The Belly Trailer

So I was sick over the weekend which gave me time to assemble the toys I put finish on.  This is the belly trailer that goes with the semi truck cab plan. 

It is amazing what I learned as I built the trailer.  Things look like they will work great in the 3D design but when the actual parts come together there were problems that I did not think about.
First was the holder for the doors.  In the design the piece with the groove had plenty of glue bond to support the constant opening and closing of the doors.  When I made the part, I realized there was no way this part was going to hold up.  The easy fix was to add small support pieces to the edges to allow more glue bond and add the needed support.

 The doors have two dowels to hold the doors in the groove so a parent doesn't have to continually put the doors back in when a child pulls them out.  These have to be put in after it is finished.  I didn't think that it was going to be a huge deal until I tried.  There is not enough room in the trailer to accommodate a hand to hold the peg and a hammer.  The solution is simple enough.  If the edge of the dowel is rounded it can be pushed in enough to hold it in place while it can be set with in with a hammer using a small piece of 3/8" dowel as an extension.

Fun little project and made me do a couple of angle cuts that I do not like to do.  My favorite part of this project was figuring out the design.

A Hot Day

Summer finally arrived in Southern California.  I think we were having a little bit of everyone's summer.  We had cool weather and then monsoon weather and now we have the heat and the fires.  Not the best weather to prep, cut and then glue wood in the changing weather.  I am working on several projects.  I have a grader and dump truck which I will put up for sale.  These are to confirm the drawing changes I made from the prototype.  I also have a belly trailer for the semi truck I just made and a front end loader.  These are the new designs that I am working on.  I think I got a little too confident in my abilities and made some decent design errors in the front end loader. 
The first main mistake was making the shovel walls too thin.  The concept was good but the execution was very flawed.  When sanding it smooth I sanded through some of my alignment holes.  The alignment holes were also close enough to the edge that it weakened the part when I drilled them.
This leads me to the second error.  All the parts were made out of 1 1/2" thick lumber. I thought the 1/8" drill bit would not walk on me when going through.  This was an incorrect assumption.  This caused a lot of grief.  It was also a pain to cut out on the scroll saw.  I admit, I was probably using the wrong blade. but a #7 should not have had a problem cutting the part out.  Well the blade did not cut straight.  No problem, that is why I have a sander.
Third problem was not checking the parts before gluing them together.  Yes I did a dry fit.  I have two parts that are close in size and important difference is the hole is a different size by a 1/32" for an fixed and movable joint.  I mixed them up.  It will not affect the end result, just a little inconvenience.  So I have made changes to the drawings and will see how the changes work.

Saturday was also the day that I really felt the heat in the garage.  It was tough doing glue ups.  It felt I like my open time for the glue was less than a minute until it skinned over.  That is not a lot if time to spread it and put the pieces together. 
All in all it was a productive day.  I hope to finish a lot of these projects labor day weekend.

On a sad note, my 4" belt sander died.  I think it will cost more in parts and shipping than to buy a new one.  It served me well.  I was hoping for a little bit longer until I upgraded to a 6" belt sander.  The motor was out of balance, some of the welds have broken, and in a final act of defiance it shredded it's drive belt.  So I ma in the market for a new belt sander.

My Table Saw and a Rant on Sawstop

In my last post I alluded to my saw no longer being parallel to the rip fence.  So this past weekend I did some scroll saw work that I needed to complete and worked on my table saw.  I have to admit the fix was not easy to figure out.  I first looked at the blade being parallel to the miter slot.  It was off by about .05".  Not a lot but since I had the equipment set up I fixed it to .01".  This actually made the blade to the rip fence worse. I was out of adjustment on the fence by over an 1/8".  One of the best things I have learned, is the best reference on tools are the instruction manuals.  So I pulled it out and looked.  It said if I had run out of adjustment on fence to take it to a certified repair shop.  So my thought was if I was going to have to replace it then I might as well try and fix it.  I have DeWalt contractors table saw with a rack and pinion fence system.  I figured I had jumped a tooth so I loosened a couple of bolts moved over one tooth.  This gave me enough adjustment to fix the fence.  It was surprising how easy it was to jump the tooth.  So I really tightened everything down.  The table saw was one of the first tool purchases I made so it is over 15 years old and I have adjusted it once.  It is still making saw dust.
The goal, one of these days, is to upgrade to a cabinet saw.  I would like to have the flesh detection technology.  I still have all my fingers and have had no major injuries with a table saw, but this is just an added layer of protection.  That being said, I have looked at SawStop table saws and their technology.  When they came out, I was skeptical. When a person won a lot of money for being injured because he was misusing a table saw, I was pissed.  It all came down to the fact that his saw did not have the flesh detecting technology on it.  This was before the contractor's saw was even out on the market.  Bosch, just recently, advertized that they would be releasing a contractor's saw with flesh detection technology that will not destroy the blade.  I was excited, finally, SawStop had some competition and hopefully bring down the cost and stimulate the development in other tools.  Making this technology more accessible to the general public.  It now just came out SawStop is suing Bosch for patent infringement.
I have to admit, the flesh detection technology has saved many from serious injury.  I work in a large scale cabinet shop in the sample shop.  Although my team has not dropped a blade, I know of several injuries that were avoided within the company.  I have no problems with the technology, I have a problem with the method to which SawStop is forcing themselves into law.  They have tried to get legislation and laws passed.  To my knowledge they are stalled in bureaucratic discussions indefinably.  I also have a problem that thousands of people get injured on table saws for doing stupid things are suing for millions.  I am a firm believer that one needs to know how to properly use the equipment they use.  I have a problem that SawStop is going unchallenged in development and marketing.  These saws are still outside the budget of a DYI'er.  I also believe they missed their biggest market, large manufacturer.
In my sample shop I have two table saws, one a SawStop, mandated by OSHA, and the other is a panel saw.  I feel the panel saw is much more dangerous than the cabinet saw.  It is much easier to get you hand near the blade and the pieces being cut are much larger.  There is no flesh detection technology available on these saws yet.  I have to get rid of the panel saw and get something that has this technology for the sample shop.  Thankfully, a company just licensed the technology and will selling a panel saw in the fall.
So what is my opinion on SawStop suing Bosch, I hope Bosch wins.  I want to see competition in the market.  SawStop has had a good run and now they need a little pressure to improve and drive costs down.  I have nothing against the products of SawStop.  I am actually considering them when I upgrade my saw, however I would like to see some other options.  This is one of the places were I think the patent has suppressed technology and slowed the development of this technology in the woodworking arena.

Sanding Table

I have been wanting to build a cabinet for my belt sanders that would hold all the toy making parts, wheels, axles, and other things as well as my sanding supplies.  These parts were stored in several cabinets and on shelves.  I had separated the toy parts with containers and it worked but was not really happy with it.  So over the holiday weekend I put this cabinet all together.  I had cut out all the carcass components and made the frames the weekend before.

I had two storage goals that I wanted to accomplish with this cart.  The first was to store all the sand paper.  My belts and paper were just sitting on shelves. I wanted to hang my belts, keep the paper flat and my drum sanders out of reach of my kids.  They liked to take them and use them as wheels.  I made a pull out drawer where I can hang my large belts.  In the future, I would like to upgrade to a 6" x 48" wide belt, so this drawer can accommodate the increase in width and length.  On the other side of the drawer holds some of my small templates and all my drum sander parts.  This way I hope to keep better control of the parts.  I then have pads and smaller belts in a drawer

The second goal was to organize and store all the parts for making toys.  I have accumulated a lot over the years.You can sort of tell that I like the treaded wheels and have a lot of them.  It is also apparent that I need to order more of the 1 1/2" wheels.  This is one of the benefits of having everything separated out.

The other benefit was getting rid of all these extra containers.

There are some drawers that I did not show.  They contain my finishing chemicals and supplies.  They were not in an area easily accessable to my kids but I did want them out of sight.
 
Over all I removed three pieces of furniture with this cart.  Shop looks a little better, still a ways to go.

The design was a work in process over the course of the build and I made some assumptions that bit me later in the build.  The dimensions and over all look was pretty set.  The first big assumption I made was that I had enough tolerance to grow my partition back 3/4" for my small drawers.  I had to cut my large drawers to accommodate the partition.  More of a pain than a problem.  Second problem was that I did not allow enough room for the glides on the sanding belt drawer.  I was able to barely squeeze the drawer in.  I think I have less than a 1/32" between the bottom and the glides. 

I do plan on adding doors to finish it off.  I did not have wide enough stock to do them at the time.  I do not plan on finishing it.  I really do not see the point of finishing shop furniture.   The top is a kitchen island top from work.  This is one of the perks of working at a cabinet shop.  It is not food grade so could not be sold.  Everything else is maple and plywood.

It was a good weekend build.  The only bad part was that I started to notice that the board would drift when ripping on my table saw.  The problem was easy to diagnose, my fence and blade are not parallel.  It is a relatively easy adjustment except there is no more adjustment in the fence which means the motor is moving on the table.  I was hoping for a few more years before my saw needed to be replaced and replace it with a cabinet saw.  I am hoping to dig in this weekend to straighten it out. 

Glass Nativity

I have done a few of these over the years (actually six).  These will be the last.  They are not as difficult as they were time consuming.  There was also a lot of take away lessons from doing glass etchings.

My dad did the original and several others for other people several years back.  I wanted one about ten years ago.  He had lost the pattern so with a light and paper I copied it.  His was done on tinted glass.  I was told that tinted glass made the etchings look better and the image stand out.  So I went and picked up my glass, etching solution and contact paper.  First lesson: NEVER use easy remove contact paper.  The etching solution lifted the contact paper and I was left with a completely etched glass.  That alone should have been enough to deter me but I had more etching solution left, so I tried it on a much cheaper mirror with the correct contact paper and it worked.  I made two this time because I cut down a full length mirror from Walmart.  I have one and the other is at my in-laws. 
A few years back the one my father did at my parents home broke.  I decided to replace it with a framed mirror one.  Put the contact paper and made all the cut outs and then let it sit.  I found it last year and finished it.  Lesson two: The longer contact paper sits on a surface the more adhesive sticks to the surface.  I think I peeled off pure vinyl and all the adhesive stuck to the mirror.  I used a quart of goof off to remove all the adhesive.  It was given as a Christmas present last year to my parents. My siblings all wanted one.
I had enough etching cream for three more.  I was not going  to buy any more because the stuff is expensive and I really do not like working with glass.  So learning from past experiences I used the contact paper I had left over and did three more in about two weeks.  Lesson Three: As contact paper gets older, the adhesive does not stick well to the vinyl.  This is a little different than lesson two.  As I was cutting out the contact paper for the etched sections not all the glue came off with the vinyl.  leaving a little bit of residue.  I cleaned most of this residue up.  The etching solution did not etch the mirror where there was glue left.  Most of these are small little dots, so to appear to be beauty marks of a handmade piece. 
I also made all the frames for these nativities.  These are beech, stained ebony with a coat of shellac.  The frames came out nice even though I hate to make miter stuff.  I only had one of the three frames be a problem.  So in conclusion, lesson learned:  No more glass etchings.

Tower of Blocks

This was a fun little weekend project that took me a couple of weeks to do.  I actually finished the blocks several months ago but decided I needed a carrying case for them.  So that is what I did last week. 

My kids are more interested in knocking the tower down then building a tower.  The blocks are made out of poplar and the box is cherry.  Simple build and did not take that long.  It was also a good way to use the rest of the Shellac that I had before it went bad.

No truck, not a huge problem

Wood Talk recently did a podcast on how they personally get lumber to their workshops.  Surprisingly, only one had a truck.  I thought it was fitting in what I was trying to figure out.  A couple of years ago I needed to trade in my truck for a minivan.  Our family has been growing and I needed a little more economical car for my day job commute.  So my wife got the minivan and I got her car.  We did not get the minivan that could fit a sheet of ply.  So the question comes up how do I do it.  I did not have to figure out that question until recently.  I just received and order for more tiles, which requires a sheet of MDF.  So I figured I would hope that the lumber yard would be able to cut it down for me, but I had a backup plan if they could not.  I "borrowed" my father's cordless circular saw and brought it with me with some clamps.  (I don't think my dad realizes it is missing yet.)  The lumber yard did not have the ability to cut down the sheets so with a straight edge and the circular saw the board was knocked down to a more manageable pieces.  The lumberyard was happy to provide some assistance and it seemed like this was not the first time a customer has asked to do this.  My dad might get is saw back one of these days.  The only suggestion I have is to bring an extra battery.  They saw does no good with a dead battery.
Now onto the joys of MDF.  I do not typically use MDF in my projects because they are toys.  However MDF is stable, flat and consistent.  My biggest issue working with MDF is the dust that it produces.  I take all the precautions I can when machining it.  My shop vac is hooked up to the saw and running, I have a respirator on and plenty of ventilation.  Still everything was coated in a layer of dust and I was just cutting the parts out.  I think when I do the routing I will do it outside.  It is very messy to work with.