The Sawdust Surfer

15 minute bench

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 15:09:00 +0000

This is my 15 minute garden bench.

Last weekend I built a compost and some planter boxes.

After a while I needed a break, I didn´t have anywhere to sit and leftovers from the compost was lying around on the ground.

Since I am a lazy guy, I used the leftovers to make a bench. The result was a very simple bench , not so stylish, but… you can sit on it and it is actually very sturdy.

I call it “15 minute bench” because it is perfect for a 15 minute coffee and snuff break, and it only takes about 15 minutes to build!? …... almost anyway ;) .

I didn´t really knew how the finished bench would look like when i started…. I improvosed…..
Sometimes when i improvise, the result doesn´t meet my or my wifes expectations, but in this case it did ! :)

THE SHOP 1.0

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 15:51:00 +0000

Workshop 1.0
The first tour

Hi again, its been a while!
It´s over a year ago i posted something on the blog. Maybe some of you thought I got tired of woodworking? or blogging? - well no!

I could start by telling you what has happend the last 18 months, the reasons of my abscence , but I really want to tell you about my woodshop. - So , I will only give you the short version.

I started a new job and it was so much to do it was crazy. Unfortunately I pressed myself to the limit and far beyond that.... It was not a pleasent experience..... I left the job. It took me quite a while to straighten up and get the stress out of my system. Now I´m "fit for fight" again :) , ....enough said about that...It was not only bad things that happened last year, my wife and I also moved to a larger appartment just by the sea, something we should have done years ago. It certainly raised the quality of our lives.

Now I want to tell you about my "new" workshop.
First, a small summery.
When I started building the shop it looked like this. I will not go in to details about how I got it and where it is located (you can read about it in former posts in this subject)

It was just a small basement, but I saw the potential and made a planning sketch in sketchup.

When i made the plans, I made it from the needs I experienced when I put up my workshop at our summer house. It didnt take me long to realize that it was the wrong approach.

The noise.
On the countryside it´s just to put some ear protection on if you have a noisy machine . You don´t have to consider the neighbours. In my shop, the walls were very thin and hollow. The noise from my machines went out in the stairwell and disturbed the other tenants. I had to soundproof the walls. I built a new wall on the inside of the old. I reinforced the wall by atleast 10 inches (25cm). That took both time and space and a small shop just got smaller.

Tools and storage for a small workshop
In the countryside I can store wood and larger pieces outside or in another building. In this case, everything had to be stored inside the shop due to the fact that we moved (my shop is in the building next to our former appartment). I couldn´t use the storageroom who tenants in the building could use. I had to rethink the choice of machines and storage solutions.

I found it challenging to find small machines and powertools with quality. In some cases I modified some of my old tools (e.g the lathe) to fit the new shop. Another solution was to put everything on wheels.

After a several months the first version of the shop was ready, "The shop 1.0" . I almost succeed in follow my sketchup plans. The Shop is, of course, under constant development and it will never be completely finished. There is a lot of things left to do.

Anyway, below you can take i quick tour in my shop "as is" september 2013.

Left side and front

Above: Pictures of the left side of the shop. A long bench from wall to wall where i have my small lathe, small drillpress and my grinder. the dark frame is a french cleat system that runs all around the shop

My old workbench is under the windows. The old bench needs a big facelift, a coming project, for sure. On the bench you can see a toolchest i was working on at the time.

The french cleat system is perfect, I decided to upgrade with two more frames.

Right side of the shop

At the left i have my woodstorage, the bandsaw, my planer/jointer and some books.

My bandsaw and planer/jointer are mounted together on a reinforced old TV stand. (on wheels of course - everything except my workbenches got wheels) Someday I will make a custom stand for this workstation.

Next to the bandsaw I have my next workstation, my belt/disk sander. The corner was the only spot I found for my dustcollecter.

On the wall behind the sander I have my clamp storage and a shelf for my handplanes.

Next to the dustcollector my routertable got its place. I am planning to make another table who fits my needs a bit better, this is too big fo my shop. Above the routertable i have my wall hanging tool cabinet.

In the next corner i have my lathe tools, a simple rack made of ply and pine. Above the lathe you can see the cabinet i was working on in an earlier picture.

Ok, thats it for the time. I will continue this shop tour with more pictures soon.

Thanks for watching.

Potting Bench

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 23:56:00 +0000

Summer!

I love working outdoors. If the weather was better in Sweden, I would probably just have a shed with a roof without walls as a workshop. Here is my first outdoor project for this year.

A Potting Bench.

My wife wanted a sturdy bench that could handle very heavy use.
she wanted it big with many practical features.

Box for garden soil
Removable grid (so the old soil can fall through into a bucket or a wheelbarrow)
Strong hooks to hang heavy stuff in.
Suspension device for the garden hose.
etc..

I asked her to look in some of my books on outdoor woodworking , to see if she could find something inspiring.

She didn't find the bench she was looking for, closest to her demands was Alan and Gill Bridgewaters potting table in the book "outdoor Woodworking "

Inspired by the table in the book i made my own version/design, bigger ,sturdier and with more features.

Hopefully this bench will last for many years :)

The completed bench in its place in the garden

I made it in slow growing pine

Legs are 3"by 4"´s

The frame is 2"by 5"´s

Bench top and shelves are 1"by 4"´s

the Hooks are 1 1/4" dowels

The top shelve with hooks underneath

I made a simple knob at the top with a handsaw and a rasp

I drilled holes and used 1 1/4" dowels as hooks. I sawed some curves under the top shelves and on the consoles, to give the bench a personal "look"

On the left side of the bench I made a suspension device for the garden hose and a removable grid

I used three dowels and a plate of 1" pine to make the suspension device for the garden hose. I drilled holes for the dowels in the bench and screwed the plate on to them

A removable grid so the old soil can fall through. You can easily put a bucket or a wheelbarrow under the grid to collect the used soil.

Strong hooks to hang heavy stuff in

at the other side I made a box for soil

I put hinges at the bottom of box to "open" the bottom and thereby easily remove dirt and help cleaning

Two hooks to hang stuff in and a lock for the bottom of the box

Below you can find more pictures of the Potting Bench

#2 Planning my new workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 May 2012 07:49:00 +0000

Hi All

I have not had the opportunity to move into my new workshop yet. One of the walls had big gaps between floor and wall, and my landlord is currently building a new wall for me. In the meantime I made a drawing in sketchup to make sure that everything fits.

4X4 meter is small for a workshop which makes it important to have good planning. I started making a drawing with Grizzlys shop planner, but realized that if you really want to get a vision of how the workshop will look like, then SketchUp is unbeatable.

Here are some pictures of my SketchUp drawings

To the left, I will build a long table that covers the entire wall. On it, I’ll have my benchtop machines, drillpress, lathe , beltsander, etc.. The machines who are not that heavy and as I do not use as often, such as the grinder and the scrollsaw, I will be able to put away on shelves and in drawers to get more space when needed.

To the right I’ll have wall-mounted shelves for various things (you can never have too many shelves) under the shelves, I will have my larger machines such as my shopvac, router table and my jointer / planer.
in the middle next to the windows, I will build a workbench

Nearest the door, I will have a lumberrack.and of course, the tablesaw in the middle of workshop

if you want to take a closer look you can find my SketchUp model in SketchUps 3d Warehouse: search for 13X13 Woodworking Shop, or you can follow this link >>

thanks for reading

Happy thoughts /Henrik

# 1 , The New Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:27:00 +0000

Hi All
As you have noticed I have been away from my blog a few weeks , almost 2 months actually :(
the reason ? - ... i lost my workshop!

Is it possible to lose an entire workshop? -yes it is.

ok i will tell the story!
As you all know by now i have a house in the countryside where i spend most of my weekends and holidays. I do have a workshop there but there is not much time to do real woodworking. There is always something to fix and repair and with a big garden, well… time just flies away.

So i needed a space here in stockholm where i can escape the stress and the world outside for a while and do some woodworking. And I found it , 6 months ago i found a perfect little room in our building, in the basement next to the laundryroom. But .. (there is always a but) it was not for longtime hire, i could use it, and I did, but with a noticeperiod of a few weeks the superintendent could ask me to leave at anytime. I hoped to have the room at least 1 year, sadly that was not the case, a few months ago they wanted the key back. I wasn´t even able to finish my wall hanging tool cabinet before i had to empty the small shop.

Yesterday was yesterday, today i am a happy guy full of excitment.

I got a new shop!

yes !
Our appartment is in the central part of Stockholm, not in the absolut central part, but central enough to have problems finding a place for me to do some woodworking. I wanted something permanent, i wanted my very own woodshop . After advertising online and calling every landlord in the neighbourhood i almost gave up. nothing was avalible at a reasonable price.

Last week I received a call, a small basement had become vacant in the building next to our
The price was fair- I took it

its not that big , actually it´s very small, but it is MY NEW WORKSHOP ! :)
4X4 meters 2 windows and just 50 meters away, it could not be better!

This is me standing in my new empty shop, it will soon be filled with toys uuhhm ... i mean tools :)

ok it looks a bit rough but it got the potential to become a wonderful creative shop.

As you can see i have a lot to do , i have to build workbenches, shelves and toolstands ,I´ll have a very busy summer and fall :)

happy thoughts

/ Henrik

Wall Hanging tool Cabinet Part 3: The doors

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:22:00 +0000

I finally got the time to work with the doors to my cabinet.

My first idea was to make panel doors but I do want the surface on the inside of the doors to be as clean as possible, without joints. i also want to use the full thickness of the plywood, 18 mm, to be able to hang tools on the inside.

I decided to make a compromise, the look of panel doors on the outside and the sturdiness of using a clean plywood surface on the inside.

I made the frame in 15mm pine and joined them with a half in half joint.

i attached the frame to the plywood with glue and dowels (sorry no pictures of that)

now i need to buy some hinges and decide what kind of finish i will use.

to be continued ...

Wall Hanging tool Cabinet Part 2: Building the cabinet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:38:00 +0000

--
As you can see below, I've been inspired a lot by the tool chest "the woodwhisperer" did last summer .
Although i have Simplified it a bit.
I hope he doesn't mind that.
I will, as he did, use mortise and tenons for the joinery.
--
Plywood is sold in sizes 1200x2400. To see that everything fits on one sheet of plywood, I drew all the parts (Roughly) on paper. I do not want too much waste.

I cut all the pieces and laminated the bottom pieces to double the thickness, I did the same with the top.

I also mitered the edges to make it more practical and esthetic.

Then I routed mortises (my router table came in handy and the work went much faster thanks to the router table) in the bottompiece, in the backpiece and on the toppiece.

I also made tenons in the panels.

I put it all together to see that everything was ok , No Glue!

OK everything did fit and seems to work fine

Now i will start with the doors
to be continued ...

Wall Hanging tool Cabinet part 1: Design

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:52:00 +0000

Spring, at last! This year's winter was perhaps not the coldest or the most snowy, but it's still just as great when spring arrives.

For me it's also about moving my projects and tools to my "Summer" workshop.
As some of you know, i have two different workshops.In the winter I have my shop in a tiny basement here in my building in the city, and in the summer i move my shop into the countryside to our countryplace. In my Summer shop I have much more space and therfore much bigger machines :) .

Move to a different workshop every six months requires a lot of planning. Earlier this year I made some simple tool boxes which will facilitate the move. Now I intend to make a cabinet for my handtools, well maybe not all the handtools but for the most important. The idea is to make a cabinet that can hang on the wall and you easily can lift down to the trunk of a car or a van and drive to the country and easily put up on the wall at the "summer"shop.

I have searched the internet for inspiration and found that Marc Spagnuolo aka "The woodwhisperer" made a wall hanging toolcabinet which looked sturdy and easy to make. I will make my own interpretation of his design.

I will make it out of 18mm plywood and the dimensions will be 1100 mm*600mm *250mm. It will hang by wall by a "french cleat".

i´ll keep you updated

Another "Great project on the net"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:55:00 +0000

Matthias Wandel, woodgears.ca or http://www.youtube.com/user/Matthiaswandel?ob=0
is a wonderful woodworker, I love his videos.

He gives an engineer's approach to woodworking. He builds everything
from useless machines entirely built of wood too very useful jigs and
tools that you never thought was possible to build in wood. Fantastic!

Do you want to build your own bandsaw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbOlG7THecM or maybe a jointer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdgg_M07VhI or other woodworking machines? Then this is the site to visit woodgears.ca.

Here is my wife's favorite, which she tries to persuade me to make:) and maybe someday i will build it

Enjoy

Easy made toolboxes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Hi a few weeks ago i bought an angle grinder. The price was right and i couldn't resist.

Don't take me wrong i really needed a new small angle grinder. And there it was, a small Makita, perfect for my needs. ok i know i buy tools in the same way women buy shoes.(or in my wifes case , jackets and coats) but i really needed one and the price was right.

But you always get what you pay for, in this case the angle grinder in it self was a bargain but i didnt get a box with it.

i really need boxes for my tools. My shop is very small and i want to be able to move my tools around to use them in different places.

So i decided to make a toolbox for the angle grinder and for my "new"power drill who also was delivered without box.

I had some scrap pieces of construction plywood i used for the sides and the for the top and bottom i used old bookshelves in pine.

i really like projects when i can go down to the shop and use what i already have without going to the store and buy "the optimal" wood for "the perfect" solution.

In this case, the result from ...

1 plywood board (construction plywood ), 600*1000*12 mm

2 pine boards appr. 200*1200*15 mm

1 sleeping pad

some valnut stain and lacquer

4 hinges

and 3 (maybe 4) hours of work

...was 2 useful boxes that hopefully will last many years!

Unfortunately i didnt take any pictures during the process but they are made really simple.

Plywood sides (mitre joints with splines)

Top and bottom in pine (2 pine boards glued together to get the right width)

The inside was made of plywood and an old sleeping pad.

I stained the sides. And covered the top/bottom with lacquer.

The inside of the boxes...

...made from Plywood and a sleeping pad .

i made a removeable rack for the discs

A perfect fit for my power drill

Wooden Hand plane

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:50:00 +0000

This winter has not been a real winter in Stockholm. The temperature has hovered around 0 °C, unlike last year when the temeperaturen was -20 °C .

Ok I am not complaining about the temperature but I really miss the snow. Whats the meaning of living in Sweden if you don't have snow?

But Yesterday the snow finally came, great!
It is great to go down to the workshop and knock some wood when you can see the snowflakes outside.

I had just finished building a pastryboard to my wife. and had nothing to do. I looked around the shop to see if there was something i could build.

A few months ago i bought some pieces of oak to my kitchen project but i saved one of the pieces for special occations/projects. The grain was tighter and the weight was heavier than the other pieces. I saved it, wanted to make something nice and useful of it.

I decided to make a hand plane, Krenov style. I realize that oak is not the optimal wood for making hand planes but i thought that this piece of oak probably would make a fine plane - and it worked just fine

Unfortunatly i don't have any pictures of the building process but there are a lot of sites out there who can show how its done. for example "build a wooden hand plane"

Now i need to buy my self a really good plane iron, the one i used so far i borrowed from an old Stanley plane.

This project was really fun, it didn't take long, wasn't too difficult and its useful.

and PS the plane works like a dream!

A 5-Board Bench by Charles Neil

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:04:00 +0000

Its hard to find a better craftsman in woodworking than Charles Neil, I've seen a lot of his videos and i really must say that this guy really knows what he is doing, and the things he do .... it s amazing. Many of his projects are too time-consuming and advanced for me. That is why i was so glad when i found this video.

A 5-board bench, a very very simple project but it has learned me a lot. especially how to make a good looking "rustic" finish.

Watch the video on Youtube or see below

Building a Router Table 4: Paint and Assembly

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:24:00 +0000

i will just send you an update on the "Building a Router Table" project. This is what it looks like for the moment.

I have painted it and has given it 3-4 coats of varnish. Below you can see what i have done sense last time.

I have mounted the Router to the insert plate. The insert plate is made by plexiglass.

Here are some pictures of the table and what i have done so far.

So left do is
1, I need a door to the cabinet. I don't know if i am going to use the old kitchen cabinetdoor or if i will make a new door out of MDF.
2, i want the dust collection box to be removable. i haven't found any good solutions of that.

Router Table 3: Building the fence

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:25:00 +0000

OK, the base of my router table is almost done.
Time to start the next part, the fence.

I looked around on Youtube and other websites and found some variations that seemed to suit me.

The fence i am building has three essential parts, the base, the fence and a frontpiece (actually 2 frontpieces)

The base and the fence are made of 1inch MDF
I began by gluing together the base to the fence exactly 90 ° to each other. Two smaller pieces acted as support

I want my fence to me movable, therefor I routed two tracks in the base. The whole fence will then be able to slide forward and back.

To make the frontpieces move from side to side i made two tracks in the fence

I made one long track to attach a fetherboard or a stop block

a little box for the dust collection

I made two frontpieces in laminated oak

To attach the frontpiece to the fence i countersunk a bolt in the frontpiece that fits the track on the fence. as you can see i also made a track at the top of frontpiece that fitted the long track in the fence

Now the frontpiece can be moved side to side

The frontpiece is attached with a bolt and awooden knob at the back of the fence

In the track at the top of the frontpiece you can now attach a fetherboard or a stopblock

FOLLOW MY BUILD, PART FOUR, Paint and Assembly

Kindle/Ipad stand from Steve Ramsey (woodworking for mere mortals)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:34:00 +0000

One of my favorite woodworking sites is Woodworking for mere mortals made by Steve Ramsey. He has done a lot of crazy and useful projects.

What I really like about "woodworking for Mere Mortals" is that Steve shows that woodworking is not about the coolest tools or the coolest woods, it's about having fun in the workshop

His projects are usually not that big and time-consuming and can usually be done as a weekend project. The latest project from Steve is one of his best Kindle / IPad case and stand. This little box is ingenious in its design. I just have to do this project and it has definitely given me a great reason to buy me an iPad.

If you havent visited his website please do!

/Enjoy

Router Table 2: Building Base and top

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:29:00 +0000

As i said earlier i wanted to make a router table to my 30 -year old Ryobi router. When i looked around the internet for models to be inspired from, i saw this model.

It looked really nice. A sturdy piece with room for storage. I always need storage! Inspired by this red router table i started to see what i had in the shop to build from. I realized that my old kitchen cabinets from IKEA (leftovers from my kitchen rebuild) was perfect for this project.

One of the most important things i need for all my workbenches and toolcabinets are that i want them to have wheels. My shop is very small, appr. 12 kvm so i have to be able to put them away when i am not using them. So i started with an old kitchen cabinet and made a frame at the bottom ( made by simple 2"*4") to make it sturdier and something to attach the wheels to.

Then i made a hole at the top that fits my router

I glued and screwed a shelve in the middle to reinforce the cabinet and to make it more sturdy

base finished !

I laminated 2 pieces of 3/4 inch MDF for the top-piece and made a hole in it for the router

Then I glued another piece of MDF (1/4 inch) on the very top and made room for the insert plate

The top-piece glued and screwed to the base.

I put some stretchers at the back and some 90° Iron at the sides to keep the MDF from Sagging.
I didnt have any good pictures on that :(

Table is ready

Just needs some paint....
well.. actually it needs a bit more
1, A door
2, A fence
3, and of course a router

FOLLOW MY BUILD: Part Three, Building the fence

Router table 1: Design

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:22:00 +0000

i´ve been Inspired by some videos on youtube and decided to make a routertable to the old router.

First i have to decide what kind of model i will build
below you can see some of the models i thought was interesting as rolemodels for my own build

Small, handy, easy to put away, thats good for me when my workshop is small

Looks sturdy and have a big box you can put your routerstuff in

Big, a lot of room for storage and can be used as workbench

Also very big, hmm maybe too big but you can sure store a lot of stuff in it!

Big and neat on the same time. But will it work with wheels ?

Simple, nice looking!!

Routertable combined with a workbench. i like that idea.

FOLLOW MY BUILD, PART TWO: "Building Base and top"

A Router table to the old Router

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:37:00 +0000

My father was as i an amateur woodworker, he made some really nice looking furniture mostly in birch but also some sideboards and kitchen furniture in pine. After an unfortunate accident he lost his fingertips in the planer and sadly also his interest for woodworking.

Therefore, I have inherited some fine old tools. Some of my absolute most widely used tools comes from him. Many of the older machines are heavier and perhaps a bit more cumbersome to use than modern tools but I like the feeling of them.

A real favorite is the old DeWalt saw

i use it almost all the time!

Other tools i like to use is my fathers old handplanes (i think he inherited them from my grandfather)

i don't use them as much as i want to, mostly because I have not done any projects in which they will benefit. but hopefully and maybe maybe i will build my self a small boat next winter!?

This summer i found an old forgotten Ryobi router at the back of the workshop. It looked like it never had been used, almost mint condition, very cool!. i think it was one of the last tools my father bought before his little accident. I guess it is 25 years old.

And it works like a dream!

What to do with the old router? well, first of all i want to make a routertable for it.

The routertable will be my next project and my first to show on this site.