Tom's Workbench » Projects

Stuff I’ve Built: My miter bench

Tom — Mon, 07 May 2012 10:11:55 +0000

Just a few short weeks ago, I was bemoaning my lack of shop space – or at least, the lack of organization in my shop space. After a few years of just throwing items over the bench and not worrying about them until I dropped something I had to actually find again, I began to lament my lack of organization.

Well, this past week and a half, I got off my butt, into the shop and did something about it. First, I sketched out a design that had to 1) Serve as a miter saw workbench, 2) have ample storage for tools, coolers, beach accoutrements, recycling bins, paint cans and the like and 3) Give me someplace to park the shop vac and roll around drill press table totally out of the way. Armed with the drawing and a list of the materials I already had on hand – after all, I was cannibalizing the shelving system I had built – I headed off to Home Depot to make magic.

There, I had to pick up a new sheet of 3/4 inch plywood ripped into two two-foot strips, six 2×4 studs, a hand full of Simpson Strong Tie connectors and a Snickers bar. Remember, Snickers satisfies you, right? Once the shopping trip was done, the fine folks at big orange wrapped the heck out of the lumber on the sport rack on our Jeep Compass. Yeah, that’s normally where my wife’s kayak resides, but I had to make some exceptions.

Back at the shop, I took the old shelving system down, saving every screw, every 2×4 and every sheet of old plywood to reuse in my new set up. Yes, it was the green thing for me to do, and it saved a fortune on buying extra materials. I think I may have used 200 plus screws putting the old one together… wow… that was a lot of steel!

With the old shelving unit removed, I was able to finally sweep up all of the sawdust, cobwebs and other nastiness that had accumulated in the area over the years. And paint cans. My goodness, where did all of those old paint cans come from? There were paint cans bought by the former owner of the house back in 1996 hiding out. Amazing… Who knew we also had a shallow well pump to irrigate our yard? Wow, the things you find while digging around under there.

Starting fresh, I built the first module of the system. The strong-ties make assembling utility benches a piece of cake. Before long, I had the skeleton of my new bench system together. On the far right end, closest to the garage door, there is my dust collection unit, the ‘garage’ to park the shop vac and drill press and a set of shelves for stashing less-frequently used tools. All the way over to the left, closest to my side entry door, is the air conditioner and heater, my long tools, and the ‘family’ shelf tower that holds coolers, recycling bins and the like.

Over the pump, I wanted to put the miter saw station. I put a shelf about four inches above the top of the pump unit. This is for offcuts I make at the miter saw. For the top deck that the saw was going to sit on, I measured the height of the base and found it – surprisingly – the same height as the width of a 2×4. That was convenient, Ridgid! I temporarily screwed a pair of 2×4 spacers even with the work surface, and mounted the cleat and 3/4 inch plywood deck to that. Once I removed the spacers, the saw went right down on top, easy peasey lemon sqeezy.

On the top of the work station, I wanted to have a fence and stop so I could cut pieces to identical lengths. I simply ripped some strips of 1/2 inch plywood left over from some other projects, glued and tacked them and then pocket screwed them to the work surface, carefully aligning them with the saw’s surface. I sanded this down to make sure there were no splinter makers on there, and I’m now using my old self-centering doweling jig as a stop. Talk about convenient!

Above the work surface, I built a short lumber rack. I mounted 2×4 uprights to my masonry wall with Tapcon screws, and then build some standards out of 2x4s and 3/4 inch plywood gussets. Those babies are STRONG! On top, I put my Halloween coffin and other yard decorations, and the next level down has some choice small offcuts.

What’s left to do? Well, since the stop rail for the miter saw is forward on the table, I have a full 14 inches of space behind the rail to put in more shelves for more storage. I’ll put those in on the far right side – maybe that would be a good place for some table saw accessories, since it’s not far from the saw itself. Now, to check out some large plywood offcuts to see which might be appropriate. Hey, that’s going to make more room in my wood storage area that way …

I also have my Delta air cleaner a neighbor gave me. I’ll have to hang a few hooks for that above the saw so it can filter the air and throw some light on the bench.

All in all, I’d say the are behind the bench went from a zero to a hero in about a week’s worth of work.

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Stuff I’ve Built: The Valentine’s serving tray

Tom — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:07:39 +0000

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day… Which meant that I had better come up with a gift or face the wrath of my sweet beloved…

Just kidding, Dear.

Actually, my long-suffering wife had once mentioned something about our living room. There, we have our couches, a few side tables, the TV, a built in entertainment center and an ottoman. A nice big one that two people can sit on, or you can throw your feet up on after a hard day of work. The only problem? No coffee table. No place to put a drink down, especially when you are sitting at the end of the love seat farthest from the end table. ”Wouldn’t it be great if we had some kind of serving tray to put on there?”

Of course, she said this about three years ago… but, who’s counting? With the hanging wall cabinet done, my shop was kinda quiet, so I put my mind to building a serving tray. Which plans to use?

It turns out that the folks who published Tommy Mac’s Rough Cut Season One companion book had sent me a copy to evaluate. And, there was a plan in there for a serving tray.

Digging around in my wood pile, I found a 8/4 chunk of walnut. Rhonda had mentioned that she liked the way the wood looked during the wall cabinet build, so I figured that would be the piece to grab. With my band saw now able to forgive me after the years of abuse I had heaped upon it, I rigged it with my 5/8″ resaw blade and proceeded to resaw the piece into three separate pieces. Working with my new thickness planer, I was able to get the pieces looking sweet in very short order.

In fact, I think I fell in love with resawing… I may need to do a whole lot more of that!

Following the instructions in the book, I was able to glue up the bottom and cut the sides and ends out of the plans I cut from the board. The tip in there about building a ‘magic block’ to help set the compound miter cuts was killer, and I got everything right on the first try. I cut rabbets on the ends pieces to accept the sides, and my boys came out into the shop to help with glue up and assembly.

Unlike Tommy Mac’s version, I used brad nails, filling them with some dark wood putty. I had the boys sand the piece, and finish it with a coat of shellac. After smoothing the finish with some 320 grit paper, I rubbed in three coats of Johnson’s paste wax to get a soft, touchable feel to it.

After Rhonda left for work, the boys and I staged the tray on the ottoman with some special chocolates and cards from each of us. And, it was my youngest son Steven who got to surprise Rhonda with the piece when they returned from school yesterday afternoon. How sweet…

So, you wanna hear a review about the book? Funny you should ask… The Modern Woodworkers Association – more specifically, myself, Dyami Plotke, Chris Adkins and Michael Lingenfelter – got together to do a review of it. Here’s the audio review for your listening pleasure…

Be on the lookout for more stuff from the Modern Woodworkers Association coming soon!

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Stuff I’ve built: The hanging wall cabinet

Tom — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:26:17 +0000

Can it be that time of the year again? The National Art Program show is back at the Pinellas County courthouse, and I had to get back into the competition. Sure, there were other project ideas I was going to build. A chair with bent laminated legs and a carved seat. Didn’t have the time to get that one built. Dominic wanted to enter a bench. Nope. Too many things going on with him.

Ahh, but I did have one trick up my sleeve. I wanted to build a hanging wall cabinet, and I had a really good model to work from over at the Wood Whisperer’s Guild. Gauging my design off of that, I built one of these…

This is my version of the case made of walnut and tiger maple. The case stands about 26 inches tall by 16 inches wide by 7 inches deep. It’s a very straightforward design, with a drawer and a taller part of the case covered by a pair of doors.

The corners were joined by a through dovetails. And, no, I did not hand cut them. They are WAAAAAYYYY too tight for that.

The doors are the ones I wrote about last week – mitered. The drawer is box-jointed walnut and maple.

The real design question was with the handles. I couldn’t just go buy handles at some hardware store, I needed to do something a little more fancier and shop made. I toyed with a few designs and was going to go with a pair of shell-type pulls I would cut out of tiger maple and cove out over at the router table. While pondering how I would make this cut, I was struck by how thick and chunky the blanks were that I had roughed out on the band saw. That’s when inspiration hit me – why not split them in half and use the bookmatched grain to do something interesting… kinda like this on the door.

Or these babies as the drawer pulls.

I finished the piece by sanding it to 220 grit, then wiping it down with a coat of 1# cut dewaxed shellac. Once dried, I sanded it down with 220 grit paper to get it baby’s behind smooth. From there, I applied two coats of my hand mixed oil/varnish blend, sanding with 400 grit paper between coats. Finally, I buffed it down with some paste wax to give it a nice soft luster.

It goes into the display cases today, and next Monday, we’ll see how well is places in this year’s contest. Wish me luck!

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Making the cut

Tom — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:53:06 +0000

Check your calendars. We are now halfway through November. With the holiday season quickly gaining on us, now is a pretty good time to start thinking about what you are going to build for those special folks on your gift list.

What are you considering? Sure, big impressive projects make a splash when they are opened, but they take a lot of time and planning to pull off. What you need is an easy to build piece that only looks like you spent a long time on it.

“Everyone loves to spend time in the kitchen. It’s a room that gets used just about every day. Something for there could be a big winner,” said Eric Poirier of Bell Forest Products. “What family chef wouldn’t love a hand crafted cutting board?”

I’m gonna come right out and say that I have built end grain cutting boards before. While they are very pretty, they do take some time to build and can present problems when working the end grain. Not insurmountable, but not something you want to try to figure out with shipping deadlines looming.

There is another option… Bell Forest Products also offers an easier to build face grain model. And, with a kit like this and a few nights in the shop, you will be the holiday hero.

The kit includes two pieces of maple and a contrasting strip of either walnut our purpleheart. “We chose some very hard species which can stand up to years of slicing and chopping.” The pieces I got were milled to the same thickness. The center strip of walnut in the kit had very smooth, straight edges on both sides, and the two birdseye maple pieces had one jointed edge. Some glue on the edges, a night in the clamps and bingo…the blank was ready to roll.

After gluing these pieces up with a waterproof glue, it’s a simple matter of cutting the board to shape with a jigsaw, band saw or scroll saw, sanding and finishing. The kit includes a template for a classic design, “or, you can go free form and make a one of a kind piece. Heck, we even include a blank rectangle of MDF for you to free form your own template.”

While mineral oil is the tried and true finish for such a piece, finishes such as salad bowl finish or walnut oil can do a good job as well. Just be sure to allow plenty of time for the finish to cure before someone starts cutting on it. And, when it gets knife scarred after years of use, a quick sanding and refinish is all it takes to restore the piece back to its original luster.

With the clock ticking toward the holiday season, one of these cutting board kits can give you the gift of more relaxed, enjoyable shop time.

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Some finished shots

Tom — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:50:53 +0000

I had a lousy weekend. No, nothing went wrong in the shop, and the wife and kids are all doing well. I just had some health ‘issues’ which needed to be resolved.

Since I’m here relaxing at the house, I realized that I have left you hanging on a few projects. Ones which I wrote articles about, but never showed you the final piece. Well, today I’m going to fix that.

First, here are those stair-stepped bookshelves in place. As you can see, my friend Carla wasted no time getting them in to their final location and loading them up with goodies. I like the way you can look into the side of the cases to see what’s stored there, and she likes the width of the lower shelves for larger storage.

I do have to go to her house to install some leg levelers on the shelves. While they sit very stable on the carpet, one unit has a bit of a wobble on hard floors. Since they are planning on replacing the carpet one of these days, I figured it would be good customer service to head over there and install those potentially necessary pieces.

The other piece is the Munkstol. After I repaired the round tenons in the piece, I glued it all together with hide glue and replaced a few dowel pins which were holding the chair together. The challenge with this chair is that it is triangular, so getting good clamping pressure on the joints took a little bit of work and finesse. In fact, what I did was glue the front assembly together and clamped it until the glue cured, then clamped the other parts in place. It took some muscle and a few naughty words, but now it’s good to go.

Rhonda and I brought it to our neighbor’s home once it was done. Our neighbor was so happy, she took a picture and sent it back to the family in Sweden. Once that happened, gosh, the praise started coming in two languages! I’m glad that Google offers its free translation service… otherwise, I’d be sunk.

Now, I meant to finish the rocking horse over the weekend, but that plan went by the wayside. I’ll get that done this week (I hope) and then I have to move on to the next project.

Great weather. A busy shop. Fairly decent health. Hey, what else can you ask for?

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Woah, big fella!

Tom — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:57:15 +0000

Back in late 1999, I was still just a budding novice woodworker (sometimes it’s tough to tell that I have improved any), I wanted to build a new project. I think this was my third. But, what to build? I had already built something for my wife.

There was also someone else who was very special in my house – my oldest (and my only at the time) son Dominic. I had already missed the window to build him a cradle. I could have built something practical like a bookshelf, but where’s the fun in that? That’s when I decided on a rocking horse. And, I think it’s safe to say that the client was pleased.

Fast forward a dozen years. Marc Spagnuolo is running a charity build where he’s donating $1 for every completed rocking horse plan that is built. I have been building a rocking horse or cradle to donate to a local pregnancy crisis center every holiday season. And, that little boy who loved his rocking horse so much has been bugging me to get more shop time.

Thus, a plan was born.

So, this weekend, Dominic and I went to the nearby Lowe’s to pick up a glued up project panel and the other supplies. And, we had to make two trips to the local print shop to get the plans enlarged to the right size. Apparently, 200% in one FedEx store doesn’t mean 200%. But, Emily at the local shop was able to get everything printed up nicely, and we were off to the races.

Since Dominic had used a jigsaw in his tech class at school, he wanted to show off his mad skillz. So, we spray mounted the plans to the board, and Dominic got right to work with my jig saw. First, he cut off the parts of the board that we had drawn out the smaller parts of the project on. I took those over to the band saw and made those cuts while Dominic cut out the sides of the horse outline. We were using my holdfasts to keep the board down to the bench, and he was VERY energetic using the mallet to snug them down.

After we cut things out, I broke out my Ridgid spindle/belt sander, and we started smoothing out the rough cuts. And, they were pretty rough, but that’s what the sander was for! Dominic took to the sander with skill. I watched him closely at first, but he was so good, I was able to back off and take a few pictures.

Did we get as far as we wanted to today? Nope. Dom had the idea we were going to have a fully assembled horse waiting for a finish on it. Ehh, what we do have is a stack of edge sanded, cut out pieces ready to have pilot holes drilled, surfaces sanded and finish applied.

Dominic left the shop sweaty, covered in dust and energized by the build. I left with the pride a father feels when his son grows up and finds the joy in working with his hands. My buttons were bursting. It brought a tear to my eye…

Hey, Marc and Nicole… Having an infant is a great thing, and you will enjoy every minute of parenting a little one. But, when they get old enough to work in the shop… that’s when it gets GOOD!

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The busted chair… y’all are good!

Tom — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:11:31 +0000

OK, so this morning, I’m wrestling with the reality that I have to bore some very accurate holes into some very thin turned spindles that are now missing their tenons. I thought about this while dropping my son off at school. I thought about it when I got my cup of coffee and turned on the computer. Heck, I thought about it during a brief meeting I had this morning.

That’s when inspiration hit me… in the form of a guy named Steve Sander who commented on my post over at my Google + account. His suggestion was so blindingly simple, I just had to come home and give it a whirl.

Steve is firmly in the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) camp of woodworking. He recommended that I simply get a piece of 2 x lumber and bore a small hole all the way through from one side to the other. On the ‘bottom’ side, drill a hole the diameter of the spindle width. On the ‘top’ side, bore a 3/4″ hole through until it meets up with the one beneath. This means that the larger diameter will support the outer rim of the spindle, and the smaller hole will guide the bit.

As long as I do this carefully, using the small bore as a centering mark and keeping the bits perpendicular to the board’s faces, everything should come out fine. Of course, I blew it on the first attempt. But, that’s why I got me the longer board.

I put the spindle into my vise just high enough to ensure enough stuck up above to fit into the block. I also wanted to make sure the spindle was plumb, which greatly simplified my drilling. Just keep everything nice and plumb.. and we’re off to the races.

Next up, I chucked a 3/4″ auger bit into my cordless drill. I went cordless because I wanted to go on the slow setting used to drive screws… I just didn’t want to hit it with too much speed.

As Bob Ross used to say before he painted a huge tree, here was my bravery test. I put the auger bit into the guide hole, hit the trigger and let it roll. The bit at first brought up dust, but then it bit. And, boy, did it bite. It was bringing up nice slices of wood and spitting them out at the top of the hole. Since I hadn’t heard a crack or anything bad, I was hoping against all hope that things had gone well.

Heck, I don’t know if it was clean living (wait. We’re talking about me here. No way that’s in play) or what, but the dang thing actually WORKED! I went to the band saw, cut some of my home improvement center dowels to size (they are long, I will trim them down to final size once the glue is dry) and glued them into place with hide glue.

Shoot… I’m already into a sweet bottle of red wine to reward myself… and – again – today’s success proves once again that Internet woodworking is very much alive and well…

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The busted chair

Tom — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:18:16 +0000

I have this really good friend. She lives right down the street from us. Our kids play together. Both families get together for picnics, dinners over and movie nights. Her husband is a Washington Redskins fan, but this New York Giants fan can still allow him into his house.

She also happens to be Swedish. Well, she used to be, but she became an American citizen a few years ago. Anyway, she still has family and friends over in the homeland, and she recently visited her brother to celebrate his 50th birthday. It was a total surprise.

Before she made the return trip to Florida, her brother brought out a family heirloom. A piece of furniture she had always loved. It is a three-legged corner chair known as a Munkstol. What’s a Munkstol? Glad you asked. According to the Swedish Wikipedia and a bad translation from Google Translate:

A monk’s chair is a seating piece of furniture that was particularly popular during National Romanticism. Munk The chair is made of three straight, vertical poles, which constitutes both legs and holds up armrests. Between these there is a horizontal, triangle shaped seat with a tip pointing backwards. Munk chairs are often equipped with hand-woven, thin cushions of wool. They are quite uncomfortable to sit in.

And, as you can see, it’s a pretty sweet looking corner chair. My neighbor told me they were very popular after World War II. The three posts are turned beautifully, the crest rail is very ornately carved. The seat is an elegantly raised panel, with its edges held in a groove in each of the three turned seat stretchers. Quite the interesting looking project.

The only problem? Well, her brother – in a totally kind effort to make it easier to carry back – basically beat the piece apart with a hammer. So, these are the pieces…

Ehhh. This wouldn’t normally be an issue, but part of the plan when things were being busted apart was that my neighbor’s good woodworking friend – you know, the guy who likes to woodwork in the neighborhood – would be more than happy to put things back together…

Gosh, it would have been easier had her brother – in his zeal to pack this baby up – not busted the piece up so roughly that he broke off the tenons on all of the turned seat spindles…

Fortunately, I was able to spend some time cleaning out the broken off tenons from the mortises (And pulling out the incredible number of cut nails that had been driven into the piece to keep the spindles from twisting), so they are ready to have new tenons prepared for them. And, I also discovered that a standard-issue 3/4″ hardwood dowel from the local home improvement center fits into the round mortises perfectly.

Now, I just need to figure out a way to bore a hole into the end grain of the spindles, set the dowels into those spindles with some epoxy, and then epoxy them into the mortises without blowing out the sides of the spindles… This is going to be a real challenge.

The other one is to get the assembly put back together in the proper order. You can see from the finished piece that this is going to be one complicated build to get everything together….

Now, my neighbor’s husband is a professional sushi chef. So, I’m going to be plied with some prime Hawaiian tuna as a repayment for this job. So, with visions of some tasty Japanese treats dancing in my mind, I’m going to have to find the way to do this project soon… So I can enjoy the sushi while admiring the completed, serviceable Monkstol.

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Slow and steady…

Tom — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:02:10 +0000

I’m a big fan of turtles. The mascot at my Alma Mater, the University of Maryland? The terrapin (no, it’s not scientifically a turtle, but dude, I wasn’t a biology major). My favorite cold war era nuclear attack preparation video? Duck and Cover, featuring Bert the Turtle. And, in the fable of the tortoise and the hare, the turtle beat the rabbit (I told you I wasn’t a biology major!) by sticking to the game plan.

That’s why I’m so damned happy to be reporting that the construction of the ladder-step looking bookcase is complete. Yes, this is the project that started going together in mid June. It’s the same project on which I discovered how important square assemblies are.What slowed me down? The summer heat. Hurricane season. Wild and crazy kids. You get the picture, right?

I think they came out looking pretty sweet. The top and bottom shelves fit into full length grooves in the upper and lower pieces. The middle shelves fit into custom cut notches. Now, this is where things get exciting. The notches in the back uprights is a nice and easy 90 degree cut. No sweat there.

The notches on the front legs are a tad more difficult. Those babies are slanted back, but the shelf sits parallel to the floor, meaning the notch on the shelf has to be angled to accept the leg. This took a little bit of head scratching on my part, but I think the final product looks pretty darned sweet. For the assembly, I just glued the front notch, and let the back one float to avoid issues with wood movement distorting the frame.

I really dig the look at the side – the exposed shelves through the side frame really give the piece a lot of visual interest. It will be cool to look in there and see the stuff on the shelves.

Next step? Sand… sand… sand… sand… and sand some more. I have to ensure everything’s nice and smooth as well as breaking the corners on the pieces. Then, I’m gonna stain this one with some gel stain to unify the colors. Then, a bunch of coats of wipe-on varnish to ensure the piece is protected.

But, for now, I just wanna crash on the couch with a beer and sleep better, knowing that I have the tough stuff behind me on this big project.

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Gotta start moving

Tom — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:52:27 +0000

So, last week, I was on the horns of a dilemma. Debating on a joinery method for a set of bookshelves I’m building for a client.

And, I found myself in an all-too-familiar situation. Paralysis by analysis.

Your comments to me were great. Insightful. Profound. I should choose the joinery method that challenges me the most… I should choose a method that could last a thousand years. And, as I frequently do, my mind started to race. How could I cut a great joint that I had never done before… one that could impress my woodworking friends and the client?

And, before I knew it, it was five days later, and I hadn’t done squat to get this project done. And, then the client asked,” So, how’s the project going?”

Gulp. OK, then! I broke free from my navel gazing and decided on dowels to join the corners of the frames.. Fortunately, I had already drawn the piece out in full scale on paper, so cutting milling the pieces out and cutting to size was a piece of cake. Well, I did really take my time to ensure I had the angles down on the front rail. That did take some time. But, hey, I want this piece to be right.

Doweling with my Joint Genie is just as easy as I remembered. The jig is a solid steel block with accurately spaced holes where you can drill a series of dowel holes in the wood so everything matches up perfectly when you go to assemble. The jig has spacer leafs on it, which allowed me to adjust the location of the jig to get the piece roughly centered. No, this isn’t a self-centering jig, so you will have to reference from adjoining faces of a board. Remember this, or you may not like the results. At all.

Three holes, drilled just over an inch deep into each mating face, and I was ready to slide over to the next location to cut the next joint. Each three-dowel joint held the three spiral dowels snugly in place, ready for glue and the mating piece.

Now, when you are assembling any joints, it pays to not be a block head. If you have the top and bottom pieces ‘capturing’ the front and back uprights, you can’t glue the back one in place, clamp it up and then try to squeeze it in there after the fact… Don’t ask me how I know this… But, a little work with some glue, a mallet and a clamp or three, each of the side pieces glued up nicely and will be drying overnight.

The funny thing is that after this, the rest of the work is very straightforward. Sand down the sides, cut the shelf dadoes, assemble sand and finish. I’m definitely going to have to pick out a few nights after work this week to push this one along… and stop thinking about it!

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