Spackle & Sawdust

An Old Coat Rack

When I was a kid, I used to spend a fair amount of time in the garage playing with my dad’s “tools.” I use quotes because I believe his entire collection consisted of little more than a handsaw, an old bright orange Sears power drill, and a few random screw drivers. Needless to say, he didn’t spend a great deal of time building things — but I made the best use I could of this assortment.  I fondly recall one Christmas cobbling together a coat rack for my parents made of 2×2′s and a few brass wood screws.

This early piece came to mind as I began work on the next phase — a Puppet Tree.

The Puppet Tree

On one of her frequent visits to Costco, my wife discovered a number of sets of hand puppets. Unable to decide on which to buy, she did the only logical thing — and came home with all 32 of them! So naturally we’d need somewhere to put them all. We started discussing where to attach a bin or basket or fabric bag to the theater, but after some Internet searches, we settled on the idea of a rack or tree. Once again I borrowed heavily from a commercially available product, estimating measures from a small graphic. I had some 8/4 Ash left over from a cutting board project that would fit the bill perfectly. I also decided to replace the square base in the commercial model with some feet made of the same Ash arranged in a pinwheel.

Base and center pole

Assembled for finishing

Applying the Finish

Nothing terribly special here, just wiping on a few coats of my current favorite finish: Homer Formby’s Original Tung Oil finish. After using mainly Waterlox and Watco finishes for the past few years, I must say that I’ve grown fond of the results and ease of use of the Homer Formby stuff I can pick up at the blue big box guys. I used to use Waterlox, but the smell of their Tung Oil finish seems to last forever. Pieces finished with this stuff can be moved into the house immediately after it cures without fear poisoning the kids!

Finishing the sides

The front hung out to dry

Intarsia masks applied and finished

Putting it Together

With the final coat of finish dry and sanded out, I decided to put it together and install the curtains Lisa completed and dropped off a few days ago. Yeah, I think it came together well.

Assembled with curtains

RTA hardware installed

A view from backstage

Some theater lighting

I really love how the masks look!

A New Technique

When I first designed the theater, I knew it needed something in the top arched panel. To me, the most natural thing would be the traditional comedy/tragedy masks. Although I’ve done a number of inlays in the past, it seemed like this called for something more dimensional, like a carving.

Unfortunately, the last time I did any wood carving, we called it “whittling” and used it to make walking sticks and toothpicks at Boy Scout camp. I simply don’t have the tools and more importantly, the carving skills or know-how. However, it occurred to me that I might be  able to do some kind of intarsia piece. I own a nice bandsaw and some 3/16″ and 1/8″ blades that I’ve used for inlay work; and wasn’t intarsia basically 3-D inlaying?

After a number of fruitless Internet searches for templates, it appeared that I’d need to design one myself. Although I’m not much of an artist, I happen to have a sister-in-law who’s quite accomplished. She also has some experience with stained glass design, which dovetails quite nicely with the concept of an intarsia pattern. Kathy used some sketches we found online to create a couple mask patterns for me. After making some modifications to simplify the patterns for my tools and skill level, we ended up with the final design below.

Final Intarsia Pattern (click to download full-size)

A New Tool

For my first attempt at intarsia, I decided to try to cut out the pattern on a scrap piece of poplar. I glued down the pattern to the blank, mounted a brand new 3/16″ timberwolf blade in the bandsaw, and began to cut. The blade made quick work of it and I was able to make fairly accurate cuts. However, the kerf was simply too wide and ragged. The 1/8″ blade I have is an old generic one from Grizzly that I knew wouldn’t make a smoother cut.

So, what to do?

Naturally, the answer is a new tool! I ran out to Sears and for $100 (10% discount for ordering online for in-store pickup!) picked up a 16″ scroll saw that got fairly consistent and decent reviews. After spending some time warming up to the saw by cutting wavy lines in poplar, I glued the pattern to a slab of walnut and began to cut out the sad face.

"Tragedy" cut from walnut on my new scroll saw

My stationary sander worked very well for shaping the cut pieces and I must admit that it was a blast shaping the contours. The purple heart took a bit more effort than the less dense walnut — and 80 grit paper — to get the shape I wanted, but in an hour or so I had completed the shaping. I had originally considered using different species for the cheeks and eyebrows of each mask, but figured I didn’t have the time or experience to get a good fit. Ultimately I think this looks better anyway.

The masks cut, shaped, with a first coat of tung oil

I read an article online that suggested applying a coat or two of finish to the intarsia pieces before glue-up to prevent the glue from seeping in and showing through the final finish. This sounded like a good idea, so after sanding to 220, I wiped on some tung oil. The next morning I glued the pieces together on a piece of wax paper. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results!

Next steps…

I still need to cut the “ribbons” and mount the whole thing to the birdseye maple panel. After a bit of touch up sanding, the whole thing should be ready for 6 or so coats of tung oil finish.

Craftsman 16" scroll saw

It’s been a very busy summer and I opted to spend most of my free time with my family rather than in the shop. Other than a couple cutting boards (after seeing all the cool ones posted at lumberjocks.com in the past few months I just had to try a few myself!), I really haven’t spent any significant time in the shop.

However, while shopping for a gift for my wife on the occasion of our 6th wedding anniversary, I learned that the traditional gift was candy or iron and the modern alternate was wood. In keeping with this theme, many of the online vendors were selling wooden boxes containing chocolates. This seemed like a great gift idea, but, being a woodworker, clearly I couldn’t buy her a wooden box. However, since I didn’t have time to build a nice box and don’t have any real experience with them anyway, I looked for another idea.

For the past 5 anniversaries I’ve made it a sort of tradition to get up early and, now that we have children, taking the kids out with me to pick up cinnamon rolls for breakfast. This year, I decided, I would make her breakfast instead and serve it to her, with chocolate-dipped strawberries, on a handmade wooden serving tray.

And this is the result.

This project was unique in that it’s the first project I designed entirely in my head and during the actual construction process. Typically I design my pieces in detail in SketchUp before even selecting the lumber. I must admit it was kinda fun building this way — designing on-the-fly so to speak — though I’m not sure I’ll make this the new norm.

The bulk of the body of the tray is cherry, the handles are walnut. The horizontal strips (the growth rings) are curly maple and purpleheart. The purpleheart, incidentally, was from a board my wife gave me for our fifth anniversary. Each strip represents a different milestone — the day we met, our wedding day, birth of a child and anniversaries. I labeled them with dates on the back and signed the piece with a personal message for my lovely wife.

The biggest challenge in this piece was scooping out the “dish” of the tray. I built the tray in a single day — it was the only time I could spend in the shop without letting on what I was up to. Therefore I had to hurriedly cobble together a quick-y template and jig to position and guide the router. The template slipped a bit on the front edge and the bottom was uneven in spots, requiring a good deal of sanding to make it acceptable. There are still a number of visible imperfections in the piece which, in this case I think give it character. It really does look handmade. In any event, I didn’t have much choice but to accept it as the best I could do within available time. It was a real hit with my wife and will certainly be difficult to top next year!

(PS – In case you’re curious, for her part my wife gave me a waffle iron (I love cooking from-scratch pancake breakfast with the kids on weekends and my son would eat waffles for all three meals if we allowed him) and made a generous contribution to my tool fund — I’m presently more than 1/2 way to a Festool Domino. Woo-hoo!)

It’s been difficult finding time to complete this project.

When you come home after work to two toddlers, a baby and an exhausted wife, it’s extremely difficult to then suggest you’d like to head out to the shop for a couple hours! “Disappearing” into the shop on weekends can be equally problematic. Nevertheless, we worked out a plan and I finally managed to make the time to get this crib done…and none to soon with Nathan now just over 3 mos. old!

I didn’t take many “in progress” shots — partially due to the time constraints, partially because while the build was “spread out,” there weren’t that many hours or steps,  and partially because being the my third crib, and second project with curved legs, there were fewer unique and interesting shots to take.

Modifications

The crib itself is based on the very popular “Heirloom Crib” plan from Wood. I’ve made a couple modifications to make it better match the dresser. These include broader, thicker end caps with a chamfer matching the dresser’s top, “cloud lifts” on the bottom of the ends, and curved “gumby” legs.

One of the firsts for me with this project was the joinery of the end caps. The purchased plans call for a double cap — the bottom piece is glued and screwed into the ends and the top is then simply glued on top of it. As I wanted this to match the dresser, I needed to do away with the bottom piece — but how to join the cap without using exposed screws? I briefly considered using screws and matching cherry plugs in the holes, but felt this would negatively impact the look. I ultimately decided to use dowels, something for various reasons I’d not done before. I purchased a $10 jig at Menards and cut matching holes for (5) 5/16″ dowels in each cap. This seemed to work quite well and I’m fairly confident will stand up over time.

Finish and Assembly

I sanded all the parts, prior to glue up, to 220. The first coat was a Watco natural Danish Oil. I then topped it with 3 light layers of Waterlox Tung-oil based sealer/finish. During assembly, I had some issues with the threaded inserts and the Cherry. I had no problem with the Maple version of this crib, but clearly these inserts are too coarse for use with Cherry. Even after enlarging the holes, they “mounded” the cherry and splintered the face somewhat as they drove, even with a caul clamped to the face around the hole. I’ll probably fix this with some sanding and new finish in a couple years before putting it in long term storage. For now, the hardware covers this issue and I couldn’t bear delaying the “rollout” any longer!

Installed

And here’s the finished crib in its natural habitat…

Hopefully he’ll sleep soundly in his new crib for at least the next 2 – 3 years!

A large knot

After some searching, I found a few references to folks filling holes like this using “Pour on” epoxy, of the type you might use to encase small chatchkis in a bar top.

A Slow Leak

On the first pour, I found myself constantly “topping off” the depression. I would fill the knot, level it off and a couple minutes later, most of it had been absorbed into the knot. By the time it cured 24 hours later, there was only a thin layer of epoxy, coating, but not filling the knot hole.

Puzzled, I decided to simply pour again. This time it filled just fine. The next day, while moving the piece, I discovered the cause: the knot hole went clear through the board and the epoxy

Pour on epoxy

was leaking out the bottom! With the first coat effectively plugging the hole, the second coat filled it nicely and easily sanded flush (something I was a bit concerned about). The effect is exactly what I had hoped for.

My Favorite Finish

I spent quite a bit of time sanding this piece — and it still probably wasn’t enough. For the finish, I had purchased a wipe-on, “low sheen” Tung Oil-based finish. The first coat on the drawers resulting in less than spectacular results. Though each row was was made from a single board, a couple adjacent drawers were a noticeably different shade. This prompted a second, more vigorous round of hand sanding (and a few choice words). This time, they took the finish much more consistently. A week later I had built up 5 coats on all parts and was ready to attach the top and call this project “done.”

Amateur

3/4 View of Completed Dresser

I thought I’d put some pics of the new baby’s older siblings on top…in theater we called this “dressing the set”…

Drawer detail

I love my “new” drum sander.

I purchased the used machine for the purpose of sanding shop-cut veneers and inlay woods. However, with a 23-1/2″ capacity, it is capable of so much more. I first cut my teeth with this thing on the side panels. Now it was time to glue up the top — and I was really looking forward to seeing what it could do with the 21″ x 64″ x 1″ thick part.

Joining the top

I started by rough cutting and gluing up two 5/4 boards. Jointing an edge on these long, tall boards was a challenge on my 6-1/8″ Ridgid jointer’s 45″ table. One of the boards had a 1/4″ bow that simply couldn’t be removed on the short table, so I pin nailed it to a sacrificial scrap of 3/8″ plywood and ran it through the table saw.

It’s a “feature”

I had hand-selected three 5/4 cherry boards, nearly 80″ long for the top from Owl Hardwoods. The first one I chose was beautiful and featured numerous streaks/pitch pockets that I just love the look of in cherry furniture. Unfortunately I was unable to find a similarly figured board in the pile. The other two I selected were nice, but didn’t match the beauty of the first…I figured I’d sort it all out in the shop. Well…the time had come and my dilemma was that the beautiful piece was a poor match for either of the others, and the other two, while a better match for each other didn’t match the beauty of the first. After much consternation, and a determination that I simply couldn’t afford to go back to the lot to find its perfect mate,  borrowing a term from software development, I decided that the mismatch should be a feature, not a bug.

I recall reading somewhere (maybe from David Marks?) that in a situation like this you should highlight the flaw…which has me now considering doing a simple inlay along the length of the joint. Perhaps in walnut and echoing the “cloud lift” (double, mirrored) from the front and side bottom apron? Or even something more “organic” (a river runs through it?).

Any opinions on that?

Dead Flat

Once the glue dried, I scraped and then planed the joint relatively flat and prepared to see how well the old Grizzly would handle the large piece. It took a bit of work just to place the machine in the room with >6′ of clearance on either side in my small shop…but in the end, I found the space. Since I was using nearly the full capacity of the sander, I was very nervous that it’d track a bit too far to either side and somehow ruin either the piece or the machine or both. While I did manage to brush up against the duct tape on one pass — resulting in the need to stop and re-secure the paper, I didn’t experience any significant issues. The front roller’s 100 grit paper loaded up enough to require replacement part way through the process, and I did notice some loading that I was unable to completely clean up on the edges, but overall this was an extremely satisfying experience with no burns or noticeable snipe and resulted in an absolutely dead flat top! Awesome!

My only issue was with the dust collection — for smaller pieces like the side panels, the collection was absolutely sufficient. However, with this piece, while there weren’t great clouds of dust or anything like that, I did wind up with a thin film of dust covering all of the shop surfaces. Prior to this, per a fellow LumberJock‘s recommendation, I had replaced the flexible hose that came with the sander with rigid PVC. I’m sure this helped, but it still couldn’t quite keep up.

After sanding, I routed a bevel around the bottom edge with a plunge router.

Winding down the build phase

Finally, I installed some small stop blocks on the dust panels behind the drawer fronts to prevent them from recessing too far into the carcass and some “tip blocks” at the top corners so the drawers won’t dip significantly when fully extended.

Next up: Inlaying the top(?) and then sanding, sanding, sanding and more sanding!

OK, so I “cheated.”

I typically assemble face frames with pocket screws. It’s simple, fast and strong enough. Since this face frame is composed of 1″ x 3/4″ members, pocket screws seemed a bit weak to me — I’d only be able to use a single screw in each member, which would allow it to “spin” somewhat. While this would be minimized greatly after gluing to the carcass, some “twist” could still occur over time. Since the drawers will feature prominently displayed through dovetails, I figured dovetailing the face frame would be both practical and design appropriate. I briefly considered bandsawing and chiseling the joinery, but with a dozen to do and the drawers looming, I couldn’t see spending the amount of time it would take me to do this entirely “by hand.” Opening up my router bit drawer, I discovered a 3/4″ dovetailing bit I seem to recall buying to produce sliding dovertails for another job. So, I “cheated” and built a quick fixture to help me knock off this part of the process.

Test Fit

Without too much fuss, the bit and fixture process yielded some very nice, tight and clean joints.

Completed and Sanded

Once the glue dried, I sanded it from 120 through 220 and propped it up for this picture. Not only do dovetails create very strong, tight joints, they’re also “self squaring” which meant I didn’t have to make any adjustments to square it up during the glue up process.

Not too tight, not too loose…

I’m not certain, but there was likely an audible sigh when I first test-fit the frame to the carcass. It fit snuggly, without any gaps on the sides and aligned flush with the dust panels. Just the “right amount” of persuasion was required to complete the pairing. The trickiest part of the whole process was the glue up. I had previously cut a continuous slot along the front of each dust panel. I referenced my plate joiner’s fence off of this slot and proceeded to cut, more or less randomly, matching biscuit slots along the back side of the horizontal members of the face frame. Even with the A/C running, it was in the mid 70′s in the shop and there wasn’t much open time on the glue — and with around 36 biscuits to glue and set in place, this was gonna be tricky and hectic. Also, since the middle dust panels weren’t open, it was a bit tricky for the clamp to find purchase on the 1/4″ ledge around the panel. In my haste I was a bit overly-generous with my glue application to a few spots resulting in greater than typical squeeze out…and a longer than typical amount of time spent wiping up the excess. There are a couple spots that will require some additional sanding, but otherwise…success.

Fresh from the clamps

A few hours later the clamps were removed and the completed case is just awaiting its drawers and top.

The Day Begins

I started the day by marking out and cutting the slots for the biscuits into the inside faces of the sides and back. Following this, I decided to “rehearse” the glue up of the main carcass — the sides, back and bottom front apron. After yesterday’s “flip” I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive about this step, but, lessons learned, I was watchful of the sides and never came close to dropping one this time. The green tape you see is there to protect the legs – I had preserved the offcuts from shaping the legs and I taped them back in place during clamping operations.

Dust Frames

My daughter has a lot of clothes. For the dressers I built for our first two children, I used simple open dust frames. I never truly understood the purpose of solid dust panels until one day, while trying to remove a sweater from my daughter’s dresser, I wound up in a tug-o-war with the dresser drawer. It seems that some clothes in the overflowing drawer had wedged themselves in the opening of the dust panel, effectively preventing the drawer from opening fully. I decided that closed panels were the way to go from now on! Since there’s no drawer below the bottom frame, I figured I could leave that one open. To build the panels, I purchased S4S dimensional poplar from HD — at $1/lf, it seemed worth it to avoid the prep time and wear on my planer knives. To simplify the assembly, I used butt joints and pocket screws to hold them together.  Since I had dadoed the full length of the frame members to accept the panels, I had to go back and fill them where the pocket screws would “bite,” but I think this was a fair trade vs. doing stopped dadoes or tenons. I also ran a thinner dado/slot on the outside of the frames to accept the biscuits from both the inside of the carcass and the face frames when they’re installed. The happiest moment was when the first (and then the second, and third) frames slid in cleanly and tightly onto the waiting biscuits.

Thankfully the corners were tight since I didn’t really have a good clamping solution for the middle one!

The completed carcass…

Next up: Walnut face frames!

Construction Begins…

In between trips to the zoo, the Children’s Museum and backyard “play dates” with the kids, I’ve logged some decent shop time on this project the past couple weekends. Last weekend I dimensioned the lumber and assembled the two cherry and walnut frame-and-panel sides. Due to a misaligned rip fence, I wound up with a mortise and stub-tenon joint that simply wouldn’t close. I decided to lop off the tenons and attach the rails to the stiles with splines instead. This worked fine, but resulted in weaker joints than I really need here. I really should have used a larger loose tenon…but more on that later.

In the midst of this work, I picked up a used Grizzly 24″ dual drum sander. I couldn’t resist running these panels through this beast. It made quick work of sanding them perfectly flat…awesome.

Curvy Legs

After cutting the mortises in the leg blanks for the sides and front and back members, it was time to cut the compound curves. This was the part I was really looking forward to! In the past, I would have done this with a template and a flush trim bit. There were two problems I saw with this approach. First off, I’m always anxious about tearout when flushing up cherry. Usually this can be avoided by rough cutting very close to the line — but nonetheless I’ve still occassionally nicked a piece this way. The other issue was a bit more serious – my largest flushing bit has a maximum capacity of 1-1/2″. Since the legs are 1-3/4″ on each side, I’d have to get a longer bit. I’m uncomfortable enough with 1-1/2″ of high-speed exposed spinning carbide. I decided to try Norm’s usual method. About six months ago I picked up the Ridgid oscillating spindle/edge sander. Ya know, the one it seems like everyone has. I really like this tool. I cut to within 1/16″ (sometimes within 1/32″) of the line and then finished the cut off with the edge sander and the standard 80 grit belt. Worked like a charm. I think the results are just beautiful.

Pass the Biscuits, Please…

With the legs cut, it was time to glue up the sides. While these “cooked,” I turned my sights to the back. I had originally planned to use a section of 1/2″ plywood panel capped top and bottom with a 4″ bottom/2-1/2″ top cherry “rail” joined with mortise and loose tenons into the back legs of the side panels. Upon further reflection, I made a very minor modification of my plans and used 3/4″ plywood instead. I did this for two reasons. When thinking through the joinery for the dust panels and final assembly of the carcass, I realized that I needed to first assemble the sides, back and front rail and add the dust panels after this sub-assembly. In the past I’ve designed joinery that required simultaneous glue up of the sides, back and dust frames — and this is simply far too much for one person to juggle. I also didn’t leave room to cut dadoes in the sides for the dust panels and didn’t want to introduce glued on supports either. I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to cut biscuit slots in the sides and back and then cut a continuous slot around the dust frames so that they could simply slide into place in the partially completed carcass. To have enough depth for the #20 biscuits, the back would need to be at least 3/4″ thick. The other reason was simply that the 1/2 ply I had was a low quality birch from HD and I happened to have a 3/4″ sheet of cherry veneer ply left over from a prior job. So this kinda just worked out.

Ouch!

While I was dry assembling one side to the back to mark out for the biscuit slots, the side slipped, did a flip and slammed onto the floor. Unfortunately, the shock split the stiles – one on the top and the other at the bottom – at the point where the spline ended. My “fix” was to install some pocket screws to help hold the split together. The dust panels should provide sufficient additional reinforcement, so I’m not terribly concerned about the longevity of the sides…however I will need to do some work on the outside to obscure the visible checks.

Tomorrow is another day

At this point I’ve got the sides completed, the cherry rails biscuited and glued to the plywood back, and the lines for the biscuit slots to hold the dust frames laid out and ready for the lamello/plate joiner/biscuit cutter/what-have-you to do its thing.

I hope to build the dust frames and assemble the carcass by the end of day tomorrow. I’ll let you know!

I love craigslist.

Around the same time I begain the planning for my new shop, I started using “igoogle” for my browser homepage. I also discovered a couple cool “craigslist” widgets for igoogle that display search results for preconfigured searches on your homepage. So, for example, if I’m considering the purchase of, say, a new dust collector, I’ll add a craigslist “dust collector” search widget to my igoogle homepage. Since I basically live online weekdays it’s unlikely I wouldn’t catch a new relevant post within, say, the first hour of it being posted. This is how I got my rather old but very competent 3HP 2100CFM dust collector for $225.

This is also how I found my latest workshop addition: A Grizzly G1066 24″ Dual Drum Sander for $400. Brand new these machines run about $1,500 delivered. Now the machine I got is not even remotely new — the copyright on the original manual (yeah, the seller had the original manual) is dated 1992 and the “Grizzly” logo is an older variety — but the insides were all there and it runs beautifully. Included with the machine were 2 new 150 grit rolls and 1 new/1 half used 100 grit roll of sandpaper. Considering these cost >$40 each, I figure I actually paid less than $300 for the actual machine. I consider this a very good deal, indeed.

Heavyweight

Finding the machine was the easy part. Since this machine weighs in at over 400lbs., getting it home and in place was a bigger challenge. I was lucky that the seller had a couple pretty big guys pickup up some other equipment a the same time as I.  The 4 of us (seller, two “big guys” and me) basically muscled the thing into the back of my minivan. I nearly passed out on the last push and am fairly certain that, were anyone looking, they’d have seen my eyes bulging out of their sockets. I’m not kidding. Fortunately, lowering it out of the van, with the help of my brother-in-law and a couple of his football-player sons turned out to be a bit easier than I’d feared…and my load-in ramp for the shop easily supported the weight. It was in!

Power

When designing the shop, I saw fit to have a total of (4) 240V circuits installed. Two 15A and two 20A. One is for the dust collector, a second for my Grizzly 17″ bandsaw. This leaves one 15 and one 20A circuit available. The 5HP motor on this monster demands 240V @25A minimum. This meant installing a new dedicated 240V/30A circuit in the shop. Since I already had the 10ga. wire on hand, the expense was minimal (some 1/2 conduit and a breaker) and in about 2 hours yesterday afternoon I installed the new line.

Test Run

Much of the comments I’ve read on drum sanders dealt with frustrations over either burning wood like cherry, or tracking issues. These left me a bit apprehensive about what I would encounter when using this tool.  I decided to track down a current owner if I could and solicit some advice. Based on some of his prior posts, it appeared that a fellow “Lumberjock” (Todd A. Clippinger)  who’s work I’ve admired (and partially ripped off) had at one time owned this exact model. Todd took the time to provide me with a weath of information that I was able to put to immediate use. (Thanks!) So, after loading up the drums, per Todd, with some new 100 (front roller) and 150 (rear roller) grit, I picked up the first >9″ (minimum length per docs) piece of scrap I had at hand — a ~6″W  x ~10″ long piece of cherry. I fired up the dust collector (a must) and then the machine and ran this piece through, cranking up the table until the piece just made contact with the drums. It was a beautiful sound and after multiple passes without any burn or apparent strain on the machine, I eyed the cherry and walnut side panels I’d recently completed for my current project.

Beautiful! A few passes and the joints were dead flush and looking gorgeous. I’m hooked!

Did I mention how I love craigslist?

UPDATE: Todd responds here with some additional helpful information and photos.