Woodworking Blogs at LumberJocks.com

Norms Router Station In Progress

Brad — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:29:22 GMT

So I’m building Norms Router Station…

Almost don’t just need to complete the top and the dust collection on the back side.

Things I Learned Today in the Shop #1: Today I Learned Three Things

thiel — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:23:54 GMT

Today I learned:

—It’s really hard to blow sawdust out of the way when you’re wearing a respirator.

—Yes, Virginia, I can resaw with my tablesaw

—When you buy fancy wood, it’s important to remember what it’s called, or else all the other Lumberjocks will make fun of you when don’t know what it is!

—Thiel

Router Station Top Question

Brad — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:13:49 GMT

So I’ve been building Norms Deluxe Router Station and would like some feedback from some folks who’ve been there with this plan.

At the moment a phenolic top is WAY outta my wallets reach but I’m wondering if the MDF design norm has works well and for how long? Does it sag after awhile and how much? I’m not mounting a 3 1/4 HP router just my PC690.

Anybody had success with the top Norms designed out???

Thanks!

- Brad

Simple clamp rack

Craftsman on the lake — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:43:45 GMT

This is nothing spectacular. I was tired of walking across the room to my wall rack for clamps. I don’t have enough room for a mobile clamp rack. One day I saw a dozen clamps on the shelf beneath my bench after I had removed them from a glue job. I though, why not keep an assortment of clamps here at the bench and let the others stay on the wall. Most of the time I only need a few clamps at a time anyway. The result was a simple square shaft from one end of the bench to the other as a test to see if I wanted to spend the time making a permanent fix. I love it. It doesn’t interfere with any of the bench functionality. So, I guess I might invest in a more permanent solution to this idea. Maybe a pipe or wood but better braced to take the weight.

Not rocket science but it must be at least model rocket science because I didn’t think of it the first time!

Thanks for lookin’
Daniel.

Upper Deck #4: Uprising

Zuki — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:22:37 GMT

I never did anything with the deck yesterday as I had some errands I had to run. This morning I started about 8:00 making sure that I had everything in place to rise the deck.

Up inside the door I have a 4×4 36” long that is resting on either side of the door frame. It is kept 3’ off the floor with a strapping legs. I will use this 4×4 as a place to tie off the deck as I tip it up. You can see the heavy duty tie down straps that I will be using to pull the deck into position. Also note the vertical 2×8s screwed to the deck.

I am using my car jack to raise the deck 6” and then I relocate the 2×8s by dropping them 6”. I then release the jack, build up the base under the jack and raise the deck another 6”. I did this several times until the deck was about 3’ off the ground.

Here are a couple of lifting progress pics.

When I had it 3” off the ground I went upstairs and pulled of the straps. No go. Hmmmmmm. DW then came outside and said “why don’t you use the come-along”. Doh . . . why didn’t I think of that. In the picture below you can see the red strap connecting the steel cable of the come-along. I have removed the vertical 2×8s.

Here I am ratcheting the come-along and rising the deck. The cable is about as far as I can pull it in at this point in time.

The bolts are sliding into the mortises.

Here I am bracing the deck as I have to release the come-along and shorten the strap.

Another view of bracing the deck.

Here I have shortened the strap and reattached the come-along. You can see where the red strap attached to the steel cable.

After a little more ratcheting the deck falls into place. Here I am screwing in a lag.

Putting washers and nuts on the bolts that came through the mortises.

Looking up through.

I reworked some of the bracing and started working on the stringers. Tomorrow I will have to add the back deck posts and start the decking.

Step-back Cupboard Build #16: Making the door

rwyoung — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:36:58 GMT

I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the process of assembling the door. It is really just the repetition of the same sort of panel glue-up steps and router work illustrated before. A good video podcast of frame and panel door making can be found at www.woodworkingonline.com

1) Compute final panel size based on door. I know that my rail and stile set creates a 3/8” deep panel groove.
Width:
2 x StileWidth + RailWidth@Shoulder + 3/4” = 13-7/8”
Height:
StileLength – 2 x RailWidth + 3/4” = 26-3/4”

2) Allow for panel expansion because it is a solid wood panel. Most of the movement will be in the width so allow 1/8” to have a finished panel width of 13-3/4”. In length, only about 1/16” is necessary so the length will be 26-11/16”

3) Cut stock, mill to 1/2” thick and glue up for the panel, over sized in length and width of course. Note this is 1/2” thick while the door frame is 3/4”. So the panel will be more or less flush on the front but recessed about 1/8” on the back side. I’m using 1/2” because I wanted to minimize the door’s weight. Using 5/8” I could have the front and back flush but I’m too big to fit inside the cupboard and see the back of the door so…

4) Cut out panel blank.

5) Setup up router with panel raising bit. This is a bevel profile.

6) Cut a test piece. Also seen in this test piece is an experiment at cutting a back rabbet so that the panel will can seat all the way into the groove. In this test piece, the rabbet is about 2/3 too deep. The finished panel has just a whisper of a rabbet cut in the back.

If you use a cutter like the one I show above that does not have a second part to make the back rabbet, it is a simple matter to use a dado bit or even the stack-dado cutter on a table saw or a rabbeting plane. I opted for a 3/4” bit in the router table with a little more than 3/8” cutting width exposed and maybe a shy 1/16” cutting depth.

So here is the finished door front and back.

Some other notes about the door. Yes, I realize the grain is going two different directions on the boards. Ideally, it all goes the same way but at the last minute during glue-up I decided to flip boards to make sure the end grain is alternating. I should have also turned them end-for-end. Painted panel, so no big deal. A giant no-no for a clear finish!

The last step is to fit the door. I mentioned before that my case had racked. I checked it again today and it seems better. I think it is a humidity issue as my AC was down for a few days last week so the house got pretty funky (96F + 40% humidity inside!). I still need to do a little trimming on the door and maybe a little in the face frame. There is maybe 1/16” of material that needs to disappear for the door to slip in. So if do the dime-trick to space it I need to loose maybe 1/8” of material. I’ll split that up between the two sides of the door and the two face frame stiles. That should hide any unmatched dimensions pretty well.

Polar Bear: I come in Peace.

Karson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:15:16 GMT

Polar Bear: I come in Peace

Norbert Rosing’s striking images of a wild polar bear coming upon
tethered sled dogs in the wilds of Canada’s Hudson Bay.

The photographer was sure that he was going to see the end of his dogs when the
polar bear wandered in.

It’s hard to believe that this polar bear only needed to hug someone!

The Polar Bear
returned every night that week to play with the dogs.

May you
always have love to share,

Health to spare,

And friends! that care

jointer revisited #1: old tool , old guy , new idea ! and safe .

patron — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:49:40 GMT

for years ( 45 ) i have been using the jointer , and from day 1 , my shop master ( Lincoln Morinaga ) said that this tool was the most dangerous in the shop . in my work , i often have to joint 12’ boards or longer .
with or without a helper , this is a tedious and risky task , as you have to force the board down with lots of pressure,
to counteract the forces of gravity and increasing outboard sagging .
my thoughts , have allways led me to using gravity in my favor , and letting my ” fingers do the walking ” !
first i want to thank you topamax , for answering my electrical questions about the switch and motor 220 v
without frying everything in the middle of the night . line =In = power from electric panel .load = out =from switch to motor . you were there bud , thank you .
so here is my solution :

this is my chopsaw table , the motor for jointer has been mounted on the wall,
on hinged board , for belt tightening

i wanted kent to come and do this , but didnt have any bubinga to work with !
this is the inside of motor cover box and base for jointer to mount to.
with vacumn tube to isolate jointer from motor .
the 2 holes are for take apart belt from motor to jointer .
thanks for looking , and work safe !
and 3 bolt mounting holes for jointer .

box and jointer mounted . this platform is 6” higher than chopsaw table .
i needed to have room under the jointer to still use the rail ,
and adjustable stops for chopsaw . when platform is removed .

these registry holes 3 in fence and 2 in table ,one set either side of
jointer table .

correspond with dowels in bottom of jointer platform .
i slide platform along back rail until 1/4” dowels register ,
and drop down into 3/4” holes in table .
this way platform doesn’t move , and it cant tilt ,
because back dowels are holding it down .

platform in place

far end of table and registry mode . i still wanted to use the chopsaw to cut up to 3 1/2” behind platform,
so it was different atachment .

underside of far platform and “hooks” and dowels .
here i slide platform until “hooks” drop in holes ,
and slide back until “hooks” are grabbing table and drop down
in corresponding dowel holes , it cant move or tilt either .

platform in place , with space to use chopsaw still .

platform with dowel pins to fill space in front of chopsaw .

and in place .

infeed side attachement detail .

infeed platform in place , with folding leg ,
over all it is 18” long ! and it all breaks down for wall storage !
just 1 old guy working alone !

finished jointer and first edge !

as soon as i get back from denver and see bibb about rosewoods and his wood ,
i will get a spiral cutter head from grizzly for this and feel better about jointing long boards ,
i still have a delta DJ20 long bed jointer on the floor for regular edjeing and face jointing

Bowling Alley Workbench #5: Rain Rain go Away - Rail Rail Done Today

PurpLev — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:58:38 GMT

July, and it was pouring rain here in Boston, MA. for the past week. go figure. (although today it cleared out which is really nice). but enough about the weather (as if this will stop us).

After completing the basic construction for the leg ends last installment. It was now the time to connect those with rails. The rails are 45” long with 2 1/2” tenon sticking on each side (to a total length of 50” – do the math). They are made of 2 2×4 that were jointed/planed as little as possible (to keep as much material, but get it flat) laminated together. All the tenons in this table are rounded off with chisels since I was too lazy to square off the mortises, and since there wasn’t really any visual need to square them, I kept it all round – fresh off the drill press.

As you can see, the front rail is extended with a 45 degree tongue that will hold a sliding vise later on (and perhaps a sliding deadman sooner).

the tenons were cut oversized with the bandsaw, and fitted with a block plane and chisels. last time I did this I felt like It would have been easier if I had a shoulder plane – but this time around it seems that using a block plane with a wide blade, makes more sense, and easier to overlap the strokes as opposed to a narrow shoulder blade- the only thing I’m left with at the end is a narrow strip near the shoulder that is easily cleaned with a chisel.

Now that the rails fit in the legs, it’s time to bore them for the bolts as I would like to be able to take this apart one day when I need to move it elsewhere.

I bored a 3/8” hole in the middle of the leg mortise and counter bored it from the outside (to conceal the bolt head). I then placed the rail in the mortise, and using a 1’ long, 3/8” drill bit bored the rail while maintaining alignment with the hole in the leg:

I haven’t seen anyone post anything online regarding this method of boring holes for leg bolts, so I figured I’d shed some light on the way I’m doing it. I’m using long drill bits for this purpose. these can be found in electric supplier, or might even be at the box-office-stores in the electric isle. these are specialty bits designed to drill inside walls between floors without having to break open the sheetrock. they come in length from 1’ to 6’, some more flexible, some less. for boring leg bolts, I use the shorter type (1 foot) and make sure they are not flexible so that they’ll keep a straight aligned line with the leg hole, and not flex sideways:

Once the legs were bored to take the bolts, I used to drill press to bore a perpendicular pocket hole to take the nut, and a washer. I didn’t really care much for the look of this hole as eventually it’ll be hidden under a shelf, so I didn’t put too much time into making it pretty- the only things that were looked for were functionality – keeping the shoulder of the hole flat and square to the rail (where the washer will be), and making sure the hole is small enough so it doesn’t take too much material off, but yet large enough to take the washer, and have some room to reach the nut. I actually made it large enough for future possibility of putting cross grain piece of wood in there if the washer is not enough. but for now – the washer is all I’m going to place in there:

I must say that the Drill press, and the Table I made for it played a major role in this project, and both performed really well and made things go smoothly and repeatedly, both on the horizontal plane, and on the vertical as well.

After all of that was done, I did some cleaning (scraping). I added masonite layer to the bottom of each leg (since I’m not too excited about having end-grain sitting on the concrete floor here), and chamfered the edges. put it all together for dry fitting, and since I really couldn’t resist – I man handled the bowling alley behemoth onto the legs.

I was able to use the floor and the legs as pivot points to lift the top on the legs, but there’s absolutely no way I can lift this thing up in the air – not even 1/8” off the floor… I’m not really sure how I’ll take this thing off to finish the legs as they are not glued yet, and I still need to mount the vise hardware in the right leg assembly. but for now – I couldn’t resist the chance to get a glimpse of how this thing will eventually look. to be honest, I didn’t realize how big this thing is going to be (80”x30”)... this is some major real estate to work on compared to my current 60”x24” workbench (which works great). I’ll just have to use some temporary staging while I take each separate leg end to work on… no worries.

oh well… time to get some rest as I conjure how to tackle the next step – getting those nails out… so not looking forward to this.

Jellyfish Table #4: Making The Oval

Blake — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:05:43 GMT

THE OVAL

The apron for this table is going to be a bent-laminated oval:

I found a great tutorial on how to draw a simple oval on a website called In the Woodshop with Howard Ruttan. Here are some of the simple drawings on his page:

And here is mine:

MAKING THE FORM

So I cut it out with the jigsaw:

Then I used the first oval as a router template to cut its clone:

(I broke my favorite spiral router bit in the process)

The two MDF form halves were already stuck together with carpet tape. So I cleaned up the edges on the Oscillating belt sander:

The reason I have two MDF ovals is that I will need my form to be 3” tall. So here is the spacer I made out of a scrap of 2×4:

The clamps align the two ovals while I screw them to the 2×4 spacers:

3” Tall:

A sewing tape is a very handy measuring tool to have in a woodshop for measuring around ovals. Believe it or not the circumference of this oval is about 7 feet around.

PREPARING THE STOCK

So here is the 2”x5” x 9 ft piece of Mahogany that will become the oval. First I cut it to approximate length:

Then I jointed it (I love my full-sized jointer)...

Ripped it to a little more than 3” wide:

Re-sawed it into strips (I rolled my bandsaw outside to save the shop from a little dust)...

Planed them down to 1/8”...

And sanded them down to about 1/16”...

THE GLUE-UP

Here is my completed form, screwed to an MDF base which was first covered in plastic painter’s tarp. Then the sides of the oval were wrapped with plastic packing tape.

I didn’t take any photos during the actual glue-up for obvious reasons. It was a very stressful process, and didn’t go quite as planned, but came out fine in the end. I enlisted the help of my wife for an extra set of hands to help hold stuff and hand me clamps, etc. (Thanks Sweetheart!)

I originally thought I would use three “Pony” strap clamps to pull the strips in tight to the oval form. But it didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped so I ended up drilling holes in the top of the form and using bar clamps over the strap clamps. If I did it again I would just use the bar clamps.

This was the result:

In the end It came out fine. I knocked it loose from the form:

Ran the edges through my thickness sander, and cleaned the glue off the inside/outside surfaces with my Oscillating spindle sander (not pictured)...

ONE SOLID MAHOGANY OVAL…

...just a peak at all the components put together…

I left the notepad with my “total project time” information at the shop so I will update that later.