inconsistent a result. So I wandered the local hardware store for awhile, and settled on some steel shelf pins. They are pretty much perfect, except they were a little thicker than what I'd wanted originally. Drilling the holes in that end grain was tough, and even with it on my drill press, the bit wandered a little on some of the holes. It's probably not more than 1/32", but it's enough to be noticeable when they're all in a line like that.






The last step was to put my moniker on it, and a dedication. That came out OK, I think. I was a little worried about it, since I didn't have much room to work with, and I'm rusty with a Dremel tool. The magnets work well--it's just as effective as a catch, and more elegant. When the cap snaps closed, you really can't tell that it opens, unless you look fairly closely.



This probably won't be the last cribbage board I make. I like the look of the inlay, so I'll probably repeat that. I learned a few lessons that will make things easier, I think.

-m

CRIB--FINAL IMAGES...

Finally getting around to posting the final images of the crib. Here it is--the result of a good 3 months of work--probably 80-100 hours of time...





-m

FINISHING FINISHING

The headboard and footboard are DONE. Completely:



I didn't do a very good job matching the grain on the plugs that hide the screws attaching the caps to the headboard and footboard, but maybe it's sort of like the people that leave layout lines penciled on completed dovetails--to highlight the work that went into it:



The final coat of finish is now curing on the sides:



I used something called "Tried and True." It is basically a linseed oil/beeswax mix. It sure is easy to apply. Hopefully it holds up pretty well.

The next pictures I post should be of a done crib in a done baby's room...

-m

HOME STRETCH...

One side glued, one to go. Here is what it will look like (minus a side, and finish):





I still need to add caps on the sides (probably, though it wouldn't matter if I decided not to, I guess). I goofed and routed a 1/8" roundover on top, so I will have to run the side panels through my tablesaw jointer jig to get rid of those, if I decide a cap is necessary. That will also make sure that the cap fits tight with no gaps. We'll see. It's pretty optional, at this point, unless I decide I want it there to reinforce the top rail where the bolt comes in (just a little more thickness surrounding that bolt).

-m

GLUIN'

The first side panel is currently gluing. Those two long skinny pieces you see on either side (right and left) are not part of the crib. I think the technical, woodworky term for them is "cauls." Basically, I am using them to make sure the top and bottom rails end up square. It took a little bit of thinking to figure out how the pipe clamps needed to sit relative to each other & the wood to make it work out:



One more side to glue, then some drilling & cleanup.

-m

HOME STRETCH

OK..I'm closing in on the home stretch on the crib...

I now have the cap on the footboard. If you look closely on either end, you can probably see the plugs sticking up where the countersunk screws are (it is glued along the middle and screwed & glued on the ends). I just need to flush trim those, clean up some glue squeeze out, do a final sanding, and the footboard and headboard will both be done, apart from staining/finishing.

Below is the drawing I created to help me cut parts to the right size for the sides. This is way different from the way the plans want you to make the sides, but I think this will look better, and still be strong. All those years of mechanical drafting come in handy for woodworking design. The vertical slats are mortised into the top and bottom rails. It took awhile to cut all those mortises, since it was required close to 200 holes drilled adjacent to each other, and then I had to clean each one up and size it for the rails using chisels. That is rewarding work, but a little tedious.


This is what the sides will look like. I have to glue them, which will definitely be difficult, since I have to get all those things to line up, and make some fairly large pipe clamps work, within about a 7 minute window before the glue starts setting. So I will save that for tomorrow. But this gives you an idea of how they will look:


Man. I am slow. I have probably spent 50 hours on this project so far. But, part of the time was making jigs I needed. Below is a 90° jig for my drill press. I needed this for the successive holes in the side rail mortises. I was happy because it came out exactly 90°, or at least close enough that my measuring tools couldn't detect that it was off. Once I get a big bandsaw (14"), I can also use this for resawing wider pieces, but it is too big for my current bandsaw.


Another jig I made was a jointer fence for my table saw. Actually, I made two--one that takes off 1/8", and one that takes off 1/16". The way they work is that they attach to the regular rip fence (via square head bolts that go into the slot on the stock fence), and then you slide the unit to where the blade fits in the circular cutout in the melamine. The pieces that fit behind the blade (on the bottom in this picture), are even with the blade, so that the stock gets trimmed exactly 1/16" or 1/8" by passing it by this. It works better on smaller stock that is easier to manage, not as well on large stock. But, all in all, they work surprisingly well. They are not my design--I got them out of a cool book I bought right after I got my table saw. It's not as good as a jointer, but it will get me by until I'm ready to sink $500-700 into a nice jointer. I also have a plan in my head for a jointer sled for my planer. I'll let you know how that works out.



So what remains is to sand a few pieces on the side panels, glue up the side panels, do a final sanding & glue cleanup on everything, drill some bolt holes for fastening it together, and finishing. It's within reach now--in fact, I could get most everything but the finishing done tomorrow, if I focus on it. It will be a relief to have this done. It's been fun, but I am ready to start on a new project. I also have decided that I don't like working under deadlines.

-m

SIDES

OK. So it's been awhile since I've updated you on the crib progress. I haven't made that much progress, because I've been working quite a few hours (50, on average), and we did a little traveling over the holiday, and there have been other miscellaneous distractions, such as the fact that I received 75 shrubs in the mail from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation, and had to get them in the ground. Anyway, here goes...

Here is the completed headboard. I use the term "completed" loosely, because I still want to run over it with a hand sanding at 220 grit, and I have to finish it, and maybe put some felt-covered feet on the bottom, but it is pretty much done:

Also, I now have the footboard 90% done. All I need there is to clean up some glue squeeze out, and put a cap on it. I think the cap is already cut, and just needs rounded over and sanded, but I can't remember. Here's what they look like together (footboard is on right):

And, I have the sides well underway. The plans called for this to be 2 pieces of 1/4" plywood laminated together to make a solid panel. Yuck. So I stuck with the general look of the headboard & footboard, but gave it a little arts & crafts "flair." This took a little design, because it had to be as rigid diagonally as the plywood panel. So I wound up designing it with one big "slat" in the middle, and it will have 2 small ones (the size of those in the headboard) on either side. I am pretty sure the 'decorative' cutout in the larger center slat is to allow for wood movement without warping everything. Let's hope it works. Oh, these are 3/8" thick, and are set into a 1" deep mortise in the top and bottom pieces. Hopefully, when it's all glued up, it will be solid. Should be--the shear & pull-apart stresses for mortise & tenon joints is pretty incredible. This is what it will look like from the side, but without the narrower slats on either side of the wide one:

Oh. And remember when I said that the slats for the side were 3/8"? Well, so are the ones in the headboard and footboard. But, since the headboard ones are narrow (1.5" wide), I could resaw them to thickness, from 3/4", using my bandsaw. I couldn't do that with the 7 1/4" wide piece here. Yeah, I could have run it through the table saw one way, then flipped it end for end, run it through again, and cut what was left with a hand saw, but I knew this was not going to be the last time I had to deal with stock that needed to be thicknessed. So, I just went right out and bought the following item:

I say "went right out..." Those of you that know me know that I am not an impulse shopper. I researched table saws for over a year and a half before settling on the one I got. Actually, I had already decided that if I ever got a planer, it would be this one. Wood magazine had recently run a review of planers, and this was the "Best Value" out of 15 or so planers. A $550 DeWalt took the top prize, but for about 2/3 the price, this one was rated almost as good. Anyway, it works well. It pulls stuff through effortlessly, and the board that comes out is glass-smooth. It is my third Ridgid tool (table saw, shop vac). My satisfaction with the other tools definitely made me more comfortable buying this.

I already know which bandsaw and jointer I will get when the time comes. Yeah, I have a bandsaw, but it is tiny (9"), and it has started to hesitate when starting up, so I assume it won't last forever.

Thanks for listening.

-m

HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU'VE BEEN DOING A LOT OF WOODWORKING:

Well, for starters, you have completely filled a 16 gallon shop vac with sawdust and wood chips:


And for another, you have a nearly complete headboard to show for it (just need the cap):

No, the headboard is not sitting in grass. That is our downstairs shag carpet. Well, one of the 3 patches of downstairs shag carpet.

-m

PROGRESS

OK. Time for my semi-regular update on crib construction...

Here's the frame for the headboard, glued & ready to go. If you look closely, you can see 4 round metal things stuck in the leg on the right. Those are what you use to adjust the height of the mattress. The are strange little threaded inserts with non-continuous threads on the outsides and regular threads on the inside. I think the theory is that the wood expands and fills in between the "threadlets" on the outside so that it stays in place when you're putting in or removing the screws that hold the mattress springs:

Here's the progress clamping the slats and slat retainers:

Here's where it sits, as of 9:19 pm tonight. Should be able to finish the headboard by Tuesday evening. I need to glue in 6 more slat retainers, and then put the cap on the top. Oh yeah. I keep forgetting I need a plug cutter so I can fill the countersunk holes in the cap ends. Oh yeah, I also just remembered it would be handy if I had a real countersink, instead of just putting in a bigger bit. Once those steps are done, the headboard will be DONE, except for finishing. It is finish sanded (220 grit), but obviously haven't stained it or anything. I'm going to use 3 coats of linseed oil and 2-3 coats of beeswax or carnuba wax. Linseed oil just brightens the wood a little--it doesn't stain the wood, really. The footboard is almost the same, except it's shorter, and has a skinnier rail at the top.

I'm pretty satisfied with the spacing. I'll end up having to special cut 2 slat retainers on each side, because I'm off about 1/8". Not too bad, considering there are 13 slats and 28 slat retainers, meaning I only got off 1/8" of an inch total in 82 cuts.

I'm feeling a little better about getting this done, but I'm starting to think about the sides now. The plans call for you to use 1/2" of oak plywood (two sheets of 1/4" plywood, laminated), but the 1/4 plywood I got was MUCH redder than the dimensional stock, so I'm thinking about using rails for the side. Also, I like the look of slats better than the solid panels. I will have to get creative, though, from an engineering standpoint. Those panels are in there to give it diagonal strength from front to back--which I would give up if I did it the same as the headboard and footboard (the slats are NOT glued, they are free so that they have room to expand/contract). The advice I got from the internet forum for the plans (I know...) was to construct the slats and the strip that holds the slats first (and screw and glue the slats in), and then glue the frame together around it. That seems risky, because I could wind up with a slat assembly that is 1/8" too short or long, which would really cause problems. I may default to the method in the plans...I was just hoping to avoid using plywood. As of now, everything is solid oak. Yeah..this thing is gonna be heavy. I'm hoping the result will be something the kid will have for the rest of their lives, and beyond.

By the way, it looks better in real life than in the images. It loses the look of the grain and the whatever-it-is-that-makes-red-oak-look-so-cool that it has in real life. Should stand out better once I put the finish on.

-m

LEGS...

OK. Legs for the crib are nearly done. What remains is to drill some more holes, and do a final sanding. It's taking a long time, since there are lots of holes in these things, with lots of weird counterbores. This is partly so the height of the mattress can be adjusted to 4 different heights, and also partly because it requires holes in different places when set up as a crib, versus a toddler bed, versus a full-size bed. The holes not used get covered by bolt caps. My drill press doesn't have enough travel to get all the way through one of these legs in one stroke, so it's about a 5 minute process to do each counterbored hole. Once these babies are done, it should go quite a bit quicker, because the rest is mostly just cut, rout, sand...


-m

LEGS...CUT

OK..Step 1: Done.

I have the legs for the crib cut to rough size (the pile on the left). 3 of these pieces get laminated to make each leg. If you do the math, you see that you then end up with 6 legs. No, this is not an insect crib. It is a "transitional" crib, which means that it goes from a crib to a toddler bed to a full size bed. The headboard is used for all 3. One footboard is used for the crib and full-size bed, and a different one (with a half rail) is used for the toddler bed. I also have the cap for the headboard, some trim pieces, and the rail top cut.


That was easy. Table saws rule. I'm not looking forward to routing the roundovers on all the pieces, and coves on a bunch more, as most of my routing experiences haven't been awesome, to date. I'm also apprehensive about cutting the dados, especially since I have to raise a whirling dado set up through a zero clearance insert the first time. I may see about borrowing a football helmet and stuff.

I am really, really, really looking forward to the weekend. I should get my new 20A line hooked up to the service panel, finally, so that I can use lights AND the table saw at the same time. That will be handier..

-m

TIME TO START ON THIS...

OK. So after a year and a half of saving and deliberation, I bought myself a table saw. It's a Ridgid TS3650. I still dream of a Powermatic PM2000, or even a Grizzly 1023SL, but I think this will be more than adequate for the short term. Here's what it looks like, pieces, to assembled, in my shop (READ: garage):




Here's the reason I got the saw: the pile of wood below, if all goes according to plan, will, by June 15, have arranged itself into a crib. It will also be set up such that it can turn into a toddler bed and full-sized bed by changing out a few parts.


The second piece from the top in the picture above is from Home Despot. I was afraid I was going to have to go there once a week for 3 months to pull the best stock out so I would have enough to work with. Moreover, HD charges about $6/board foot for red oak. Dang. But, I found a hardwood dealer down in Pomona, KS, who resells hardwoods from a sawmill in MO, as well as some exotics. He is a farmer, and part time lumber dealer, and he sells red oak for $2.95/board foot. So my total wood bill for this project will be somewhere around $200, rather than $400. Yeah, it's probably about as expensive as buying a crib, but it will be mostly solid red oak (with some 3/4 oak plywood), and it will also be a toddler bed and full bed for the same price.

Actually, with a little searching, it looks like an equivalent thing would cost around $400, and that only transitions to a "day bed," not a full-size. Plus, it was a really good excuse to buy a table saw, and a dado set. Having the table saw will make this a BILLION times easier. Before, I would have had to use my bandsaw, which is mostly made of aluminum and plastic, and had no rip fence, so resawing meant fiddling with clamping pieces of melamine (for flatness) to create a fence, clamping homemade feather boards to hold the wood in, and walking it through, with Jen catching it on the other end. It was really, really inaccurate, and I always would up with uneven edges.

I modified my workbench, which you can see in pictures 1, 2, and 4 above, so it is 1/4" lower than the table saw's table, so I can use it as an outfeed table. Wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. It took me about 3 hours to cobble that bench together the first time (from an old wooden desk which had had its legs cut off), but it took me less than an hour to get the height adjusted & get it shored up again. I think I am getting faster with all of this stuff.

Oh, I also ran some NM 12-2G from my service panel out to the garage. I'm waiting for guidance from a co-worker before I put in the breaker & hook up the cable, but the outlet is wired and ready to go. The saw, combined with the lights, was too much for 1 - 20A breaker. Hopefully this one is enough. Apparently, that 13A motor can draw as much as 100A when it is first starting. The existing cable to that outlet was inadequate, anyway, because it was a 14-3 AWG tied to 12-2 hooked to a 20A breaker. Duh! Now I'm noticing several other 14-3 and 14-2s tied to 20A breakers because people were so lazy they just tied into junction boxes that were fed by 12-2 hooked to 20A. So that is bugging me, and I will probably have to put in a couple more 15A breakers and run some new 14 to tie into those that are snaking all over the house. I also invested in an outlet tester, and discovered that none of the 3-prong receptacles are actually grounded, except a handful. I have lots of electrical work to do... I feel like the person who did the inspection on our house and signed off on the electrical should have to pay for all of that stuff. Bastard...

-m