The weekly plan

March 15, 2015 Tom Leave a comment

If I wasn’t for woodworking, my favorite hobby would have to be cooking. And, just as in your workshop, having your tools in an easy-to-access, organized fashion helps ensure your cooking experience is a great one.

This plan, designed and built by Popular Woodworking’s Megan Fitzpatrick, is an easy to build organizer that keeps those pots, pans and sauciers in a handy, easy to access location. The best part? You can build it on Saturday and be cooking with it on Sunday.

Bon appétit!

Experiences

The busman always rides twice …

March 11, 2015 Tom 2 Comments

A day, that is.

Both to and from work on the PSTA 300X, a commuter bus that drops me off across the street from my new office in downtown Tampa.

Sure, it has been an big adjustment. I mean, I have gone from having a 15-minute commute where I drove to an hour each way in the plush comfort of the bus. Fortunately for me, I have a few advantages riding the bus over driving myself downtown.

I don’t have to sit in traffic and grit my teeth
I don’t have to burn my gas
I don’t have to rent a parking spot near my office
And, I get to spend the time I would have been driving doing some reading.

Yes, the bus comes complete with WiFi, and my iPad allows me to do a little reading before I get to work. For instance, I can check in on social media, answer some e-mails and even draft a letter or two before I get to the office.

I also get to download and read the electronic editions of the woodworking magazines I subscribe to. Where before I had to set time aside to get to those magazines, now, I load them up on the iPad and I’m in woodworking heaven.

I also have a lot of time to peruse the products the woodworking stores have online to see what I need to acquire next to help out the shop. Sure, I don’t need many more tools, but it never hurts to think ahead and develop a wish list.

And, finally, I have some time to just sit and think. With my travel coffee mug in one hand, I can think about what I want to accomplish in the shop by the end of the day and what the next steps are in my latest woodworking project.

I just have to remember to look for my stop!

Projects

Take it from the top

March 9, 2015 Tom 1 Comment

I miss my maternal grandmother. As we get closer to Easter, that was her holiday. She cooked the holiday meal for us, and I can remember her sending me back to college with a huge brown paper grocery bag full of leftover ham sandwiches, dyed Easter eggs and – of course – lots of chocolate. I was still her little grandson, even in my late teens.

The one thing I couldn’t get into? Her watching the Lawrence Welk Show. I know it was her kind of music, and I know it was her kind of entertainment, but I usually ended up watching baseball with my grandfather.

As with any good band leader, I’m sure Mr. Welk would remind his musicians during rehearsals that they were going to take it from the top when practicing a new piece of music. After all, that’s where the start of the music would be – at the top of the sheet!

With my latest project, I am taking it from the top as well, literally! The latest piece is a hope chest for the third niece turning 16 in my family, and it’s time to get my toes tapping out in the shop. First, though, I had to go through a one or a two boards in the repertoire…

Ahh, these two boards seems to come together in a harmonious fashion. I guess it was time to help make these babies sing. But, first, it was going to take a little time to tune up the pieces to ensure the sound was going to be tight. So, I used my Bora straight edge clamps to set a fence to ride against the rip fence, and used my Grr-Ripper to push the stack through, to keep my hands safe.

After sweetening up the fit, It was a simple matter to glue up the two boards that were going to make the top. No pressure, right?

Wanting everything to stay true, I decided on putting an edge on the board just to make sure thing stayed flat. I turned to a tongue and groove router bit set and got the router table all set up for this kind of work. It took very little time, but it was ready to go in short order.

After grooving the breadboard ends and putting a tongue on the panel, I glued the middle four inches of the tongues on the panel and slid the ends into place, clamping them. Of course they were long, but that’s fine, I would trim them later.

Now, just a little sanding and this top will be just about ready for its debut. And, since I was taking it from the top, now I know the exact dimensions I need to build the rest of the chest to, and I am sure I used the nicest looking boards for the most visible part of the project.

That’s music to my ears!

Projects

The weekly plan

March 8, 2015 Tom 1 Comment

New Yankee Workshop’s Barrister Bookcase

So, light week at Tom’s Workbench. Yeah, I confess that changing jobs has cut into my blogging time, but I promise that while on my commute to downtown Tampa, I’ll be more attentive!

In the meantime, a huge part of what I have been moving has been books. Lots and lots of books. Reference books. Training manuals. Hurricane studies. The works. What I will eventually need is a bookcase to keep them in. One that – maybe – I could bring with me.

That’s what this barrister’s bookcase can provide – a stackable, sealable, handsome place to keep all of my reference materials in case I have to move them again. What I like most about Norm’s plan is that it doesn’t use hardware for the flip up doors – just wooden solutions. Which is pretty darned cool!

Finishing

Rub it in

March 2, 2015 Tom 1 Comment

By Rhonda (shhh!) Iovino

Tom is busy in the shop, so I thought I’d take a minute to fill you in. The bed… our new bed… MUST be manufactured. There is NO way that Tom could have made it so quickly and painlessly. Usually with a huge build like that, there is debate, discussion, defeat, followed by denial and eventually acceptance. (There is no “d” word for acceptance. I checked.)

But that didn’t happen. Yet our new bed is perfect. Can’t be. But I checked all recent credit card purchases and I didn’t see any big payments to Ethan Allen or American Signature. Still… the project is perfect. But he didn’t rub it in.

This weekend, Tom and I did finish the bed with the same lack of dissent. “Ember” was the color he came home with in an all-in-one water based stain and finish, and Ember it is. And I love it. The whole process was simple and practically odor-free.

First, we got out a bag of rags, and I donned some rubber gloves. I definitely recommend the gloves. Not only did they save my freshly-painted blue manicure, but they kept me from standing at the sink for 10 minutes. Tom scrubbed and scrubbed, but the stain was stubborn. Eventually, he got it off his hands. But it wasn’t until the next day. I didn’t rub it in.

To apply the stain, we dipped rags into the stirred quart. I took lots of care to avoid dripping onto the floor. I hate clean-up. It’s not the fun part. As we wiped on the first splash of stain, the wood soaked it up. It looked like we’d need more. but in the end, as we rubbed it in, the dresser fronts didn’t need as much. So we worked our way to the footboard and finished that too. We even had some left over in case we needed to do touch-ups. Now the wood is warm and homey and even more professional-looking.

I couldn’t be happier with the bed and just one day after the staining, which only took one coat, there are NO smells. I would know. I have a sensitive sniffer. But if you know something I don’t about how Tom made that bed so fast and so efficiently, you’d better tell me. I promise I won’t rub it in.

Plans

The weekly plan

March 1, 2015 Tom Leave a comment

The Design Confidential’s Chesapeake chaise lounge

So, anyone tired of winter yet? Word on the street in Boston is that we are just about – if not at – the snowiest winter on record. Cheer up, however, because I am assured that at some time in the future, spring will actually arrive, and the snow will be gone.

Since y’all are waiting for that magical day, why not take the time to build a piece of furniture that will see some heavy use once the temperatures rise? This simple chaise lounge can be built from home center cedar to resist the ravages of weather while providing a comfortable place to chill out during those warm summer days.

Link of the week

February 27, 2015 Tom 2 Comments

Colosseum: Roman Death Trap

One night, I was having a hard time falling asleep, so I turned on my local PBS station and – wow – that’s something I should never do. I caught the start of this NOVA presentation on the Roman Colosseum and how the ancient Romans were able to make the bloody spectacles happen – using woodworking!

The video chronicles the work of archaeologists who, with just remnants of where the wooden structure existed, were able to recreate the mechanism that raised wild animals to the Colosseum floor and made them appear seemingly out of nowhere.

This video is offered by PBS as is free to watch online. I guarantee that when it is over, you will have a new found appreciation for woodworkers who plied their trade nearly two millennia ago.

Tom's Workbench

The weekly plan

The busman always rides twice …

Take it from the top

The weekly plan

Rub it in

The weekly plan

Link of the week

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