Wood working: part

Showing posts with label part. Show all posts

Monday, February 10, 2014

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.

Its Wanderful Part 7

When everything was sanded flat, I checked the bottoms on my tablesaw and joined them as necessary in order to eliminate wobble. Then it was time to sand. All four (4) wand stands were hand sanded from 80 grit to 220 grit.

As I wasn’t concerned with the walnut blotching, and shellac is a resonable blotch control in it’s own rite, I skipped the blotch control and went right to shellacing the bases.

The wands, mid-finishing.

2 coats of ½ lb and 4 coats of 1 lb clear shellac were applied, using rags. Once the shellac was dry, I buffed it with synthetic steel wool.

I had originally intended to add glue on plastic feet to the bottom of the want stands. As I played with the stands in my hands, I couldn’t bring myself to add plastic feet. Instead I decided I should make my own feet, out of brass.

Ripping the brass by hand.

I started with a ⅛” x 1½” brass bar from work. Then I used a hack saw to rip and cut it to pieces about ¾” x 2” (I say about, because I used relative dimensioning and my eye to make them, I never actually measured them). Once the were cut, I used a bastard file against the edge of my workbench to square the edges and clean the faces.

Two (2) sets of finished feet.

Then I tried to polish them using buffing wheels on a 6” bench grinder. This didn’t go so well, and after the first 3 or 4 feet I left them as the filed faces.

Ready to mix the epoxy.

I cut out for the feet using one (1) of the full blades from my dado set for an ⅛” wide, flat bottomed cerf. Unfortunately, all of the filing left the feet less then ⅛” thick. The gap was barely visible, but the fit was also less than snug. In order to secure the feet I used a two part epoxy paste. So far, it’s doing a fine job at holding the feet in. Hopefully it continues to.

The finished wand stands.

Now that the wand project is finally done, it’s finally time to again return to the shop renovation. Thankfully, I not only created four (4) nice and appreciated wand and wand stands, I also learned a bunch of new techniques and expanded my woodworking horizons along the way.

A finished want stand, armed with my wifes wand.

What have you done to push the boundaries of how you work?

Hannas thresholds Part II

Knowing that the prototype was close and making some side notes, I proceeded to glue together 2 peices of red oak. I clamped and let set up for a day...

Next came the cutting phase. Here I have cut out the top overlap section:

After triming the peices to their respective lengths and heights, I went back to my jig at the band saw. Now I can cut the face angle...

Here are the oak sills next to the maple prototype. I also made two other sill trims with roundover edges.

I took Hannas floor sample into my local Woodcraft store, and found a GREAT color match! Here are the thresholds after two coats of stain. They look awesome! The need to completely dry before I coat them with poly...

Thursday, January 23, 2014

My Cozy Shop Floor Part I The Cozy Part

My new shop floor is soft and cozy warm.

Where We Started On Friday Night.

There are many components to a great shop. One that I dont think gets quite enough credit - and one that Ive ignored until now - is the floor. Like many woodworkers with a garage shop, for years Ive simply used the original concrete as my floor. It was there and machines on wheels were able to roll on it - it worked.

As Ive finished up the odyssey that was my shop walls over the last few months Ive thought about the floor. After the work of the walls, the floor would be quick and simple - provided I could get all my crap off of it. When I realized that my kids would be away with my Dad and my Wife away with her sister on the same weekend I knew I had a chance to install the floor that I had to take advantage of.

On Friday of the big weekend, once everyone was on their way I began by moving all of the living room furniture into the dining room. Then I laid out drop cloths and began moving my shop into the living room. I brought my Cousin over and together we emptied everything out of the shop except the table saw, band saw and jointer. Then I paid him with dinner.

I dragged myself up on Saturday and got to work. Unlike many published designs for installing shop floors over masonry floors, I built mine without sleepers. To get away without the support sleepers provide, I used 60 psi extruded polystyrene (XPS) rather than the standard 20 psi. Between the high psi XPS and the diffusion the 3/4" OSB would provide to point loading of weight, I decided no sleepers would be needed. I didnt do any structural calculations, but so far the lack of sleepers hasnt been a problem.

The gap between the wall and the XPS is filled with Great Stuff

After vacuuming the floor, the first step was to lay down the XPS. I measured a relatively straight line about 1/2" off the curb at bottom of the exterior wall of my shop. I used that line to set the XPS. I filled the gap between the curb and the XPS with Great Stuff. I used Window & Door great stuff with my Pro-Gun, as I have for the entire shop renovation. The gun gives application control unachievable with the standard can and straw. The Window and Door Great Stuff is better than standard Great Stuff because it stays softer and expands less than standard Great Stuff, making installation easier.

Air sealing as I go.

The XPS I used has a rabbit around the edge. I installed it upside down so that when the sheets were laid against each other, the rabbits created a channel which I filled with M-1 caulking. This allowed me to air seal between the boards of insulation.

With the XPS down, it was time for OSB.