Shortest Post Ever

Nice night, hanging with fellow woodworkers in Covington on the eave of Woodworking in America.

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Before getting to the OSB, I fastened the XPS panels to prevent them from shifting. I secured each of the 2 x 8 XPS panels with two (2) Tapcons into the underlying concrete floor. Thats not enough for permanent attachment, but since Id be attaching the OSB through the XPS, it only needed to be attached enough to hold still while I installed it. I started every other row of XPS with a half sheet so that though there were many joints where three (3) panels met, there were no four (4) panel joints.

The corded PC impact driver burnt out after
driving about 2 dozen Tapcons.

After the XPS, I installed the 3/4" tongue and groove OSB. I used a half sheet of OSB on every other row also to achieve the same 3 panel joints. Each sheet of OSB was fastened through the XPS into the concrete with 18 tapcons in a 4-3-4-3-4 patten, installed along the factory markings which are painted on the OSB to help identify where the framing is for typical installations. This left me with a floor fastened every 1.7’ on center. It shouldn’t be going anywhere.

Its beginning to look like a floor.

With the XPS installed to 7-1/2” from the garage door and the OSB installed to 12” from the edge of the XPS I called it a day on installing the floor. I has hoped to also make the threshold which will fit in the 7-1/2” space, but I realized too late that my planer was stuck in my living room, surrounded by the other workshop paraphernalia.

The next morning, after I picked up my new jointer, I began the long task of loading all of the tools into the shop by myself. By the time my wife got home in the early afternoon, the only thing left in the living room was my work bench.

Reloaded with the contents of my shop.

Though I still need to build the threshold and tie it into the OSB I’ve spent the few weeks since the floor was installed coloring the walls and setting the shop back up. In that time, I’ve already come to appreciate how nice working on the new floor is. When I step from the concrete at the door to the OSB I can immediately feel how firm and soft the new floor is.

Though I’m far from finished, it’s absolutely delightful to be able to reach a

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Its Never Too Late For Woodworking

Get Woodworking Week may be over, but don’t tell John.John is an 80 year old Korean war veteran who I’ve come to know because he wants to learn woodworking. While you’d be right to ask yourself why a one-eyed octogenarian who needs a walker is interested in learning a craft he currently knows nothing about, his reasoning turns out to be the same as many of us. John want’s to learn to woodwork because he needs a table for his computer and can’t find the right one commercially.John and I spent the afternoon in my shop where we discussed the basic table he plans to build and the method of building it. We went from hand cut mortise and tenons to routed floating tenons to pocket screws.

This joint is OK.

I know that while steering someone from a hand cut mortise and tenon to a pocket screw may be blasphemous to some, I was happy to do it.

This joint works too.

It’s not that I want John to be a power tool woodworker who only uses steel fasteners. It’s that I want John to be a woodworker. As he’s never built anything, I think jumping right into a table build with eight (8) hand cut mortise and tenons would be enough to turn anyone achoice in frustration. I stressed to John that as much as he’s eager to learn and practice joinery, it was also important to actually building something. The satisfaction and pride of actually building a pocket hole joined table will certainly nurture his love of woodworking more than the frustration of a table that won’t assemble because of miscut tenons.

Just be sure it ends in something like this.

I say this often because I feel it’s important. It is not about how you build something. It’s about that you do building something. Start small and simply. Let your first few projects succeed. Then, once you’ve learned the basics let your interest take you to any style of joinery method you choose.

Or like this. The important thing is to just build.

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Woodworking Bench II My Bench Now and Future

This is a guest post by Chris Adkins of High Rock Woodworking.  It originally appeared at highrockwoodworking.com.  Feel free to check back there for more of Chriss woodworking rambling.

My Current Workbench

Like many woodworkers my two-car garage is my workshop but unfortunately I have not convinced my wife to permanently give up her side.  So I have my shop bench and tools set up on one side and have to pull her car out to actually work.

Because of the space restrictions everything in my shop needs to multi task.  If I had space to designate an area just for my workbench I would really enjoy the process of building a traditional English style woodworking bench, although I would probably go with a more American style top without the tool well. 

But for now I have adapted my workbench to the few and what I consider necessities.  For my bench top I used a solid 2/0x6/8 birch door with 4”x4” steel legs held together by 1”x1” steel welded together to form the frame.

The top is mounted on the frame and I attached a birch skirt.  The steel frame is probably a bit of overkill but I wanted a solid base to ensure that I have no movement when working.  I have also installed a shoulder vice and bench dog holes. 

Shaker Style Woodworking Bench

Based on my workbench there are several things that I would do again and several that I would change.  I like the base and will probably use it again only needing to build a top when I “upgrade” my workbench.  I also like the width, you will notice most woodworking benches are narrow, I alchoices thought that I would want a wider bench but the 24” width I have now is perfect.  A wider bench would not allow me to work all around my work.

The solid core door has served me well but it does have its restrictions, I have to be extra careful as the top is a veneer and almost any liquids on the top can destroy the thin veneer. 

Tail Vice

As for change I would definitely go with a double screw shoulder vice, the single screw shoulder vice that I have does not provide even pressure when clamping on one end and I often have to use spacer blocks at the other end to even the pressure.  I would also add a tail vise as my woodworking develops I find that I spend more time jointing and planing my boards by hand.  A tail vise would allow me many more options for securing the boards and my work.  With my current top it was not feasible to install a tail vice but it is difficult to clamp long boards for planing.     

In the end I will close the same choice as I opened in part one of this series, the perfect woodworking bench is what works best for you and your situation.  If I had all the time, space, and resources I would probably have a woodworking bench that looked like something belonging to inspector gadget but for now I am happy to continue to improve on what I have and have fun doing it.

Keep on woodworking!

Chris Adkins

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The Ply Wooden Boat Part II Planning Materials

The boat they made on GardenFork.tv, which I was using as the basis for my design, was made of a single sheet of plywood. It was about 24” wide with sides about 12” high. Though Eric from GardenFork.tv is a trim guy, his narrow boat road very low in the water when he launched it as a solo passenger. As I wanted to be able to take my kids (and even other adults) in the boat with me, I decided I would need two (2) sheets of plywood.

With this as a plan, I headed straight to Lowes once we were settled in at Lake George (and I was back from the trip to Fine Woodworking Live I made immediately after arriving).

Yep, thats what a boat looks like before its put in the water.

Since the ¼” luan I used on the mock boat was awfully damn thin, and the plywood bottom would need to support me, I opted to use ?” CDX plywood. Though it was bowed and coarsely textured as most CDX is, I felt it provided me the best mix of strength, weight and cost. For the battens, I chose to switch to 2”x2”, so the tips of the screws wouldn’t poke through the ¾” thickness of the 1”x used in the mock boat. I also bought some 2”x4”, metal saw horse brackets and a small drop cloth so I could work at a comfortable height and keep the mess in check.

Ready for ripping!

In the parking lot, I had to rip down the 4’x8’ sheets of plywood before they would fit inside my truck. This being upstate New York, there was no problem woodworking in the parking lot.More (Ply)Wood Boat Posts.

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We knew Salvatore Mastrangelo at one of the many pleasant meetings we organize in the shop of our friend Daniele (left in the first pic). Salvatore is a really pleasant and exclusive person,  full of life experiences. A true professional, filled with an uncontrollable passion for everything is related to woodworking. 

He expresses with great skill most of all his outstanding artistic vein  in the art of carving. 

This time we have "forced" him to teach us some good rule to acquire the best practice in this work and, under his leadership, we have tried to do some exercise. The quality of carving tools and their sharpness are fundamental prerequisites for best results.

In this regard, it is very useful to have a sharpening stone on the bench for honing more frequently the cutting edge of most commonly used tools. In the picture it shows a concave shaped oil stone that best fits the profile of some edges.   Unfortunately the time available is never enough, but we memorized some good advice on strategies of work, the importance of a good initial design and  the respect of plans on which the various details are located, in order to obtain a perspective effect.

Finally we add a couple of pictures that illustrate the Salvatores work. I think they comment themselves. 

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When I first posted about the videos from WIA, Lee Valley had just released their first and I included it.
They have just released their second, video from the conference. This time, find out what we all made as a first project.

Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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That Giant Sucking Crushing Sound Part II

Once my metal chip bin met with crushing failure, I immediately scrapped it and set about re-building the dust collection bin. I first looked into buying a metal 55 gallon drum, but found them to be prohibitively expensive. I then found a plastic 55 gallon drum that had seen better days and was suffering from a cracked edge. As the bin was plastic I was able to simply cut off the cracked top section with my jig saw. After the cut I was left with a workable +/- 48 gallon drum with a gaping hole at its top.

rough fitting the mounted top section.

In order to mount the Dust Deputy to the plastic drum I initially thought of making a round lid out of MDF that would rest on the top of the drum and be sealed with weather stripping. In order to do this, I began flattening the cut edge of the drum. I then flattened it some more, and some more after that. Then I ran out of patience. It dawned on me that if I made a new top for the drum out of sheet goods, I could permanently mount and seal that to the drum and then cut a removable top sized to perfectly fit the mounted one. In order to make the mounted and removable tops exactly the same size I screwed them together and then cut them to size on the table saw as a single piece. Being lazy, I made the top square, rather then cut of the corners to make it a space savings octagon. I attached a lip of 3/4" baltic birch plywood scraps around the edge of the removable top to better gasket them and chamfered the inside edge of the lip to make tops easier to set on one another.

I rubbed in and let the glue on the cleats on the mounted base dry before
flipping the unit over and screwing into them. 

In order to mount the mounted top I glued and screwed cleats to the top. I used a jig saw to cut the middle of the mounted to out and then screwed the plastic drum to the cleats. I sealed the screws and the drum to the mounted top with M-1, a fantastic sealant we use at work.

The mounted top, sealed to the plastic drum.

I was at this stage in the construction when I heard that MDF was porous and might not provide an air tight top. To combat this, I sealed the top surface of the mounted top and the bottom surface of the removable top with shellac. If this doesnt prove to be enough Ill glue an EPDM gasket to the mounted top.

The completed Dust Deputy setup.

With the top mounted and air sealed (hopefully) it was quick work to install the Dust Deputy and previously built elbow assembly. I connected the CT22 and turned the knob all the choice to the rabbit. It sucked and sucked and didnt crush.

The wheels make it so much easier to move.

As a final convenience I mounted castors to the bottom and handles on the side of the plastic drum. This lets me easily move it around the shop and will hopefully let me easily empty it (though I fear its emptying frequency will be based more on weight than on capacity).
Now my shop sucks with the best of them. How does your shop suck?
That Giant Sucking (& Crushing) Sound - Part I

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Once the first two (2) bolts were in and I’d cleaned up from the first day of the tree house build, I walked the site and thought about how I would lay out the platform. As part of this process, I measured between the trees and discovered that the clearances between trees were 9’11” (too big for my intended 10’ beam) 12’6” (too big for my intended 12’ beam) and 15’7” (too big for my 16’ beam). Ungh.Initially, I thought I’d just get two 2”x8”x18’ boards and make an 18’ beam. If I did that and discarded the 10’ one I’d already made, I could shift the other two down in location and still end up with the triangle shaped platform I had in my head.

In the morning, before going out to get the 18’ boards and walked the site again, with a slightly clearer head. While an 18’ beam would allow me to make the triangle shaped platform I’d intended, as I stood there between the trees I realized that the triangle was going to be too small. If I added a post to act as a fourth tree, I could turn the triangle into a rectangle and just about double the size of the tree house platform.With this new plan, I headed to the store and picked up two (2) 2”x8”x16’ board to make a second beam for the long side and two (2) 2”x8”x10’ boards to make a second beam for the short end. I also picked up a 4”x4”x12’ post for the fourth “tree.”

Additional beams during glueup.

As soon as I got home I again glued up the joists. Then I set to work marking out and digging for the post. To my astonishment and delight, I managed to dig the 3’5” hole for the post without hitting any roots, rocks or other impediments.

The easiest hole Ive ever dug.

I tossed a few inches of gravel in the bottom of the hole to help with drainage and tossed in the post. After temporarily bracing the post level, I slowly filled the hole with dry cement. Every few inches I would tamp it down with a broom handle (on which I’d cut a flat end instead of the original rounded end) and added a bit of water with a watering can. Years ago I read somewhere that when setting posts you didn’t need to actually mix the cement, but could get achoice just watering it in place. I’ve used this method a few times now, and it seems to work fine.

The four trees for the Tree House.

With the post in place, I again thought about the beam layout and how I would frame and deck the platform. I realized that since the double 16’ beams would extend past the trees and pick up the weight of all of the joists, the double 12” beams at the end wouldn’t add anything but weight. At least I’ll be able to use two (2) of the five (5) beams I’ve made.Other Tree House posts.

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Let There Be Light Part II

When I was done with the front ring piece, I layed it on a piece of ½” Baltic Birch and traced the ring shape out. I then made a template handle out of ¼” luan plywood for the light ring. I put the template on either side of the drawn ring on the ½” Baltic Birch and drew the handles on.

My handle template.

I used a jig saw to cut out close to my marks. I then used the front ¾” ring as a guide and template routed the inside and outside circles of the back ½” ring. For the handles I clamped on the luan template and template routed them as well. Finally I routed around the handles with a ¼” round over bit and both circles for the light ring were formed. The last step was to quickly break down the tear out and rough edges with a 60 grit sanding sponge.

Using the template and a bearing guided bit to route a handle to final size.

Once both pieces had been properly milled I layed out the light sockets again. I marked the center line of each by making 12 equal marks around the outside of the circle and connecting lines across the whole thing between opposite marks. I also marked the center and the outside edge of each socket using a stop rule. I was then able to lay the sockets on the marks and with a pencil trace out where the mounting screws would go. I predrilled for the mounting screws (all the choice though, since this piece is only the light ring’s face) and then used a ¾ auger bit to drill out the centers. The ¾” holes will allow me to run the wire from the trough on the back of the face piece into each socket.

The wire holes are drilled for the 12 light sockets.

I took a measurement between the drilled out centers, and cut 11 lengths of wire and one (1) cord. Before inserting the wire lengths into the trough and holes, I stripped & prepped them. With the wires fit into the face piece (which was face down), I dropped the back piece over it, lined them up and camped them together. Then I flipped the clamped ring assembly over and screwed the two (2) pieces together with 24 1¼” course Kreg screws.

All wired up.

It was finally time to install the light sockets. As exciting at this stage may sound, it sucked. As I didn’t want to deal with excessive wire preventing the sockets from sitting properly, I kept the wires short. This worked out well for sitting the sockets, and very tedious for wiring them. Thankfully I have a Klein electrician’s screwdriver with a small post that helps bend wires.

Installing the sockets . . . and installing . . . and installing . . .

Once all 12 were wired,I attached the sockets using #8 stainless steel pan head screws (I love stainless steel screws). I started the screws with a 12v impact driver, but finished them by hand because the I didn’t want to crack the plastic light sockets.

All 12 work fine, I just need more bulbs.

Once everything was assembled, I plugged it in and ran a single bulb though all 12 sockets (I didn’t have 12 bulbs on hand). Success.With the light ring assembled, it was time to set to work on the stand.Let There Be Light: Part I

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2013 March Shop Tour

March is now upon us. And with it, another monthly shop tour.

The Ghetto WorkCenter Boom Arm built last month is now stored on the wall.

While I conceived of the monthly shop tour series as a choice of documenting the progress Im making on the shop, the March tour is unfortunately a documentation of my lack of progress since the previous tour. About the only thing I managed to do in the shop since the February tour was the preparation of 8 birdhouses which my sons Cub Scout den assembled last week.This lack of shop progress is to be expected as life often gets in the choice. What are we to do? Just keep our heads down and steal some shop time when we can. Hopefully your last month in the shop was productive.

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A Good Thing But Not The Next Best

The next best thing to attending Woodworking in America if you cant? Hardly.

Ill say it here, it is now very likely that I will miss WIA 2011. Im still hoping to go, but forces well beyond my control (also known as life) are conspiring against me. I cant complain though, because I was able to stop in breifly for WIA 2009 & and I kicked it with the cool kids all wekend long at WIA 2010.

Ill have my homework in tomorrow, Mr. Schwarz.

For anyone who hasnt been lucky enough to attend, dont let this blog post from Popular Woodworking fool you. The hand tool techniques you pick up at WIA are great, yes. And these are great DVDs to suppliment the instruction. But they are not what make the weekend great. Neither is the market place filled with its tool porn and fantastic deals.

Ahh! Woodworkers everywhere!

What makes Woodworking in America the MUST ATTEND Woodworking event of the year are the WOODWORKERS!

Marcs as entertaining in person.

The highlight of the 2 hours I spent at WIA 2009 was my meeting Tom Iovino. What made WIA 2010 one of the best weekends Ive ever had was meeting and hanging out with not just Tom, but Kyle Barton, Rob Bois, Nik Brown, Matt Gradwohl, Kari Hultman, Adam King, Allen Lindsey, Ian Mackay, Aaron Marshall, Mike Morton, Marc Spagnuolo, Steve Taylor and Matt Vanderlist (a many, many others).

Youll leave any woodworking event with great friends.

If you can’t make it to WIA, be sure to make it to a local woodworking event and meet you’re fellow woodworkers. They’re a great bunch. You’ll be glad you did.

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I Cheat At Everything

A few weekends ago I was lucky enough to attend the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event they Hosted at the 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. I was able to talk tools and woodworking with many old friends and I made some new ones too. An old friend I met there was Matt Kenney of Fine Woodworking. Matt was there for the magazine. He spent his time working behind a bench and chatting with people as they came by.

Matt chats with an attendee while cutting dovetails.

Apparently, after I left Matt was called out for Cheating by an event attendee. For, Matt had committed the infraction of using a paring guide while cleaning out the baseline of the tails he was cutting.Cheating? No. As Matt told the event attendees, “There’s no such thing as cheating in Woodworking.” He does a great job of elaborating his point in a blog entry on the Fine Woodworking site.

Caught, red handed.

Cheating? Really? I don’t get the commenter. What makes woodworking so wonderful is that there’s no right choice to do anything. From how we cut a dovetail to what joinery method we choose in the first place, there are almost as many choices to accomplish the task as there are woodworkers. I’d hate to hear what the commenter would say of my drawers, jointed with 5 mm Dominos. And yet, they somehow work wonderfully.Thankfully, it’s not just me and Matt who think this of woodworking. From Todd Clippinger sharpening his scrapers with just a file to Shannon Rogers making everything by hand there is no correlation between the method a woodworker chooses and the results. Just practice the method with care and skill, and the results will be a wonderful piece.Want to see Todd cheat? Check out how he sharpens his card scraper.

Do you folk cheat?

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With the steps and legs joined I turned my attention to the stretchers.

The legs are glued to the steps.

The stretchers are made from the 1" thick stock I milled for the steps and legs during the milling process. I began by ripping two (2) pieces to about 1¼” width.

Next I took two (2) scrap pieces and cut them to be the exact length between the sides, where the sides meet the steps. I fit these pieces between the legs at the base of the stool in order to hold them parallel (they were angled in, so the legs held the spacers under compression without clamps).

With the legs held parallel by the spacers, I used an adjustable square to mark up from the bottom evenly on both legs. I didnt go for a particular measurement. I aimed for about 1/3 of the choice up. The square ensured that the marks on both legs were even with each other. I followed the same process to mark out for the back stretcher, making it about 1½” higher (by eye) than the front stretcher.

The stretcher blanks were laid across the legs, with the bottom edge of the stretchers even with my marks. Then I marked the top of the stretcher on the legs and the inside and outside of the legs on the stretchers. I cut the stretchers to length at the outside edge of the leg marks. Then I used a bevel gauge and laid out a single tail on each end, extending from the inside leg mark to the end of the stretcher. I cut down the side of the tail with my dovetail saw, then I scored the shoulder line with a chisel and cut it with the saw too.

The "pins".

Once the tails were cut, I laid the stretchers back down in place on the legs and marked the pins (it’s really just a single negative tail, but for the sake of clarity, I’ll call it the pins). The sides of the pins were cut with my dovetail saw and I chiseled out down to the base.

Hand cutting dovetails is not an operation I do often, so their fit was gappy. It was nothing a little epoxy wouldn’t fix later.

Not the prettiest, but itll do.

As I had done with the steps and legs, I took the stretchers to the router table and rounded over the edges that I would not be able to reach once the step stool was assembled. Then I glued in the stretchers with NexaBond. Actually, I installed the front stretcher before I remembered I should have rounded it over. This left me more work to do with the rasp and resulted in the back edge not being as evenly rounded as the others. Be sure to round over your unreachable edges before assembly.

For previous Step Stool posts, click here.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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On Workbenches Part II The Clockwork Bench

So how do I plant to incorporate the lessons Ive learned from the Schwarz into my own Clockwork Workbench? They form the foundation of my approach. My bench will be a 3D clamping surface with legs flush with the edge. That is where I leave the purity of Roubo.

Bob Langs 21st Century Workbench

In terms of overall shape & form, Im basing my Clockwork Bench off of Robert Langs 21st Century Workbench. From his design Im changing the leg assembly the most, using trapped panels in addition to stretchers. This is designed to simplify the joinery, reduce the ability of the bench to rack and add mass.

Megans "Gluebo" LVL Bench.

Though the trail I’m following has been blazed by Megan Fitzpatricks LVL bench, materials are where my bench will be least conventional. At least half of the top will be of LVL construction. The second half of the top may be LVL too, or it may be Timberstrand (dimensional lumber made of OSB). My legs and stretchers will be Timberstrand, with each front-to-back leg pair housing a double panel composed of one layer each 3/4" OSB & 3/4"plywood MDF.

One of my stretcher panel assemblies, just prior to glue up.

It sounds like quite the bastard, I know. Yet Im looking forward to building and using it. I am optimistic (perhaps naively so) that it will be my penultimate workbench.Does your workbench rest on a foundation of bench philosophy or did you just find a flat surface and get to work?

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