Woodworking Projects and Plans: 6

For the past few years my Dad has been bugging me to join the Long Island Woodworkers Club. While I’ve not been avoiding it, it hasn’t worked out either. Their monthly meetings are on Wednesdays, the same night of the week a bunch of woodworking talking heads record their podcast. Also, while my wife has made a reluctant peace with the fact that I’ busy on Wednesday nights, the fact that I’m down in the basement recording (instead of off at a meeting) means I’m still around to help with dinner and put the kids to bed (especially on the Wednesday nights she works).

This wonderfully decorated bench welcomes visitors to the show.

Last week I finally filled out my application and gave in. I’m now a full-fledged member of the Long Island Woodworkers Club.

My first (and so far only) act as a member has been to participate in the member showcase at the 2013 Long Island Woodworkers Show. The show, held this past weekend at the Nassau County Old Bethpage Village Restoration (a poor man’s Williamsburg) was a great experience. Similar to years past the center of each aisle in the cross shaped timber framed barn the event is held in was filled with tables displaying the member’s pieces. As proud as I was to have my quilt rack, book stand and glue gun rack on display my work pales next to pieces submitted by other members. There were many outstanding pieces, such as t Frank Pace’s Music Stand, Adam Fisher’s Rocker and Daryl Rosenblatt’s Fortune No. 1 Chair.

Franks Great Music Stand.

Adams awesome rocker.

Daryls amazing Fortune No. 1.

Hey, look! Someone actually likes this idiots quilt rack.

I’ll feature photos of many great pieces at the bottom of this post. You can also check out my full album on Picasa here.

Besides the pride of displaying among such a talented group of woodworkers, the show was enjoyable for the reason any long time reader knows I’m getting to: the Community. Is there any better choice to spend a day than among woodworkers talking about woodworking? Though my conversations were brief, it was wonderful to speak with everyone about the craft we all love. Joining a local club and participating in a local event is something every woodworkers should do.

I’m hoping our every other week podcasting schedule will allow me to make some upcoming Long Island Woodworkers Club meetings. I’m certainly excited to make it when I can.

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.

Sabtu, 12 Maret 2016

Questions 6 Through 10

Last year at Woodworking in America we ran around with our recorder (twice, actually) and asked the same 5 questions of everyone we could find.Last Years Questions:

How did you get into woodworking?
Whats your favorite tool?
Who has influenced you the most?
What was your biggest stumbling block & could it have been avoided?
How has the internet influenced your work?

This year, thanks to the generous help of our members, we have a much better recording rig. Were setting up to record an episode or two of the MWA Podcast while were in Cincinnati.

The initial setup of the new rig.

Thats not to say we wont again also unleash Tom on the marketplace floor with the upgraded recorder. Since some of the fantastic woodworkers well run into are folk weve already asked the 5 questions of (at WIA last year and on the podcast since), were looking to come up with 5 more questions for WIA2013.

So far we we have two questions for this year.

What was the first woodworking project you built?
What was the last woodworking project you built?

As you can see, we need three (3) more questions. Thats where you come in. Please post the questions youd like us to ask in the comments below (or on Google+). Well go through them and add three (3).

Thanks for all the help & support. We hope itll payoff in great Woodworking in America content.

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.

Selasa, 08 Maret 2016

Ghetto WorkCenter Boom Arm Part IV The Tool Holder

As I was finishing up the boom arm for the Ghetto WorkCenter, it dawned on me that I could also hand a tool holder on it.Festool includes tool holders as part of the WorkCenter. They also sell individual ones that fit on their CT vacuums. I have one of the individual ones. Unfortunately, my CT22 is too old to fit it. I have mine set into a block of wood that I clamp to my bench and BenchMark table. My ultimate plan is to use the Festool Tool Holder as a model to make a cabinet to hold all my sanders. For now, it served as a model to make a Tool Holder to fit on my Saw Tray.

This is how it began.

I began with the same piece of ½” baltic birch Ive made the rest of the Ghetto WorkCenter out of. I began by tracing the V shape of the tool holder onto the plywood. I used a forstner bit to make the rounded bottom of the V. Then I cut out the rest on the bandsaw. My bandsaw cuts weren’t exactly straight, so I used my rasp to flatten them out.

The Vs, fresh off the bandsaw.

After smoothing the sides with a rasp.

Once the V’s were rounded over with the router, it was just a matter of attaching the cleat and spacer so I could hang it on the saw tray.

Im loving my Bosch MRC23EVSK. It has great dust collection & visibility to boot.

The cleat on the left hooks the saw tray and the spacer on the right keeps in basically plumb.

Even with the ½” plywood, it’s working great so far.

She holds like a champ.

I’m not sure if I’ll add more accessories to the Ghetto WorkCenter, but for a little bit of plywood and some cheap fasteners, it’s proving to be a great addition to the shop.

Jumat, 26 Februari 2016

Its Wanderful Part 6

To make the stands for the Harry Potter wands I began with wood from my scrap pile. I took lengths of walnut which were left over from my Sawdust Chronicles Fall Build Challenge project and thin strips of curly maple left over from my Shaker Table Guild Build.

I created the curve with my oscillating spindle sander.

I milled the walnut flat and square and ripped the maple to an equal width. Then I took the maple, and using a block of wood clamped to the base as a fence, I sanded out shallow curves on the end of each piece with a 2” diameter drum in my oscillating spindle sander.

I set the bevel angle my eye, as it only had to look good and not match any specific angle.

Next I set my table saw to about 10° and made a cut across each end of the walnut, about 1” from the end. I used my Lee Valley Stop Rule to mark down about 1” from the top of each maple piece. I used this line to reference the top surface of the walnut and glued on the maple pieces to the center walnut piece.

Since the maple had been left long on its bottom end, I needed to create a custom caul that would have space for the long maple ends while still providing a reference for the walnut ends to be glued coplanar with the walnut center piece. To do this I laid out the wand stands along a piece of Timberstrand, marked out the recesses and then removed the wood with successive cuts from my miter saw.

The wand stand on the custom caul.

Though this notched caul worked great for alignment of the center and end pieces of walnut, I wasn’t thinking when I laid out the notches and there wasn’t enough room to allow clamping of adjoining pieces. Once I covered the caul in packing tape to prevent the glue from sticking to it, I then had to clamp the stands in two (2) alternating groups.

In clamp up.

Because the walnut was cut at a 10° angle, the maple-to-walnut glue joints were essentially end grain to side grain. Though I don’t expect much abuse, I wasn’t comfortable with this joint. Luckily (it was luck as no forethought went into it), standard sized Miller Dowels were long enough that they projected about ½” passed the walnut end/maple leg section and into the walnut center. I installed one (1) Miller Dowel in each end in order to reinforce the joint.

Though I assumed the stepped design of the Miller Dowel would make their installation easy, I found that the only choice to properly seat them was to compress the entire wand stand in a parallel clamp and crush the dowels into submission. Once I figured out to use the parallel clamp, the dowels went in without much trouble.

Sanding the ends so the Miller Dowels are flush with the ends.

After leaving the dowels overnight to dry, I was able to cut off the excess dowel and the long bottom sections of the maple. The stands returned to my Ridgid orbital sander, this time with the belt set up in place of the drum. A few minutes of sanding on each stand, and the sides, ends and bottoms were left perfectly flat between the walnut, maple and dowels.

The constructed want stands go for a dry run.

To catch up on the want build (it was August of 2011), check out these posts.

Also, sorry for the blurry photos. Ill blame the crappy camera in my old Motorola Droid X.

Woodworking Projects and Plans

Rabu, 30 Maret 2016

The Long Island Woodworkers Show

Sabtu, 12 Maret 2016

Questions 6 Through 10

Selasa, 08 Maret 2016

Ghetto WorkCenter Boom Arm Part IV The Tool Holder

Jumat, 26 Februari 2016

Its Wanderful Part 6

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