I am Moving

I am moving at the beginning of the year to Virginia.  I have decided to change companies and move across the country.  It was a tough decision but it will be good for both my growth and for my family as well.  I will be working with some wood components but it will be mostly be plastics and sheet metal.  I am going to have to figure out the work shop.  It seems that the garages are much smaller in Virginia than in California.  I may have to reduce but I will figure that out when I get there.  I figure it will take about 6 months to figure out how the new shop will be laid out.  My shop will be still be open but my donations are going to be few this year.  I will have to find new charities to donate to.  The good news is that there appears to be a woodworking group in the area.

New Dust Collection

It has been a long time coming, but I needed to upgrade my dust collection.  It wasn’t hard to do since it was a shop vacuum that I used occasionally to clean up.  I could hook it up to most of my tools but it was a pain to do so.  Cleaning the container and filter out was also cumbersome and dusty.  It seemed easier to just sweep it up at the end.  That is what I have done since I have started. 

Inside the shop vacuum

Inside the bucket

I have been looking at several dust collections.  I don’t have the area for a stationary system or the ability to run fixed line so I settled on another shop vac.  I like that I can use it to clean out the cars and for a duct collection system.  The addition was the dust stopper that goes on a Home Depot bucket.  The idea is that the bucket collects the majority of the dust and the large particulate.  The vacuum stays pretty clean.

I have not had a lot of opportunity to use it.  I am in a finishing cycle right now.  I did hook it up to the belt sander when I was sanding blocks. It was doing a great job on collecting the dust in the bucket, so I am happy.

The one thing that I did notice is that I cannot plug the vacuum and the tool in the same circuit. The current draw is too great on a 15 amp circuit.  Good think I have two lines in the garage.  For the small shop this is has been a great addition and would recommend it.

Branding Iron

It was recommended that I purchase a branding iron to mark my work.  I have thought about it for some time and made the purchase.  I took my logo and took out the car in it.  I submitted it to a couple of online vendors that had good reviews.  One said they needed a specific vector format that I had no clue what they were talking about.  The other said they could work with the file.  I even asked about the thin lines and they said they could do it. So I went with Branding Irons Unlimited.  They were patient with me and helped me out on what I needed. 

Here are a couple of things that I learned from the experience:

·         They will send you a proof of the actual size of the brand.  If you do not like the size, go to a copier with a reducer/enlarger to find the right size.  It makes it easier on you and on them.  I thought I wanted my logo to be ¾” tall.  That made it huge.  It took a couple of tries but I found the right size

·         Do not brand finished product.  I thought I would brand everything that I had in inventory.  The finish (shellac) came off on the brand and made it more difficult to brand.  It all burned off and the branding iron is clean now.

·         There is some fiddling with the temperature.  Use lots of practice pieces.  I still screwed up several brands.  Little temperature changes seemed to also have dramatic affects.

Overall I am pleased with the purchase and like how it turns out most of the time.  When done right, the brand comes out clear.

The Built in Cabinet Install for a Friend

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine asked if I could help with replacing a lot of their cabinets due to water damage.  I agreed and the process was started.  It is good that I work for a cabinet company and run the sample shop.  That made the cabinet parts easy.  There were three parts to this project: the bathroom, built in hall cupboards, and a laundry room.

The easiest was the bathroom install.  It was a standard cabinet off the shelf.  We their current cabinet was 31” tall and I replaced it with a 33.5” tall cabinet.  So the mirror had to move up and the wall soap dispenser had to be removed.  Other than that pretty easy install.  It was nice installing some of our cabinets for firsthand experience.

The built in was all custom cabinetry. The heights and widths were fine but the depth was 20”, not standard.  This is where the sample shop came in handy.  I removed all the toe kicks from the units so I could change the height.  I also was able to cut the back side of all the cabinets to 20”.  That was the easy part of the install.  When I measured for size, I measured the back of the cut out to the floor.  The back was higher than the front.  The right side was lower than the left and the left wall was out of plumb by 3/8”.  Needless to say there was some pushing and shoving and beating until the pieces were in place.  I am also glad for fillers and moulding.  It was definitely used.

The laundry room unit was two standard kitchen bases.  Sounds easy until the dryer ductwork went behind the cabinets and the plumbing went through the cabinets.  It was a lot of cutting and at times was nerve racking.  It went in well until I installed the door and drawer next to the wall. They hit the door frame.  I had to move the entire unit over one inch.  Thank goodness for fillers.  Overall they were happy with the outcome and I was happy it was done.

Here are some lessons learned.  Tools are heavy and I don’t like carrying them around.  I am glad my son won the Triton competition because that is the most modular table saw and workbench I have (on loan from my son).  I am realizing the value of battery operated.  I could have avoided hauling around my air compressor if I had battery operated nail guns and they do exist.  If I was in the business it would be something I would be looking at.  Nothing is ever plumb or square and moulding helps out.  I am sure there are tricks that I don’t know about but the job was completed and I am glad that I was able to do it.  Not sure if I will do it again soon and it will not every become a career.

My first published piece

About a year ago I got in contact with editor of Woodworking and Crafts magazine.  The found a couple of toys that they wanted to put into their publication.  We talked about timelines, payment and requirements.  Then it began.

It started with me making each of the units that they wanted to put into the magazine.  Thank goodness for friends that allowed me to barrow their expensive camera equipment.  I would not be able to product the quality images that were required.  Even having the experience with a camera, I still had trouble getting good pictures that where the depth of field was in focus. I though setting up for a cut took time.  Setting up for the camera takes so much time.  I would need to get into some weird position to get the picture to describe the operation.

The good news is that I did not need to do a lot of the editing.  I did have to write up the procedure and a little summary of the project.  This is where they helped out a lot.  I think they looked at my summary and title and said “This will not do.”  Then started over.  This is what I had written:

The Tug Boat

The tug boat is small, but crucial in moving the larger ships in the harbor.  Its compact size makes it a simple toy which young children can enjoy.  This boat can float or be played with on any surface.  It has crevices that little fingers can hold and play with it.

The tug boat has been a simple project that I have been making for several years as a gift for baby showers.  The design came from the desire to make a simple project where different species of wood could be mixed instead of using paint to add color.  

They obviously are better at describing the project than I am.  I had to submit a sample of the project as well as the write up and pictures.  Then is was a waiting game.  I was notified a couple of months ago that I would be in the winter issue.  It was exciting to see it in print.

Family Reunion Ornament

This summer my family got together for my grandfather’s birthday.  He passed away several years ago but since it would be his 100^th birthday it was decided it would be a good reason to all get together.  The last time that we were all together was 20 years ago.  A lot has happened since then.  If my grandparents were still alive we would have had 4 generations there.  We went to a ranch in central Utah over the July 4^th weekend.  It was a lot of fun.  This blog is not meant to share about my family so the project that I did was make a Christmas ornament. 

Wherever my family goes we pick up a Christmas ornament to show where we have been.  I decided to take the front sign of the ranch and modify it to fit the family reunion.  I pasted the pattern on 1/8” plywood and started cutting.  I needed 19 and so I stacked 5 together and cut them out.  Looking back 5/8” thick plywood was a little thick for #3 blades to handle.  I ended up messing up two stacks.  It happens. 

These were not the easiest things to cut out but it was fun to create a pattern. 

Painting Toys

Painting Toys The past couple of days have been enlightening for me.  I am a very much anti painting my toys.  I don’t believe wood should be painted.  Let the natural beauty show.  Despite my encouragement to not paint the police car my son still wanted to paint it.  I cringed the entire time and showed him so proper techniques and allowed him to use a “good” brush.  I did put a stop to him adding windshield wipers.  After all my cringing and some helicopter parenting it turned out decent.  The second experience was a package I got from a member of the club.  We shared some plans and he sent me one of the plans he modified.  He added a camper to the mini.  He painted the fenders and honestly I like it.

Now I am faced with a dilemma, to paint or not to paint.  I will still use wood to add color. That is part of this year’s projects.  This year, I might include some painting days for people to paint toys for charity this year.

Build and Grow Planes

  The next set of toys in the build and grow series is the planes.  I had a lot of fun designing them.  As usual, they were a lot bigger in my mind than in real life.  They were a lot of fun to build even though they were on the smaller side.  I had to make some concessions with my design criteria.  I needed to introduce some nonstandard thicknesses.  The wings just did not look good on ¾” material so I reduced it down to 5/16” but ¼” will also work. 

There are four different planes and I will go into each one and some of the difficulties and things that I liked about them.  They all had all there difficult parts and it was fun working through them.  There are a couple of things that I did different with this design.  First was that I printed the patterns on card stock so that I could trace the patterns on the wood.  The second is that I am batching several of them out in different woods.

The Helicopter

It seems like a pretty basic design until I realized the cuts on two faces and the holes that I needed to drill.  So I marked out the pattern and the holes on the body.  Cut all the lines from both directions leaving about ¼” between the two cuts so that I do not have to tape the part back on.  After the body was cut out, I finished the cuts on the sides.

The next challenge was the small parts.  I realize quickly that there were a lot of parts that I was not comfortable cutting on the table saw or chop saw. I used the band saw a lot on these parts. I am now looking into an 1/8” blade for the band saw.  The skids on the landing platform I changed after I cut them out.  They were originally going to be doweled.  They are no longer that way.  There really was no reason to do so because it is face grain to face grain bond.  I also have widened them a little from the original design.

The Jet

This is pretty much a scroll saw and sanding operation.  There are small pieces but I liked how well it came out.  It is definitely the easiest of the planes to make.

The Bi-Plane.

This was another project where it was helpful to have the band saw around.  The only thing that I needed to keep together was the wings. I drilled the top and bottom wings strut holes taped together since I was making 12 of them.  I marked the top and bottom of each.  That face was sanded after everything was assembled.

The Prop Plane

This one was modeled after the first plane that I did.  The wings have a 5 degree tilt on them.  I was pretty confident that this plane would not be a huge problem.  I did the same thing with the multiple cuts as I did on the helicopter body.  I then cut the taper on the bottom.  When it came to putting the groove for the wings in, I had a problem.  The part was much smaller than the original design.  I needed some way to cut this groove safely.  I used a miter gauge and a sacrificial extension.  Looking back, I should have put the five degree angle on the extension.  I had a problem keeping the bottom flat because it was small and liked to rotate.  This did not give me a consistent groove depth over the part.

I liked how they turned out.  I was different using harder woods of half of them.  This is why I was grateful for the band saw.  I could do them with the scroll saw, but it would have taken a lot longer.

Build and Grow Boats

I will have to admit, these are not as exciting of a build as the planes. They were fun to build and will be just as fun to play with.  I made 12 of each of these; half were out of poplar and half other woods.  I did have to bring in 1/2" thick lumber to make the proportions look correct.

Tug Boat

This is a smaller version of the original one that I have made in the past.  I incorporated the cutout of the deck to be the top of the cabin.  Hardest part was the small pieces which I use the band saw and the sander to safely cut.

The Rescue Boat

The hardest part of this boat was the cabin.  I wanted the front to be tapered and that was easy.  The problem was cutting both the top and bottom so they had the same radius but one was flat and tapered on the top.  I think they came out and looking good.  I did screw up the color mixes on the hard woods but it turned out.

The Ferry

This is the boat where all the learning happened. The design was not all that difficult.  The waterwheel was the part that caused some thought on assembly and materials. I learned that all dowels are not the same.  I purchased a dowel that did not have all straight grain.  part of it had the grain at about a 60 degree angle.  Normally this would not create a problem, but the dowel is not supported through its length.  When putting the other side of the waterwheel on it would break the dowel.  The other problem with the dowels was the inconsistent diameter.  The thicker ones would split the waterwheel.  After all this I like the way they turned out.

The Battle Ax

A friend asked me to make a toy battle ax for her son.  I think I will stick with the toy cars and kid furniture.  Toy weapons are different and I will explain a little later. 

As with most projects I wanted to try something new.  This was going to be the handle.  I was going to try to do a para cord wrap.  The ax is pretty straight forward.  It is an oak handle that is about 1 ½” square.  The blade is two pieces of beech and measures 20” across.  I made a template of blade and cut them out.  The edge is sanded down with a ¼” flat so it is not sharp.  I took a wide board and put a dado in it the width of the narrow part of the blade and ½ the thickness.  By ripping the board in half and gluing it together I had the mortise to put the blade in.  I narrowed the handle with a spiral bit and the router.  Just a plug for Triton, I really like their router set up with the work center.  It will be sad when my son collects his winnings. 

Once I had all the parts profiled the way I wanted, I dry fitted it together.  There was one area that was a little tight.  I was removing the blade of the ax and it came out of the mortise and the corner hit my finger next to the nail.  It removed the flesh that was next to the nail.  This is worst woodworking injury that I have sustained so far.  It kind of put a damper on the rest of the day.  My wife asked if I need to go to urgent care.  My response was that there was nothing to sew back together.  It actually has been healing quickly.  It is just sensitive.

The handle was fun to do.  I think it came out ok.  I could not get the top knots to look good, but the handle I liked.  My kids saw it and wanted to hold it and I let them.  It was too heavy for my youngest.  My oldest (9 years old) swung it and I said that is enough and I will take it now.  It seriously scared me.  The ax has some heft to it.  I would liken it to a bat with a dull blade attached.  The blade will break bones before it breaks.  I did round off the corners that caused my injury but it still scared me.  When making toy weapons, I think I just make blunt weapons.

My kids now want one, and they will not get one. 

Hand Planes: Who Would Have Thought

So I have been getting more and more comfortable with hand planes and they are not as scary as I thought they were.  It actually is easier sometimes to grab the plane over sandpaper.  I am not good at flattening board and probably won’t be anytime soon.  My latest discovery is using it when doing panel glue ups.  I would take it off the saw and glue it together.  It was close enough in my opinion.  The glue would “fill-in” the saw marks.  The saw did a good job, but there was always a glue witness line.  I started using the plane to clean the saw marks off the edges in hopes to get a cleaner glue line.  The difference is very noticeable.  The joint is tighter and if the grain is straight and similar it is tough to tell were the piece are put tighter.

Refurbishing a Bench

I was given the opportunity to refurbish a bench that my son’s teacher savaged from the trash.  I was thinking that it was going to be a small bench and sanding out some scratches and sharp edges.  It looks like it was a four foot long church pew.  The ends were chewed up by a dog and the seat was pretty scratched up.  I was told that I could just sand it down.  However, it was solid oak and could be a nice bench.  I did not want to just sand it out.

I had to first take it all a part.  It was only screwed together so it wasn’t too bad.  The hardest part was taking out the dowel plugs.  Once it was taken apart the parts that I could use were sanded down. I knew that I needed to replace the seat and the two sides.  Seat was easy.  The sides would need some template work.  That proved to be a little challenging because the edges were chewed up by dogs.  I ended up using edge band to build up the edge and then making a template out of plywood. 

I am not that experienced using a template and a router.  I had the bit but I still managed to mess it up pretty badly.  Here were my two big take a ways from the mistakes:

First is that quick grips do not provide enough clamping power to hold a template in place.  The template moved and I screwed up the top portion of the bench.

Second is that I should have cut the waste closer to the line.  As the router went from end grain to edge grain it took chunks of material with it. 

This is how I fixed it.  I had to cut off the portions that were damaged and put on new pieces.  This time I cut closer to the line and added a relief cuts.  I then used a few more hand screw clamps to secure the template.  It worked much better.

This was going into a classroom so I wanted to put a lid stay on it so that it would not smash fingers.  I bought a set that was rated for 40 lbs.  I should have looked at the install for those before staining.  I underestimated the space I needed.  I had to add a spacer block to make it work.

Staining and assembly went well. I used a minwax stain and let it dry for a week.  The top coat is shellac.  When I was finishing it, there were a couple of people interested.  My wife has also expressed interest in one.

Staining and assembly went well. I used a minwax stain and let it dry for a week.  The top coat is shellac.  When I was finishing it, there were a couple of people interested.  My wife has also expressed interest in one.

Triton Router

So I was able to use the triton router for more than just some profiling.   I needed to make some sides for the bench that I am refurbishing.  This required making a template and copying it to the solid panels for the sides.  Besides the epic setup fails the router worked great.  Quick grip clamps do not have the holding strength to hold the pattern in place while routing.

I have the TRA001 3 ¼ hp model.  There is plenty of power in the router.  I was cutting 1” oak and it did not bog down.  Probably the best example of power but it is more than enough for me.  Here are some of the features that I really liked.  The soft start:  It a slow start so there was not a lot of torque twisting out of my hands at the beginning.  Single wrench bit changing:  It is always nice to only need one wrench to change the bit and I did not have to hold a button to lock the spindle.  The ease of taking it on and off the table: I have to loosen a couple of thumb screws and the router can be unlocked from the table.  It is the same with putting it back on.

Here are a couple of things that I noticed and took a little while to figure out.  The router is not intuitive to use.  The spindle locks only when the bit is fully extended which locks the spindle and the bit is able to be removed.  The depth adjustment takes a little bit of getting used to.  There is an indexing and a plunge setting that take a little bit to get used to.

I am looking forward to trying out the table and all the features of the precision fence system.