Jeff's Workbench

… I think this could be confused for a crib!

Last night I did the final test assembly of the frame.  And it actually went together!  I’m thrilled.

This morning I put the spring and mattress in.  I figured I better do that before I do the finishing.  It’s no use finishing it if the mattress doesn’t fit!  But it does.

Now, what I don’t understand is the hardware kit.  The mattress has 5 heights.  Which means 5 holes per leg.  I’d expect 20 inserts.  I only found 18.  So, I went to get the packing slip to see if I had lost two.  No, the packing slip only showed there should be 18.  How does that work?  18 isn’t evenly divisible by 4.  I’ve emailed the hardware supplier.  We’ll see what they say.

I’ve also filtered the shellac this morning too.  Just for reference, liquids do not pour well from a peanut butter jar.  So, I made a bit of a mess, but it’s filtered.

All that’s left now is to take it all apart and shellac it!

I haven’t posted in a while.  But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything.  In fact, I’ve done quite a bit.

First off, I didn’t make it to the Rob Cosman demo.  I intended to work in the garage until about 3:30.  I walked out of the garage at what I thought was 3:30.  Turns out it was more like 5:30.  Oh well.  Life goes on.

As far as progress goes, the footboard and headboard for the crib are glued up and basically ready for finish.  I have some minor sanding/scraping to do on the spacers between the slats.  The sharp edges just need to be knocked down a bit.  I’ll post pictures soon.

We decided on a shellac color too.  Surprisingly, at least to me, we decided on the garnet, the darkest of all of the colors.  But, what I didn’t realize is shellac isn’t really like stain.  Even though the liquid was super dark, it wasn’t that dark on the wood.  But we like it!

I also added to my tool arsenal today.  Bill had decided to replace his #7 (the one I borrowed a while back) and his #5.  He offered them to me at a price I couldn’t really pass up.  So, I now have a #7 and #5 that are in working order.  No fettling required!  Just a little sharpening.  I’m pretty geeked!

I don’t know if I will be able to work on the crib much this weekend.  The baby’s room needs paint!  Maybe between coats! 

In talking with Bill about a finish for the crib, he recommended using shellac.  it’s non-toxic (key, since the kid could chew on it), easy to apply, and it comes in a variety of colors.  So, on Monday, I order the sample pack from http://shop.shellacfinishes.biz/.  It comes with a 4 oz. sample of the Super Blonde, Beige, Orange, and Garnet.  Bill split the cost with me as I think he wanted to see the quality.  It showed up today.  Not bad for USPS from CA.

Tonight I took the four samples and split them in half.  2 oz. of each color for each of us.  Then I made up a small sample of each.  8 oz of denatured alcohol and 1 oz of the shellac flakes.  That’s a 1# cut.  Should be good for my testing on the wood.

Above I’m measuring out the shellac.  I made a little paper tray and used a small scale I already had.  Then I dumped that into old butter containers I had.  The lid seals nicely so I’m not worried about leakage as I shake them.  8 oz of alcohol fills those containers right to the top.

Then I labeled them with a Sharpie.

I think they will be ready tomorrow, but I’m probably not going to be ready to use it.  I’m going to the Woodcraft store tomorrow night.  Rob Cosman is going to be there showing how to fettle old planes.  Should be a fun evening.  Testing on Saturday!

I forgot to post it at the time, but Thursday, while I was cutting the tapers on the legs for the crib I caught a piece of kick-back in the chest.  I have no out-feed table and it’s a very small taper at the very end of the leg.  So, when I was almost done with the cut, the leg tipped down.  Somewhere in there, the blade threw the slice of wood back at me.  It hit me just to left of my sternum.  Ouch!  Remind me not to do that again!

Today, I think I finished all of the milling of parts.  I drilled the holes in the legs.  I also cut and milled all of the slat retainers.  I’m fairly certain that was the last of the parts that needed to be milled.  I think, tomorrow, I can dry fit some parts!

Today didn’t go without incident either.  When they tell you not to have your hands anywhere near a router bit, they even mean over top of it when there is a piece of wood between your hand and the bit.

Don’t worry, my hand wasn’t actually over that spot when the bit came through!  Apparently,  I hadn’t tightened the 3/8″ straight bit enough.  On the second board, it started vibrating a lot as I was cutting the groove.  So, I decided to lower the bit to take a shallower cut.  If I would have looked at the groove then I would have seen that the bit had already started to travel up.  Of course I didn’t.  So, I made about 3 more inches into the board when all of the sudden the bit popped out the top.

Fortunately, my had wasn’t right there.  It was a 1/4″ shank in a reducer to fit the 1/2″ router collet.  Unfortunately, in it’s ejection from the router, the shaft of the bit got messed up, but the collet reducer is fine.
So, I had to go out and get a new one.  I got a 1/2″ shank this time.  No need to use the reducer!  I finished the work without incident.

Tomorrow things might start looking like a crib!

I posted on Facebook the other day that I loved to make sawdust.  Well, after today, I like to make sawdust… I love to make shavings!

I borrowed Bill’s Stanely #7 for the weekend.

I actually got to use it today.  What a blast that was!  It’s a work-out, but man was it fun.  I can’t explain why.  Jeanne say’s it’s because I’m weird.  But how can you not like something that produces shavings like this?

I also learned something today.  I had never used a plane like this before, so i practiced on an extra piece of ash.  Turns out the board was shaped like an S. So, the face had both a cup and a bow to it.  You can’t really deal with both at the same time.  So, a piece like that would need to be cut into two shorter pieces.  Then both could be flattened.  Just more of that assumed knowledge! 

Stay sharp!

I had fun with the router table and the homemade feather boards.

Stay sharp

Monday night, I only had a little bit of time.  So, I thought I’d get the legs glued up.  And of course everything takes longer than I expect it to.  I had to cut the notches out of the center boards that will act as the mortises.  With no dado blade, cutting those notches took a while.  I only got one of the legs glued together. 

Turns out that takes a bit of coordination!  One clamp to line up the three pieces at one end, then another to provide clamping pressure.  Then move to the other end and do the same thing.  Then a c-clamp in the center.  What I shouldn’t have done was left it set for almost 48 hours.  The squeeze out was a bear!

Tonight I was able to get the other three glued up.  One at a time.  Dinner while the first one set up.  Dressing my card scraper-from-old-saw-plate while the second one set up.  Sizing and routing the top rails for the head board and foot board while the third one set up.  They just need to be cut to length now.

The not-quite-finished card scraper takes care of squeeze-out quite nicely!

Here’s the top rails.

And this is the little jig I made to dress the edges of my card scraper. 

That was it for tonight.  Not too bad.  At least I can see some things coming together!

Stay sharp!

… and the slats are done until I cut them to length.

I also cut the legs to width.  Unfortunatly, I didn’t get to gluing them up.  If I would have thought out the night a little better, I could have done it.  Maybe tomorrow night after baby class!

I didn’t get a lot of time on the crib this weekend.  Saturday was taken up by our first baby shower up in Reed City.  I’m not complaining mind you.  Jeanne had a good time and we got a lot of cool stuff.  I also had a good time.  I got to hang out with my brothers for a couple hours.  That doesn’t happen very often.

We decided that our house was in need of clean-up today.  So, that took the first part of the afternoon.  I finally made it out into the garage around 4pm.  I finished the base on my bench and attached the top.  It was a fun thing to get on it’s feet all by myself.  We both survived the experience!

So, I grabbed the leg pieces and planed them to thickness.  Turns out the piece I thought I had ruined while learning how to run the jointer was just fine.  I apparently am a poor judge of what 3/4″ is.  I did plane them down to just a smidge under 3/4″, but it will be fine.  All the pieces are the same thickness.

And, of course, I made a lot more shavings!

Tomorrow night I hope to start gluing up the legs.

Oh, and here’s the bench.

It’s nothing special, but I have something to work on now.

Stay sharp!

… or maybe, detour ahead.

I was finishing the planing of my 3/8″ parts this morning and I started thinking about doing some assembly today.  I’d plane up the legs and get those glued and clamped.  As I was thinking about that, I started thinking about where I would be doing this.  I really don’t have a place to do any assembly.  I need a workbench.  A simple one will do fine for now.  I can always make a better one later.

I remember seeing a simple workbench with an MDF top, and dimensional lumber for the base.  I found it and made a quick shopping list.  I really only needed the MDF (which I was going to get today anyway), some threaded rod, washers, nuts, S-clips and some screws.  I already had the lumber. For now, I’m not going to put the vise on it.  Maybe later.

So, I loaded up the dogs and we went to Home Depot.  I was able to get everything I needed except the S-clips.  They even cut the MDF for me.  That was helpful as I could get it in the Explorer with only putting the small seat down.

When I got home I cut up the lumber I had to make the base.  Instead of using 4″x4″, I glued up two 2″x4″.  I’m making the plan fit the wood!   Once the legs were glued up, I cut all the slots in the stretchers.

Since they didn’t have S-clips, I’d have to make some.  No problem.  I’ll just have to make a fence for my router table.  I happen to have extra MDF (that’s why I wanted the MDF in the first place).  After an hour or so, I had a basic fence.  And it’s double sided.  A 4″ side for most things, and a 6″ side for taller pieces.   I do need to make an adjustable face for it so I can zero clearance the bits that don’t have bearings.  But again, later.

Now that I have a fence I can actually make the S-clip replacements.  Another 20 minutes or so, and I had these little guys.  No, they aren’t little chairs.

With those out of the way, I need a table.  I basically followed the same steps the video outlined for making the top.  I drilled a bunch of holes in the bottom piece of MDF, spread a bunch of glue on the top piece, stuck them together and screwed it down.

One night this week this week, I hope I can get it assembled.  It won’t be tomorrow night, we have our first baby class!

That was my detour today.  Fortunately, it was a productive detour.

Stay sharp.