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.