Grover Woodworks

Get The Lead Out

2011-12-06T20:19:00.001-05:00

So recently on a woodworking forum I frequent we had a discussion about pencil sharpeners. We all were pretty much in agreement that the old school manual crank ones were the best and thus we set out on finding the ideal pencil sharpener. In my quest for the ultimate sharpener I started doing some digging on available options. There are tons of them out there X-Acto makes some, Stanley Bostitch makes some as well. I then stumbled upon Class Room Friendly Designs. The looks of the pencil sharpener are pretty slick, it is an old school look that I prefer. Check out this video of how it works

I was honestly skeptical of the of the sharpener. It looks like it would work good, but I wasn't sure about the mechanism that pulls the pencil into the sharpener. In reality it works extremely well. You can sharpen the pencil and it will basically stop when the pencil is sharp.

The sharpener came packed very well.

Here you can see the sharpener and the clamp the you can use to clamp it to a shelf.

I would like to have seen two sharpeners in here but honestly the one does a fantastic job. It creates a very clean cut and a very nice point on the pencils.

Here you can see the little clamps that grab hold of the pencil while you are sharpening. It holds the pencil very firmly and doesn't allow it to move while sharpening.

Look at those beautiful points. I sharpened a few more pencils after this and it is consistent in its ability to sharpen all the pencils.

All in all I would highly recommend this pencil sharpener if you are in the market for a manual sharpener. I am very happy with the tool and have added it to my arsenal of tools in the wood shop.

Please make sure to check out http://www.classroomfriendlysupplies.com/ the sharpener is $20, the company that sells the sharpeners is based out of North Carolina. I don't believe you will regret the purchase.

Hand Planes

2011-08-22T16:38:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since my last post. Life has been interesting the last few years and I've had very little time for woodworking or the money for that matter. It's an expensive hobby. However it is one that I love so I try and do little bits here and there. The latest project I completed was a set of Hand Planes. In a recent issue of
Wood Magazine they had an article on making your own hand plane. I have wanted to do one of these for a LONG time and really enjoy making my own tools and jigs etc. I'm finding the jig side of things is going to be very helpful in building guitars. Anyway. I thought I would share my hand planes with you. Hope you enjoy. Oh and you should see a new logo on the blog now. I like it much better.

We start by gluing up the blank for the hand plane. It's roughly 2"x8"

All the parts next to each other

Cut the bed out for the blade. That center triangle later becomes the wedge.

Gluing all the parts together.

Glued up and ready to cut the wedge.

Bottom of the plane with the throat opened

Test fitting everything

The Wedge is now cut out.

After everything was shaped and tuned

The woods are Spalted Maple, Sapele, Walnut and some oak veneer in between

Here is the two that I have built so far. The one in Front is Curly Maple Sapele and Oak.

Both planes work beautifully and I couldn't be happier

--Grover

Jelly Cupboard to Pie Safe. A Family Affair.

2010-08-17T22:09:00.001-04:00

Hey Guys/Gals…. Sorry I haven’t been posting much this summer with the heat, the day job and trying to spend as much time with my son as possible this summer it’s been a little lacking in the woodworking and blogging department. I will be back at it more when the weather starts to cool off. In the meantime my Dad built an amazing Pie Safe for my sister and did a write up/story on it and I wanted to publish it for him. I hope you like it. I have a feeling I will be having him guest blog for me more so we can bring you additional content over the months.

--Grover

It’s funny how things sometimes happen. A couple months ago, Grover decided he was going to build a Jelly Cupboard (Grover is my son). Well about that time, my daughter, who works for a public library, decided she would like to have a pie safe. I thought that would be a good project, so I told her to find the plan she liked and I would give it a try. So a few days later she brought home from the library a New Yankee Workshop plan book written by Norm Abrams. I looked at the plan and thought, this could be more than I could handle. Dado’s, biscuit joinery, and so on, seemed a little much.

Well, Grover started building the jelly cupboard. We discussed the pie safe, and before I could say, “Table saw dado blade” three times, he had ordered the plan from the New Yankee Workshop, and had bought a great set of Freud dado blades. Next thing I knew I was being instructed on the use of a dado blade setup and Kreg pocket hole jig. He handed me a set of plans and a video on how to build the pie safe and said “No excuses, build it.”

Grover patiently explained to his “old dad” that it would be easy. Since he was building the jelly cupboard, it was the perfect time to explain the similarities in the two projects. Dado’s, pocket hole joints, and door construction. So, I brought the plans, video, and dado blade back to my shop. There they set for a couple of weeks, until my daughter asked “How’s the pie safe coming? Uh, Uh, well I gotta get the wood, then I can get started. Next thing I knew, we were at the home improvement store, with cut list in hand. Loaded the truck with the need lumber and back to the shop we go. A few days later, I made the first cut, then the second. “Hey this ain’t so bad.” Guess Grover, was right, this is easy. Then it happened. There’s and old saying, measure twice and cut once. Well, I read the other day a saying that more fits my situation. “Measure twice, cut once, scream loudly, reach for another board.” But I guess that’s why you buy a few extra boards.

Woodworking is suppose to be a learning experience. Anyway, since this is turning into a family project, my daughter, had at this point, seen the progress and said she would like to help. She wanted to punch the tin that would go in the doors. No problem, first find the pattern you want, second find a supplier for the tin, third order it, and fourth build the jig that will be needed to hold the tin so it can be punched. Well, she got the pattern, found a supplier for the tin, and even ordered it. I didn’t really think she would build the holding jig for the tin, so since it was only a 20 minute project, I made the jig. I told her 3 out of 4 wasn’t bad. That’s when she informed me she got three out of three, said she never intended to build a jig. “Would you be interested in punching the 6 panels of tin that will be needed to complete the project.” She said “sure” and started on the first one. Well, you know a big hammer and a punch can really work on the wrists. So the next day after completing one panel, her wrist were so sore, I like a good dad said, “Hey, that’s gotta be rough on your arms, let me do the next one. Ooops, before the day way done, I had finished the next 5.

Well, all during this time, I would go to my son’s shop and and get a few hints, watching the progress on his jelly cupboard. I even liked the Kreg Pocket Hole Jig so much I bought one. The plan called for biscuit joinery, but the pocket holes seemed to be much simpler. In hind sight, either would have been simple. Grover also taught me how to use a biscuit joiner. It’s very humbling to have your son teach you, after a lifetime of teaching him. But he made me feel better about the situation, when he said my four year old grandson (Grover Jr.) came in the shop a few days before and corrected him on a woodworking project he was working on. Now that’s humbling. So the pie safe started to take shape. I ordered a small plaque that said “Happy Birthday” and wood burned an inscription on the bottom of one of the drawers. Anyway attached are some of the pictures of the pie safe progress and also a finished picture sitting in the house. Hope it will inspire many of you to give something like this a try.

“Happy Woodworking”

Grover’s Dad.

Technorati Tags: Pie Safe,Woodworking,Kreg Jig,Pierced Tin

A little bit of woodworking a little bit of home repair and One heck of a view

2010-07-27T11:54:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to do some work for a friend. This friend has a house on a lake that needed some repair work done to a couple of exterior doors. After many years of weather some of the wood finally started rotting.

First of all this was my view at 7:30am Saturday morning……

I have to tell you it doesn’t get much better than this. I have always been a lake guy even though I have never spent a ton of time on them and I love boats, so this view pretty much made my day. I had to keep reminding myself that I am there to work not watch the boats go by. So anyway… To the work part of this…..

Take a look at the shots of the rot --

This is one of the doors. This one was the difficult one. The one that scared me, the one that had me thinking for a few minutes what the heck did I get myself into, however after stepping back cooler heads prevailed.

This one looks pretty bad but it was actually really easy to fix, so lets start here.

This is on a single open French door so this is the bulkhead between the door that opens and the static window/door. The first thing we did was figure out how to separate the rotted board from the rest of the door or if we would have to build a patch. We were able to find the seam and start to separate the bulkhead.

A little prying and she came right off. You have to make sure not to pry to hard and damage the other side of the door. Just take your time and go slowly.

I trimmed a board that was the same width of the bulkhead. I just used a miter saw to cut it to size.

I attached the board using some finish nails. I set the nails just below the surface and filled them with some caulk. Make sure to use an exterior caulk. One the board was attached I also ran a bead of caulk down the inside edge where the wood meets the door to seal any gaps, I did the same where the board meets the other part of the bulkhead. One area that you want to make sure you get some caulk into is at the location of the original rot, make sure you get plenty of caulk at the bottom of the board between the board and the metal transition plate. That way if there is ever any standing water it keeps the water from soaking into the wood as much as possible.

This is how that door turned out. I painted the entire door frame and doors, in addition to the new wood that was installed.

Now onto the scary door…..

So you saw the rot from above. I made some assumptions about the construction of the door that turned out not to be totally correct.

******* If my friend is reading this post please just skip this section. This totally isn’t your house… *************

Once I started the demolition of the rotted area it became apparent that the door was not built as we thought. Instead of being multiple pieces the door was a single piece or it was glued together so well that we would have destroyed the entire door trying to go the original route of removing the rotted piece. Instead of being able to just pry the piece off like the other door I ended up having to cut this section out. There was more rotted wood than what you could see with the eye so I cut a little bigger than the rotted wood so to make sure there was no bad wood left.

To cut this section out I used a great new tool from Dremel tools, called the Dremel Trio this was a super handy little tool.

From this point I started rebuilding the frame. I used several pieces of wood to build up the thickness we needed to fill the gap.

Once I had the right thickness I was able to start test fitting the piece in the hole and fine tuning everything.

Here is what the section looked like after I got the piece built up, at this point I caulked the heck out of everything to make sure it was sealed up tightly.

After Painting caulking and painting some more here is what the door looks like now. What rotted wood and hole are you talking about. I don’t remember any rotted wood or a large gaping hole in the door.

So here is the whole area all cleaned up and doors repaired and repainted. I think it turned out pretty well.

I know it looked scary at first but keep in mind there are very few things that cannot be fixed and usually they are pretty simple once you step back and take a look and think things through.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: wood working,home improvement,DIY,Home repair,paint.

Milk Paint Revisited

2010-06-23T21:46:00.001-04:00

I have had some great response to the Jelly cupboard from you here, Facebook and from my friends and family. I have a couple of things to add to the last post that have come up.

Heather asked to see some close up pics of the cupboard for a look at the grain. I think that’s one of the great things about milk paint is that it still lets you see some of the grain. So Heather here you go I hope it helps making the decision on using milk paint.

Here is a look at the grain running across top of the door. You can also see the dowels that are used to hold the half lap joint together.

Here is a shot of one of the knots on the side. I would imagine you could add another coat and cover up the grain and knots if that’s what you are looking for.

Okay part two:

I talked with Anne the President over at The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company about some of the things I mentioned in the last post about milk paint and she gave me a few pointers on the milk paint to make it smoother and easier to paint.

Here is an excerpt from the email that she sent me the other day:

Milk paint really is a rustic, crude, lumpy old fashioned paint. Make sure to let it sit for a little while after you mix it, and you can use a kitchen rubber spatula to squeeze the paint on the edges of your container to help get the lumps out. After letting it sit a little while you can also strain it through some cheesecloth or better yet a piece of a nylon stocking or pantyhose- that works great!

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance, and thanks again.
Best Regards,
Anne Thibeau
President
The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co., Inc.

I will be using here suggestions on the next go round. I hope this helps you guys out.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Jelly Cupboard,Milk Paint

Woodworking Wednesdays

2010-06-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

I hope you will take the time to add your project to the list. Everyone loves to see your projects, especially me.

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Have a Great Day!

Here are the Rules:
1. Select any project that you created using any type of woodworking. If you cut, beat, sanded or just did something with wood consider that woodworking.
2. Add a link of you post to the party – This is a link to the actual post not the main page of your blog.
3. Give a description of your project so everyone knows what you are featuring.
4. Grab the button above and add a link to this party so that your readers can join in on the fun.

Technorati Tags: Woodworking Wednesdays

Milk Paint – You painted with milk are you nuts?

2010-06-22T13:10:00.001-04:00

No No, we didn’t paint with milk. That could be interesting however. What I did do is use a great product from The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company. This paint is something akin to what early American craftsmen would have used in painting their furniture or other household items. Milk paint was made at home by hand typically using skim or buttermilk, and a combination of limestone and more or less anything they could find for color. What The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company did was create their own recipe for their reproduction furniture business. After seeing what they were able to accomplish they started receiving requests for their paint and thus what we have today.

Now this stuff is totally different than anything I have used before, for one it comes in a dry powder form that you have to mix with water to make the actual paint. This is easily accomplished by adding the powder and water to a nice sized mason jar and shaking the heck out of it. The directions call for warm water, I used water that was closer to hot so that it dissolved completely. Once you have it mixed up and ready to use get yourself ready if you are sensitive to smell. Once you open that jar you will be met with a slight sour “Milk” smell. Nobody told me about that. Whew did it catch me off guard. It really isn’t all that bad I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s one of those things that you get used to as you are using it and don’t think anything about it after a few minutes.

As I started painting I was really concerned with how the paint was going to turn out. When I started brushing it on it went on differently than Latex or Oil based paint it was almost streaky and blotchy all at once. I tried smoothing it out as much as I could but could not get it to lay like I wanted to. I went ahead and painted the whole piece at this point it was the back slats of the Jelly Cupboard build. I was so frustrated with the way it looked I went to Lowes and bought some latex paint to repaint with, well they say time is a great healer and well they don’t lie whoever they are. By the time I went to Lowes purchased the paint did a few other things came back and looked at the paint it had dried and had dried very smoothly. This was not at all the outcome I was expecting. I was very pleased. I decided then I would give the Sea Green color I had purchased a chance. Boy are we glad I did. This stuff looks AMAZING. It recreates the primitive/colonial/country look that I know a lot of you go after. I couldn’t be more happy with it. It beats the heck out of using a latex paint and having to work with it to achieve nothing close to what this stuff does. I couldn’t believe it I had on one of my pieces finally found the look that I wanted. In order to protect the great paint job I also applied the Milk Paint Clear Coat product that is available as well. This stuff is also great but a word of warning do not use this stuff in an enclosed poorly ventilated area. I opened the bottle and immediately knew that I had to open the shop doors turn on the fans and the air filtering system. It’s some strong smelling stuff, but is totally safe to use. Make sure you put it on thin I goofed in a few places and let it build up and had to adjust fix it.

Oh I totally forgot to mention that before I applied the clear coat I took some 0000 Steel wool and “Sanded” the whole piece. This helped level the paint out and dull the paint just a little. After the clear coat dried I did the same with it. I did not want a super shiny clear coat and you don’t really get one with this stuff, well at least I didn’t, but the steel wool levels it and make it look even better in my opinion.

Okay so to wrap up. I totally recommend and will be using milk paint on future projects. Here is the skinny though, it’s a little more expensive than what you would pay for latex based paint but if you are going after that period look or just want something different it is totally worth it. At the retailer I purchased it from it was about $13 per package and each package gives your roughly a pint of paint so I have about $20 worth of paint on the Jelly cupboard. I used almost a full pint of Sea Green and a full Pint of Oyster White. Now I usually would by quarts of latex paint so it’s quart for quart about half the cost, but I also don’t have almost a whole quart of paint sitting around taking up space hoping that it will get used on another project, wondering if it was good enough, and if it lived up to my standards. I mean that’s a hard thing for paint to have to go through day in and day out watching me build and wondering if this is the time that it will get used. Well I can tell you I will still use Latex paint, but for anything that is going to be even remotely period based or primitive the milk paint will be my paint of choice. It almost makes me want to go and sand all the latex off the couple of pieced I made last year and redo them with the milk paint.

Please make sure to check out their website http://www.milkpaint.com

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Jelly Cupboard,Milk Paint,Paint

Happy Father’s Day with a few pens for Father’s Day

2010-06-20T10:54:00.000-04:00

My friend/neighbor asked me to make some pens for her husband, father and father-in-law. It’s always a huge honor when someone asks me to make a pen for someone else as a gift. It on the other hand makes me very nervous as well because I am usually charging them for the pens, I don’t usually try to make much money off of them because it’s a hobby and I enjoy doing it and I have a hard time charging friends full retail for things like this. I always fret over if the piece(s) are up to standard and up to par and if they will like them all that kind of fun stuff. I am very pleased with the way these pens turned out. They are very beautiful in my mind and it was almost difficult to give them up, but I did and I believe that she was pleased with the end result.

Let me know what you think about them.

The pens are made from Amboyna Burl it’s an exotic wood from several different areas in Asia. In my opinion it is one of the most beautiful woods out there. I would love to some day build a piece of furniture out of it. However it is EXTREMELY expensive and it would cost an arm and a leg to even make a top to a small table but I think it would be worth it.

Now sorry for the plug but if you would like a pen for yourself or as a gift please feel free to contact me and we can discuss the options.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: father's day,gift,pen,pens,amboyna,burl

Jelly Cupboard is Done

2010-06-19T19:42:00.001-04:00

I took the time today and got the jelly cupboard finished. We ended up putting chicken wire on it. I got the handle attached so it can be opened now that the chicken wire is installed. My wife took some time to fill the cupboard with a few things and now she is trying to figure out what color to paint the bathroom.

Everything installed looking good, we are trying out some different ideas for the top.

The wife filling up the cupboard. I’m sure she will find more stuff to fill it with.

Here is what we decided on for now. I am very pleased with the way it turned out.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Jelly Cupboard,milk paint,bathroom

Jelly Cupboard and Guitar update

2010-06-13T21:50:00.001-04:00

Well I finally decided it was time to finish the jelly cupboard. I am almost there. I have the main body painted the door painted and need to get the final pieces of the door cut and will have it all done. We decided at this time we are just going to put chicken wire on the door. I will post pics once that is done. I used milk paint and am pretty pleased with it.

I used white milk paint for the inside and green on the outside. I also stained the top instead of painting

Okay now for the guitar. I have let this thing mess with my head way to much and made a ton of mistakes that I probably wouldn’t have if this had been furniture. I think I will be able to salvage it and make something of a playable guitar out of it. I have learned a ton and it has allowed me to get over my guitar making jitters. I will hopefully get this thing done soon.

But for now here is a picture of it in its current state

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Guitar,Jelly Cupboard

Hooligan Guitar Build

2010-05-21T22:03:00.001-04:00

Okay well I finally had some more time to spend on the guitar this week. I the neck blank glued up. Sadly the wood moved while clamping and I have some changes to make to get everything lined back up. Unfortunately I am at a stopping point until all my hardware comes in and then I get to route the truss rod channel, cut the neck out and start getting the neck pocket routed out. Then it will really start to look like a guitar. I’m super excited like a kid on Christmas only Christmas is like a week away but I know what I am getting and mom and dad told me I can’t have any of it until then.

Oh well. I am pretty surprised at how I am taking messing up on this build. I am somewhat of a perfectionist but my ultimate goal for this build was to have a playable guitar. That’s my main focus. I would love a good finish but that’s secondary. As long as the thing plays and I am having fun that’s what is important.

Here are a couple of pics of the neck build.

Here is the neck glued up.

Here you can see where I goofed up. You can see the angle goes slightly off from side to side.

Fortunately I can fix it. I just need adjust the fret board placement and figure out how to get the nut set in there.

Laying out the centerline and fret board outlines. I need to layout the neck profile on there and then wait for the truss rod so I can get that taken care of.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: guitar,hooligan,eguitarplans.com

Hooligan Guitar Build Day 2

2010-05-12T22:06:00.001-04:00

I was able to take some more time in the shop tonight and get the body cut from the blank.

I did have to spend some time with the hand plane bringing the blank flat. I am super happy with the joint. You can’t really tell where the joint is unless you look REALLY close. I really love my hand planes. It is a great work out. I got everything nice and flat and to the thickness I wanted. I was really worried about the weight when I picked up the blank but as I cut chunks off of it thing began to really lighten up. I think once I take a chunk out for the electronics on the back that will help even more. I’m debating some comfort contours. I’ll have to think about it some more.

Here is the the blank all glued up with the cut out of the guitar from the plans. If I had not mentioned before this guitar design is from Chris over at http://www.eguitarplans.com he has some great plans. I have two of them and will be purchasing several more. He has at least 3 or 4 other guitars that I want to build.

Here is the blank after some progress on the band saw. I took off big chunks around the outside of the guitar body. This made it a little easier to cut in the curves.

Here the blank is at the final rough cut. There are lines that I will sand to on the plan. To do this I am using the spindle sander that my brother got for me. I love that thing. I can’t wait to build more guitars and I haven’t even finished this one.

Here is the body sanded to shape and size. I am extremely happy with the way it is turning out so far. I think it is going to look awesome. I am thinking that it is going to get painted. There are just a few small blemishes that I don’t really want to show through, so now I need to figure out what color I want. Anyone have any ideas?

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Guitar Build,Guitar,Hooligan,eguitarplans.com,woodworking

Woodworking Wednesday’s – Show off your projects

2010-05-12T09:30:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 4th Woodworking Wednesday. It has been a while since I did one of these and thought it was time to do another one and also had a request for it as well so what better time.

I hope you will take the time to add your project to the list.

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Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking Wednesdays,woodworking,projects,diy

Guitar Build: Day 1

2010-05-11T22:17:00.001-04:00

Well I finally broke down and started the guitar build. I took a baby step. I got the body blank glued up. The board was 2” thick and the guitar will end up being 1 3/4” thick, so I spent quite a bit of time planning it down in the power planer.

Here is one side of the the body. It is going to be a 2 piece Mahogany Body. It is great looking wood. I am still not sure if I am going to paint it or do some kind of tint on it. I guess I will see once I get the body cut out and sanded. It has good enough grain that I think it will look good but it might just get painted. Who knows. Some of you might be wondering what the half triangle is. It’s a carry over from building furniture it helps me orient the piece, which in this doesn’t really matter as it’s a two piece glue up and I had pretty much oriented the grain like I wanted it anyway. It’s just habit.

Here is the first pass through the planer. On the side what you can’t see are some markings that show me what direction I wanted the faces to be and what ends I jointed.

Here is the blank all glued up. I will let it dry over the next 24 hours. Once the blank is dry I will hand plane it down to the final thickness. I left it slightly thicker than it needed to be so that I could hand plane it down even as my planer is only a 12” and this blank is 16" wide. Hopefully I did a good job and the seam will not be overly obvious.

I’m glad I finally took the step and started the build. I have a long way to go and a lot to do. Once I have the blank cut out I will start on the neck blank and get that going. I have lots of parts to order over the next little while. I figure it will probably a couple of months to build this. I want to take my time and do this as best I can.

I hope you will follow along as I build my first guitar.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking Wednesdays,Guitar,First Guitar,Electric Guitar

Shop Block so I got a new tool

2010-05-06T22:55:00.001-04:00

So the last couple of days I have had what I consider shop block. My mental state has just not been in the game the last couple of days. I think part of it is that I am scared to start this Guitar Build. It’s all new to me and that scares me. I don’t like the unknown. I seem to go through this each time I undertake a new type of woodworking. I’ll spend the next few days finding excuses not to start the project and then another few days looking into more detail thinking I am prepping my self. I guess this is my process. I know this about myself and I accept it but at the same time this is such a huge project for me I am even more scared at this point. I have high expectations and want to have this turn out well but at the same time I am realistic and know that it will not be the “perfect” guitar. I have to get my mind right. I’m getting close. That’s part of the reason I spent some much time cleaning up the shop and also will continue to clean up. I really want to have things very organized so that I can focus on the guitar and building it. Also when I have shop block I will take on smaller projects to reassure myself that I do have some skills and it helps me realize that what ever that current project and form of woodworking is that I started in the same spot as I am now with guitars and know that I will improve with each one that I build.

Anyway…. Now onto the new tool. I have been turning for a couple years and thought I would eventually upgrade to a larger lathe well that day was today. I found a killer deal on a Harbor Freight Lathe for $85 and couldn’t pass it down. It is lightly used and should be a lot of fun.

Maybe playing with this will help me to get my Shop Block taken care of.

Have you ever experienced shop block. If so let me know how you over came it?

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking

First steps to a healthier shop

2010-05-03T23:48:00.001-04:00

This weekend I took one of the first steps to a healthier shop. I found a shop air purifier on Craigslist for $20. I have been looking at them on and off for a while and they can range from $100 to $300 or more so it’s been one of those things that I put on my get to list. Well for $20 if it works half way decently it’s worth the money. Now I just need to get it mounted to the ceiling so that it can do it’s job. Maybe tomorrow night. Tonight I spent the majority of the evening cleaning the shop and it’s still looks horrible. I am going to spend the next several days trying to get things cleaned up and reorganized. I have really let the shop go over the last month or so and it was getting difficult to walk around and there is no way I could paint the Jelly cupboard with the amount of sawdust that was in there and would be kicking around. I still have a lot of dust to clear out and a bunch of reorganization. I have said on this blog that a clean shop is a safe shop and a safe shop leads to a healthy shop and a healthy woodworker. I finally listened to my own advice again and couldn’t take it any more it was time to clean. So hopefully during this week I can get the shop organized cleared up finish the couple things on the Jelly Cupboard get it in some paint and out of the shop and move on to our WIWW nightstand. I wish I could do this full time and crank out plans and designs and tutorials for you but alas this is a hobby and unfortunately they sometimes have to take a back seat to life. Plus it is REALLY tough to tell Grover Jr. that I am going out to the shop and not let him come out there because I am going to be using the table saw. Tonight was great because he Loves to ~~play~~ use the shop vac. He isn’t playing he is helping Daddy. Actually he really does a good job. He gets a lot of the saw dust where it should be.

Speaking of G.JR. I can’t tell you as a parent how awesome it makes me feel that he has an interest in woodworking. We bought a small little project for he and I to do and he is begging to put it together so we will be working on that this week as well. I love my time with him I only hope that as he grows and becomes a teenager that he will keep the interest in woodworking and it will be something that he and I can share for the rest of our lives.

Okay ladies… I’m calling on you. Once we have this WIWW Nightstand build complete what can I help you learn? Are there other types of woodworking that you are interested in other than building furniture. Turning or Scroll Saw. There are all kinds of things that are out there. In addition to building furniture I also do Pen turning and scroll saw work, both are a ton of fun and require much different skills but both require lots of concentration, both of these allow me to kind of go into my own little woodworking world and relax. They are much more artistic in nature than just building a cabinet or a table, not that you can’t get artistic with a table. Anyway post some comments on things that you want to learn and I will do my best to help you in your journey whether its me showing you or even pointing you to online/offline resources on the particular subject. Okay enough for tonight. I got a little long winded tonight.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: woodworking,safety,shop,family,health

Jelly Cupboard Update 2

2010-05-02T00:29:00.001-04:00

I had a little more time to work on the Jelly Cupboard and was able to get the door hung.

I need to put some cross braces on and get the punch tin done. Throw on some Milk paint and I am done. I am looking forward to completing this. It’s probably one of the more complex projects I have taken on so far. Then we will be on to the WIWW build. Hoping to go get the wood for that tomorrow. Once that’s complete I will be focusing on the guitar build for a little while.

Should be interesting. I am thinking I am going to do a little video of that as well. Who knows, with this being my first one and not being sure of my ability. I honestly feel a little crazy taking on such a project at this point in my woodworking journey, but I have come to the realization lately that there are sometimes you have to stop trying to learn and spend time doing. I also find that in that doing I tend to learn significantly more than I would have just reading about it and really if you don’t start the project you can never know if you can accomplish it and learn and become better. My only worry is that it will play like crap. I care what it looks like but I would rather have a good/great playing guitar out of my first one than one that plays like crap and looks great. If it looks like crap I can fix that. If it plays like crap I can fix that to I will just be a little more disappointed in my abilities.

I guess my take away from this for you is that if you want to do something and supposed “Talent”, “Skill” or worry that you are getting ready to screw up some beautiful Mahogany and Maple are standing in your way. Kick them over, bust up in that joint like you own the place and get to work. A master craftsman didn’t become a master craftsman by sitting and looking at books, videos or the internet all day, he became a master craftsman by doing it. It doesn’t matter if that Craftsman taught himself, went to school or learned it from a friend or family member he/she ultimately had to put tool to wood and make something. So lets get out there and build something.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: woodworking,jelly cupboard,philosophy,guitars

Jelly Cupboard Build Update

2010-04-30T00:26:00.001-04:00

Now that I have had some time in the shop I started working on the Jelly Cupboard Build again. I need to get that out of the shop so I can get reorganized and cleaned up to start the WIWW nightstand/beach house nightstand.

I thought I would post a few pics of that I was able to get done tonight.

This is part of the door frame. It is constructed with a half lap joint. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this joint. There are two ways specifically to accomplish this on a table saw (Well Two ways that I know of I am sure there other ways) one is to use a Dado Set which I have loaned out currently, the second and the way that I accomplished this is to use your regular blade and nibble away that the wood.

Essentially I like to figure out the width of my cut set my fence that width and make my first cut. Now if you do this make sure you use your miter gauge with a sacrificial fence, this does a couple of things. It provides support to the back of the wood as well as giving you some additional support on the board you are cutting. I make my first cut with the wood against the fence just touching not real tight on the fence you don’t want to cause a bind or have it kick on you. Now with the first cut made I move the board just a hair to the left to let the blade nibble away at the next piece and then rinse and repeat until I get to the last cut. You will need to do some clean up.

If you look at the board you probably missed some pieces if they are large pieces you can line them up with the blade and cut them out. If they are just fragments of wood hanging there your best bet is a piece of sand paper a 1/4 sheet sander or even a block plane. I opted for the block plane because I have geeked out on using hand tools as much as I can lately. I guess you could use a chisel as well.

Once you have nibbled away at both the boards you will have a joint that looks similar to the one seen here. Now you can see why it’s called a half lap joint. This is a pretty neat Joint and I can see using this in future projects.

As you can see in the previous picture I also drilled a couple of holes for dowels. They are supposed to help reinforce the joint. With modern glue I don’t really think there is a need for reinforcement however from a cosmetic aspect they fit well with this piece.

Here is a quick shot of the body of the cupboard. I had some time to paint part of the inside. I need to finish that up. Obviously the inside will be white and the outside is going to be a grayish/green color. Should be interesting. I am doing it all with milk paint. I will do a post on that at some point as it is somewhat different than regular paint.

At this point I need to finish up the door frame and cut the hinge mortise and get everything mounted. Mrs. Grover will be doing the punched tin for the door. I’m hoping i can get her setup this weekend and get that knocked out.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: woodworking,hand tools,jelly cupboard,half lap joint,table saw,block plane

Miter Saw Tuning

2010-04-28T23:34:00.001-04:00

Drum roll please…………

I did it. It’s done all the pictures are done for the Miter Saw tuning post. I can’t believe it.

Okay So here we go.

First and foremost when you start this process :

PLEASE READ, FOLLOW, AND UNDERSTAND THE USE AND SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR SAW AND ALWAYS WEAR YOUR SAFETY GLASSES AND I RECOMMEND HEARING PROTECTION.

MAKE SURE THAT YOUR SAW IS UNPLUGGED DURING THE FIRST SEVERAL PARTS OF THIS TUTORIAL.

Okay now that I have that out of the way. Seriously please take care of yourself and watch what you are doing.

Squaring the Blade to the Fence:

You will need a speed square or some kind of accurate square that you can check 90° and 45°.

Make sure your saw is set and locked at the 0° take your square and lay it on the table to check for 90° make sure the it is flush against the fence. You are looking to make sure there is no gap between the square and the blade. Make sure that you don’t put to much pressure on the blade as it can cause it to deflect.

Now once you feel that the blade is square find a piece of scrap wood and and make a cut with the widest side laying flat on the table.

Part of the reason I included a video here was to show some safety precautions. When you are making your cut you want to start the saw close to the the material make a slow and steady cut through the wood. Once you have made the cut leave the blade in the down position and let the blade come to a complete stop. This does a couple of things. It reduces the risk of you sticking your hand in there and trying to grab the wood. It also keeps you from possibly causing the blade to catch the wood and at best chipping at worst possibly throwing the piece at you or across the shop. You will also notice that I keep my hand on the piece through the entire cut, I also as the blade is slowing slide the “non waste” side away from the blade. I don’t know if this is good or not it’s just something that I gave gotten in the habit of doing. In my mind it helps keep the blade from catching the piece as well.

Now once you have made your cut get your straight edge out and align the two pieces against the straight edge.

You will notice that I have labeled one part with a T(top) this is just for orientation. Now take the one piece and flip it over 180° on its top.

Now you want to check for any kind of gap between the two pieces.

Fortunately for me I don’t have any gaps in my pieces so I don’t need to adjust the saw. For this cut. If you do need to adjust this please refer to the manual for your saw. Typically there are bolts that will allow you to adjust where the saw stops.

Checking the 45° Miter Setting:

Just as we did with the 0° setting take your square and set it to check for 45°. Again make sure not to press to hard against the blade and keep the square flush to the fence.

Take a try square or a combination square and check the miter for square also check to see there there are no gaps in the miter itself. We are looking good here no adjustments needed. If you need to make adjustments refer to the manual for your particular saw for adjustment details.

Checking Bevel

Like checking for square set the saw to 0° and make sure you are still square. Now take another piece of scrap and place it on edge and make your cut. Once again take those pieces and align them against a straight edge and the flip one piece like you did before and check for a gap.

Hey guess what. I have a gap. I will be spending a little time adjusting this. Again if you have a gap here refer to your manual to on resolving this issue. Now I need to go find my manual.

You will want to perform a similar cut when you put the blade on a 45° Bevel.

Take your piece on edge and cut a 45° in this piece and another and set up the miter similar to what we did here:

Again make sure to check for square and gaps and refer to your manual.

Sorry to keep telling you refer to your manual but each saw is just enough different that it is important to refer to yours so you can adjust your saw accurately.

I hope this helps you in setting up your saw and providing a little bit of safety and usage guidance. Please feel free to ask me any questions or if you would like to see any other photos please feel free to let me know.

After making the adjustment needed you should have a very accurate saw that will allow you to make nice square cuts and will allow you make the nightstand with ease.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking,miter saw,tuning,tutorial

What am I doing?

2010-04-28T00:24:00.001-04:00

I am currently reading Make Your Own Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock. I am prepping myself as best I can for my first guitar build. This is hopefully the start of a Career. I’m hoping that over the next 10 years I can develop my skill at building guitars and make a Full Time career of it. It’s a tough business to get into especially competing with the Big dogs out there but I still believe there is a good market for Custom Built and Hand Built Guitars both Acoustic and electric. Like most things I have decided to just teach myself at least in the beginning. I’m sure I will take some classes down the road but for now it’s full steam ahead.

Tomorrow night I plan to go into the shop and finally knock out the post on Tuning a Miter Saw. I hope to have that up tomorrow night or Thursday. Once that post is done I will start on the WIWW Nightstand build and start the post with that. I want to break up each section into it’s own post so you have a step by step guide to building the nightstand. Sorry it has been taking so long on this. I know I got everyone all excited with the Series. I had some really great responses. April is about over and all of my commitments are mostly taken care of so I can spend some time focusing on the series and getting it done right for you.

On a side note…. In a jonesing for something woodworking I tackled a new type of woodworking tonight. Well not so much new as it was adapting some current skills into producing something else. I am excited about it and will post about that as well in the future but for now it is going to be a closely held secret. I think you will find it interesting as well. Tonight was mostly prototyping and figuring out how I wanted to do things. I still have a lot of figuring out to do on the project but think I am well on my way.

I also got to spend sometime in the shop with Grover Jr. tonight. We had a Parent/Child Project that we completed tonight from Home Depot. It was a little shelf kit with the number 20 Home Depot Car. Pretty neat. If you want to spend some quality time with you son or daughter I highly HIGHLY recommend the Lowes Build And Grow Program. I took Grover Jr. to one a few weeks back and we built a Kaleidoscope. There was just something very cool about spending sometime with him just the two of us sharing something that I love with him and seeing him enjoy it.

Here are some pictures after a successful morning of building.

He is a trip. We never could get him to stop making faces. I really totally so don’t know where he gets it from.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking,WIWW,Women In Woodworking,Guitars

I’m in Love

2010-04-22T22:06:00.001-04:00

Yes I am in love with my wife and have been for a long time. Well before we were married and well before we even started dating but that’s a whole different story for a different blog. What I am in love with is a tool. An “antique” tool at that. A few weeks ago I bought a couple of Hand Planes because I wanted to learn how to use them. I am in this whole I want to learn to use hand tools kick. I am teaching my self to hand cut dovetails. That is tough. It’s going to be a while and I know I am going to have to upgrade saws. I bought a cheap one and there is a reason that it is cheap, but enough about that. This is what I have fallen in love with

I have not had much of a chance to really research this particular hand plane. It has a Stanley blade but I am not sure if that makes it a Stanley or not. I will be scouring the internets for more information on this tool. I actually bought this one and a smaller one. I need to figure out what they are. I will say that I read enough to figure out how to set the blade and went at the top of my jelly cupboard. There was a little bit of a lip on the seam of the two boards and I was going to run it through the power planer but this hand plane was just calling out to me Use me Grover, use me. Who am I to deny the will of the tool. It knows best. Well, after some playing and really hoping I didn’t screw my top up I had the seam on both sides leveled and the top looking awesome.

It was amazing and a very beautiful thing to see those ribbons of wood just coming off the top. It was almost magically and man did I work up a sweat. I had like a whole Roy Underhill moment only he uses even older tools.

I honestly never thought that I would be so infatuated with a hand tool but it was amazing. I wanted to keep going and keep working the top but I didn’t want to take it down to far.

I know I have a long way before I become proficient with the tool and have to figure out the sharpening of the blade and what exactly all of it does and the in’s and outs of using hand planes. It’s exciting and best of all I only spent $25 on the pair of them. I will get some shots of the smaller plane.

Let me know about your experiences with hand tools, I’ve been a power tool guy and this is a new journey in woodworking for me. Hopefully we can learn something together.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Hand tools,Hand Plane,Jelly Cupboard

WIWW Nightstand: I Promise it is coming

2010-04-18T21:01:00.001-04:00

I’m sorry it is taking me so long to get the WIWW Nightstand Project started. I have been sick and have had a sick family the last week so it has but a major halt to the blog this week. I have also been wrapped up in a commission for four pens that I have mentioned before. The deadline snuck up on me and I need to get them done in the next couple of days so I have time to source additional material if needed. I have a wedding to attend this weekend so I will not get any shop time in this weekend. :( The wedding will be fun and we are looking forward to it. It’s in Asheville, NC and there is a great woodworking store there that I have been wanting to check out. Anyway. If I can manage it I will try and get all the lumber for the nightstand and see if we can get the ball rolling, before that I want to do a quick Miter saw tuning blog to make sure we have the saw as square as possible. Thinking about it now it might be next week before we get the nightstand started so I can devote some time to showing you how to tune your miter saw. April has been a hectic month and I haven’t done nearly as much as I would like. I’m sure you all can understand how life can get in the way sometimes.

I just wanted to reach out to everyone and let them know I am still around and haven’t forgotten about you. Those of you that don’t follow us on Facebook I had asked if anyone wanted to see how I make pens and I had several people ask to see so I will also be doing a Video, I know scary, of the process I follow to make a handmade pen.

Speaking of videos. Would you want to see other videos of different projects/techniques/etc?

Have a Great Day!

Added Simple Forum

2010-04-17T00:08:00.001-04:00

I have added a simple Forum Feature to the blog. I have added a couple of categories. I’m just trying this out. If it takes off great if it dies so be it. It’s really hopefully a place for you to talk to each other and ask questions and ask me questions.

To access the forum just click Forum at the top of the page in the navigation menu.

Please keep all discussions civil and please no profanity and flaming of other people. My Parents read this blog. :)

Lets keep all discussions to the topic of the forum.

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking,Forum

We Have a Winner!!!!

2010-04-14T22:51:00.001-04:00

Jen from Minneapolis is our winner, Congratulations Jen. Jen became a follower on Twitter.

Thank you everyone for entering and don’t worry I plan on doing another give-a-way down the road.

Now that the give-a-way is over we can get moving on the WIWW Nightstand build.

Thanks again……

Have a Great Day!

Woodworking Wednesdays #3

2010-04-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the third installation of Woodworking Wednesdays. Last week was kind of light. I’m wondering if this should be a monthly post as opposed to weekly. What are your thoughts?

** The Drawing for the Kreg Jig will be done tonight. I will reach out to the winner and as soon as I hear from them I will announce the winner. Thank you all for joining the site and I look forward to working with you through your woodworking journey.

This weeks link party will last from Wednesday 4/14 – 4/18 11:59pm.

David's Air compressor Stand

Heather’s Kitchen Table from Week 1

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: Woodworking Wednesdays,Woodworking