Woodworking

I have some mesquite slabs about 4’ long and 10 or so inches wide, with live edges. I had planned on making a narrow sofa table, but as I look at the slabs, I’m afraid they may be too narrow, especially when considering tipping hazards if little hands try to grab ahold. Any thoughts on how to make such a table with the slabs I have? Thanks.

Any one know what to do with a 10 inch Contractor Craftsman Tablesaw that keeps breaking? I have successfully broken it twice this weekend. Small parts (plastic) keep shattering. Right now the tilt lever has shattered, so it will not stay set. I know I can probable get the parts off of sears parts direct… but I feel like it will just shatter again. In a perfect world I would just trash it and get a better one, but right now the CFO has said no to that large of a purchase. Does sears buy them back to refurbish them?? Thanks in advance. And if anyone is thinking about getting this small craftsman I will highly encourage you to steer clear.

Quick post on improving the short-range working conditions in the shop: overhead fluo lights are okay but I’m getting old and need a boost when working close-in with the bandsaw or the drillpress. A smack in the forehead lead to this: I snatched one of my old spot lamps, got one of the computer drive magnets kept aside in a box, three screws, a chunka plywood, and a few minutes later I exclaimed: LET THERE BE LIGHT \m/ I like it so much that after a while I thought: F*k it, I’m gonna hack my bandsaw and DP and install fixed flexible light fittings on each one. And they happen to stock them where I work. Greatness in the workshop sometimes lies in small details. Hope it can inspire others ;)

This is my first real woodworking project, a small box for my wife for mother’s day. It is made from cupped home center maple with paduk. Miters et all were done with my new to me, and first, TS, which I picked up a couple weeks ago on the advice of a couple members of this site. I’m relatively happy with how things turned out. A couple of the splines ended up with a gap that i filled with thin slivers of maple(last pic, not sure if this was the best fix.) Finishing turned out interesting though. It is finished with 4 coats of aerosol shellac. Learned 2 lessons, each causing a complete resanding / finishing. First, THOROUGHLY remove dust before finishing. It looked like the paduk bleed into the maple. Scared the crap out of me till I noticed that it was just dust. Second, don’t get frustrated and apply so much shellac that it forms ridges all over the lid. Thanks for lookingMichael

Hi Jocks :) I’m back from the mountains, with a GREAT LOT of work done at last. We finally managed to kick mom’s dirtware out of the workshop and can now use it as it should be – to build tools on my side, and for furniture restoration on daddy’s side. Consecutively I have at last been able to start building the carcasses of the two fake cabinets for my bedroom (which will be featured in a full post this summer, check the blog for a post on the progress). So I spent the better part of the first two weeks prepping the basement with ‘pa, which involved heavy armed concrete breaking (the opening was too short for full stairs, only 1 meter long by 80 cm large) and the construction of stairs which double as shelves. Mom has accumulated a huge collection of totally useless kitchenalia, among which so many plates, glasses and dishes that we could certainly open a restaurant… so to hell they went, but I kept two compartments for my own use – one for my liquors and a hidden compartment under the two bottom stairs for all the electronics that will run the basement’s air controlling. I also managed to kick the sis outta her bedroom and have her help out with the cutting of the rather heavy pine boards for the staircase. Having watched so many NYWS episodes with her, she was really pleased to finally be able to put her hands in the dirt and cut some lumber on the table saw with big bro (and she found a lot of funny critters in the wood grain and drew over them with a pencil as you can see by the second picture ;) This was done in the outdoor garage (the shop has been completely emptied after the basement was complete) then disassembled and built back for keeps in the basement. Construction is pretty straightforward but it took me four different plans to actually get the right combination of stair depth, total length vs available height, and strength. The stairs themselves are made in blocks of two, with the grain running parallel to the ground on the side rails which double as supports for the stairs (mind you I didn’t manage to get pictures of the installed staircase for lack of space in the basement and distance for my widest angle camera lens – next time) but each one of the steps that remain open in these pictures actually have another supporting block on each side with the grain running perpendicular to the ground: I designed this thing to be rock-solid, and it certainly is, with endgrain support whereever it’s needed and long grain rails everywhere. Each pair of stairs is dadoed into the longest adjacent vertical support and screwed to the endgrain of the shorter, the rails are screwed and the joint between two steps on each pair gets the full treatment: glue, screws AND dowels into endgrain supports. This thing isn’t breaking anytime soon. The fifth picture shows the whole stuff ready to get down to the basement and be installed. I’ll shoot the finished thing in details next time this summer, time was short and I wanted things to move fast so I didn’t bring the DSLR to the basement. I was too busy taxiing granny around (93) in the wheelbarrow as you can see ;) More pictures of the construction in the blog post :)And oh, if you guys want the plans for this bulky stuff, do chime in!

As I updated my latest…well, first project – I realized how important measuring is. When I originally made the rolling worktable I did a lot of “eye-balling” and although it looks nice and functions well – if I had worked a little slower and measured a bit more accurately – it would have been easier to do the modifications I’ve just completed. I’m retraining my brain to do that thing called math (who would have thought adding fractions on the fly was so difficult – LOL). Anyway, I did take a bit more time and thankfully had only minor mishaps during my worktable overhaul.

Woodworking In America, the annual extravaganza hosted by Popular Woodworking magazine, will be held Friday through Sunday, October 18-20, 2013 in Cincinnati, Ohio (Covington, Kentucky, to be exact). I’ll be there, and I’m stoked. Here’s why: Most of all, I will meet many of my fellow woodworkers, including readers of this blog. Some I have communicated with for years and will finally meet in person. I plan to do a lot of learning (and drooling) at the booths of the toolmakers in the Marketplace section of the conference. This will be a great chance to pick the brains of the small-scale, ultra quality toolmakers that I so greatly admire. I might even have a suggestion or two to offer. The classes have first-rate presenters and useful topics. Among the many offerings, I have my eye on a carving class with Mary May, Sketch Up sessions with Bob Lang, the historical perspectives of Don Williams, and gleaning what I can from the brilliance of Silas Kopf. As if all of that is not enough, I plan to take up saw maker extraordinaire Mark Harrell of Bad Axe Toolworks on his claim that he can transform any key on my keyring into a serviceable dovetail saw in five minutes with nothing more than a 5″ extra slim saw file. Of course, Mark has said nothing of the sort, but I do know that WIA is going to be a great time, and I will gain knowledge and skills. I hope to see you there. Go to this link to register.

Here is another 14” backsaw the wife brought home from auction. It’s an S. Biggin & Sons saw from between 1852-1856 (according to the interweb) Before After I used that concoction to clean the wood posted a while ago somewhere on the site 1 part oil1 part Murphy’s oil soap2 parts wax It did a great job cleaning the handle except on the front where it looks like the saw got too close to the fire at one point. I thought about sanding it away but decided to keep the history. Here is a pic of my last two saw restos

I finally finished the bunk beds which consist of two beds that can be used separately, as well as two ends and a ladder. This project will feature in my book which is due out early next year and please check out the high speed video of the final assembly which I posted on Youtube. Click here to have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWSnBRgCxuU

I bought a rivet gun from Harbor Freight and overall it seems to work well (it got good reviews on their site: http://www.harborfreight.com/heavy-duty-17-1-2-half-inch-hand-riveter-with-collection-bottle-66422.html). I riveted some plastic from a pop bottle today to my separator trash can and the rivets came out well on the front but the back they’re a bit “mushroomy”. I was under the impression that both front and back would be nice and flat against the trash can. Am I doing something wrong or is this how rivets look on the back side? This is my first time riveting anything, ever, so please be gentle in calling me a newb :) Front: Back: