After weeks of moving, taking down the tools and subsequently setting them up again, I began working on hardwood again tonight. I'm making a Hayrake Table, which design from from an editor of the Fine Woodworking magazine. The modification to the basic design is that the structure is made of hard maple while the table top is still made of quatersawn white oak. This will be more consistent with the China Cabinet and chairs that are going to be in the dining room. Another reason why this is so is because I couldn't source anything but 4/4 stock of oak in this cut style, and thus it would have made it very tedious to prepare the legs and stretchers (it calls for 8/4 and even some 12/4 stock).
I spend the best of 1-2 hours with my daughter doing the initial milling of the legs (with 12/4 stock), which was a good work-out for my new roller stand and a good test for the ducts going to the dust-collector. Everything seems to be working as expected. Life is good.
Tomorrow, I'm finally getting a 10" contractor saw from busybee. The only tool not yet delivered is the DW618K 2HP router that will be the workhorse for a router table. When will this router table be made? Good question, but it is good to know that the most critical component will be in the shop.
The Ébéniste : Woodworking on less than one hour a day
Showing posts with label maple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maple. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
I created a glue-up monster
... and the villagers are heading down to the manor with torches and pitchforks.
With the current house buying/selling upheaval, I developed a habit to wake up at 4:40AM. This isn't good for my health, but there is nothing that I can do about it, apparently. So, instead of lying in bed trying to sleep, I decided to head down the olde neglected shoppe and do something fun. I'm still working on the TV stand, while designing the mega diner table for my ever expanding immediate family.
Today, I needed to do a bit of dry fitting to identify the places where I need to plane, sand and compensate for the difference in moisture between now and when I cut the joinery. The middle part of the TV stand is this fairly complex piece, with a number of shelves, some curved, mounted on a .... goodness, here is a picture.
I designed it so almost all of the grain is in the same axis and thus will move together. This is a lesson learned from project #1 and project #0 (sigh). The whole thing will be very solid once glued... the issue is to get the workflow right. This is 18 dowels and 8 mortices/tenons in one monolithic step. No new ground will be broken for an experienced woodworker, but there will be some breaking for me.
With this problem in mind, enhanced by sleep deprivation and spring allergies, I started rehearsing. I'm hesitating to try too often as I don't want to loosen the fit with repetitive ins and outs in the joinery. I think that I will go about by gluing the three shelves to one side first and let this cure while clamped. I'll then recruit my surgeon-handed bookbinding wife and miniature painting first-born to help apply the glue and clamp the whole thing down. I'll use Titebond III as it seems to cure more slowly than my usual LePage yellow glue.
I may be overthinking this too much, but I can't emotionally afford to screw up at this stage after countless hours of hand cutting joinery.
On a side note, I now have precise measurements for the front doors and drawer front which I will be veneering. That pimento burl is going to be a fun thing to veneer: I made my softener last week, got a veneering hammer and some hide glue, renamed an old pancake hotplate as ShopMaster Hot plate 2000 (tm). Nothing can stop me now...
...other than to have to move my entire household from point A to point B in 4 weeks.
With the current house buying/selling upheaval, I developed a habit to wake up at 4:40AM. This isn't good for my health, but there is nothing that I can do about it, apparently. So, instead of lying in bed trying to sleep, I decided to head down the olde neglected shoppe and do something fun. I'm still working on the TV stand, while designing the mega diner table for my ever expanding immediate family.
Today, I needed to do a bit of dry fitting to identify the places where I need to plane, sand and compensate for the difference in moisture between now and when I cut the joinery. The middle part of the TV stand is this fairly complex piece, with a number of shelves, some curved, mounted on a .... goodness, here is a picture.
I designed it so almost all of the grain is in the same axis and thus will move together. This is a lesson learned from project #1 and project #0 (sigh). The whole thing will be very solid once glued... the issue is to get the workflow right. This is 18 dowels and 8 mortices/tenons in one monolithic step. No new ground will be broken for an experienced woodworker, but there will be some breaking for me.
With this problem in mind, enhanced by sleep deprivation and spring allergies, I started rehearsing. I'm hesitating to try too often as I don't want to loosen the fit with repetitive ins and outs in the joinery. I think that I will go about by gluing the three shelves to one side first and let this cure while clamped. I'll then recruit my surgeon-handed bookbinding wife and miniature painting first-born to help apply the glue and clamp the whole thing down. I'll use Titebond III as it seems to cure more slowly than my usual LePage yellow glue.
I may be overthinking this too much, but I can't emotionally afford to screw up at this stage after countless hours of hand cutting joinery.
On a side note, I now have precise measurements for the front doors and drawer front which I will be veneering. That pimento burl is going to be a fun thing to veneer: I made my softener last week, got a veneering hammer and some hide glue, renamed an old pancake hotplate as ShopMaster Hot plate 2000 (tm). Nothing can stop me now...
...other than to have to move my entire household from point A to point B in 4 weeks.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Stain test
I only had a bit less than an hour to put into fun today, so I decided to try the gel stain on a piece larger than a scrap.
I'm glad that I tried to stain one of the least visible shelf first as I learned a few things:
I'm glad that I tried to stain one of the least visible shelf first as I learned a few things:
- Sand thouroughly even if it looks fine. Stain isn't going to be kind to irregularity
- Get rid of glue patches. This isn't a huge deal in this case but it doesn't take much to cause a blemish.
- Change cloth and gloves often! These spots of stain spread everywhere... quick.
This is brief, but that's all for now.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
NaD TV stand - Day 1
I got extra time to get things started today (thanks wifey). I meant to put up the pictures of the wood before I start for reference. I kind of enjoy looking back at a finished project by remembering how it looked before I did anything.
Other than the sled and the tenoning jig, I got two of the maple board milled and stickered. I'll let them settle for a few days and then milled them down to the actual sizes. Milling can be hard work. I discovered that my garage's ceiling is less than 8', which made handling the boards quite awkward. I resorted to making the initial cut to length using my handsaw... to realise that this handsaw is working very well: it probably took a minute instead of 5 seconds, but in the end I'm in for the journey rather than the destination.
The big day has arrived! Sophie (my middle child and prime enthusiast woodworker) and I will be making a cutting board together.
2"X12"X6' piece of Ash for the back slats.
Six nice boards of sugar maple, too rough to show their true beauty yet.
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| 2"X12"X6' piece of Ash for the back slats. |
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| Six nice boards of sugar maple, too rough to show their true beauty yet. |
What was done today
Other than the sled and the tenoning jig, I got two of the maple board milled and stickered. I'll let them settle for a few days and then milled them down to the actual sizes. Milling can be hard work. I discovered that my garage's ceiling is less than 8', which made handling the boards quite awkward. I resorted to making the initial cut to length using my handsaw... to realise that this handsaw is working very well: it probably took a minute instead of 5 seconds, but in the end I'm in for the journey rather than the destination.
Tomorrow...
The big day has arrived! Sophie (my middle child and prime enthusiast woodworker) and I will be making a cutting board together.
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