Itty Bitty Beds

I been doing an open shop at the Eliot School and this week I started building a pair of toddler beds for my two girls.

You can keep track of my progress at this Flickr set: Itty bitty beds

Tonight I milled a 10' board that was 2" thick down to 8 posts.

Update: Night 2... jointed all of the rails so that once face was flat and then ran them all through the planer, making them all equal thickness. Then I switched to starting the mortises on the posts but only got part way through and will now have to try and get the same setup on the machine next week.

Update: Night 3 and 4... finished drilling the mortises and then cut all of the tennons. I've fitted the tennons to the mortises on the footboards. Here's one dry fitted. It almost looks like a real bed!

(22:18) [/woodworking] #

First Turned Ornament

Took a wood turning class at the The Eliot School in Jamaica Plain. Here is the result, a small walnut ornament.

Now maybe I'll have the courage to actually try the lathe on my Shopsmith.

(21:49) [/woodworking] #

Zero-clearance insert and narrow rip jig

Here is my Shopsmith 10ER with a custom zero-clearance insert cut from 1/4 inch plywood. Cutting to size was straight forward, but drilling the holes for the set screws proved tricky.

I also built a jig to straddle the saw's fence that allows me to rip thin stock safely. I traced the shape of a saw handle and rounded the edges on the router table. The fit was a smidge loose so I shimmed on the inside with electrical tape. Seems good now.

(18:40) [/woodworking] #

Shopsmith Lathe Info

So I recently acquired my very own Shopsmith 10ER. It's a super cool multi-tool from the early 1950's that can be used as a table saw, drill press, horizontal boring machine, disk sander and lathe.

I'm very interested in trying out the lathe but a ittle hesitant to jump right in as I haven't used a lathe since high shool (and really have no memory other than I made a clock).

I've joined the SS10ER user group and trolled around looking for some helpful links. Here's what I found...

First is exactly my question:

Hi, I'm wanting to try the lathe option of my er-10. I would like to try spindle turning but don't know which fittings go on the tailstock or headstock or if I even have them. Unfortunatly, my father, who gave me his er-10 passed on a dozen years ago so he's not here to ask. How would I identify the fittings and if I don't have them, how might I obtain them? Thanks so much and please excuse my ignorance.

Which elicited this response:

Lets start with a link

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_lathecenters.htm

This should take you to Shopsmith WEB page with Lathe parts. If not go to The Shopsmith home page and select Accessory and Parts catalog - Then - Master accessory - Then - Lathe Accessories - and - Lathe Accessories.

Item A in the pic is attached to the spindle of the ER. This item is available from Shopsmith. Sears used to sell then although I dont believe they do any more.

Item B goes in the Tail Stock.

A pic of the tail stock is here in this group http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/photos/view/24b7?b=2 The one on the left is probably what you have. The center fits into the bolt with a hole in it. It is a tapered hole. It is a common taper for lathes called a Morse taper #2. You can get centers to fit this taper from any lathe supplier.

Item C does the same as Item B but has a bearing in it to spin with the work. This prevents burning of the work. Either B or C will do. Again available from most lathe suppliers.

Item D you dont need right now come back to it later.

In the photos section of this group we will find some important pictures

This first one is the tool rest. It mounts in the carriage and is used to position the cutting tool. http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/photos/browse/9d42 A pic of it installed with a chuck mounted http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shopsmith10ERusers/photos/view/cc51?b=2

This link shows a pic of the basic set of Chisels. There are MANY styles of these and they are available from many places. http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_lathechisels.htm

You can get most of these items from any wood working supply

Grizzly is just one http://grizzlyindustrial.com/

Item H3404 is the ball bearing live center Search for Lathe Chisels for some of their options.

That should at least get you started on the hunt :)

and this:

Great job of explaining the parts and their functions. I'd add just one additional item: Aligning the drive center(headstock) and the live/dead center (tailstock). This is accomplished by sliding the headstock (with drive center mounted on the spindle)to within an inch of the dead/live center mounted in the tailstock. Then extending the quill forward so that the two points of the drive center and dead/live center just touch. If everything is aligned, then the two tips will meet. If they are not aligned, then the floating center (large nut) can be lossened and moved around to align the two tips. Then retighten the large nut.

Later I ran into a pointer to The American Association of Woodturners and from there I found my local chapter the Revolutionary Turners.

And here is a long thread where I found this:

CAUTION: the holding power of a chuck system can exceed practical use (swing) of the 10E/ER spindle - especially is you extend the quill. I still turn between centers (for larger pieces) until a piece is rounded and vibration is reduced, before using just the chuck.

Duly noted.

Also in this post reviewing the Artisan chuck, there was a link to the Penn State page where they sell the 1" X 8 TPI adapter for the SS.

And finally this post on sharpening

This is only looking back until May 4th 2006. I'm sure there is more good stuff to find.
(21:33) [/woodworking] #

Stenciling The New Baby's Room

Painted the nursery for my second daughter this weekend (first daughter pictured). 3 walls are green and one white with polka dots. The idea was inspired by this picture.

The stenciling was done with acetate film taped to the wall. I'd cut 5 stencils (3 little and 2 big) and reused them for each color. This worked OK, but the paint drying on the acetate ended up stretching it so that subsequent colors were harder to keep the edges from bleeding. I'd bought some temporary spray adhesive but unfortunately it didn't seem to work on the acetate.

For paint I used the green from the other walls plus 3 of those little color samples they sell at the hardware store.

(20:32) [/woodworking] #

Credenza: Adventrues in wood finishing

This weekend I built a credenza. It is a adaptation on the Cubby Credenza in Handmade Modern. The main difference is that I couldn't bring myself to nail and screw through exposed faces. Instead I used pocket holes from underside the shelves and only glue to attach the top. (The plans called for 8 finish nails to be driven through the top into the uprights. I just couldn't do it!)

Another difference was that I didn't bother putting a back on it. This was half because I liked the look and half because I didn't have a suitable piece of wood to do it with.

The project started by creating the drawing of cuts to make in a full sized sheet of plywood using SketchUp. I chose a maple veneer from Boulter Plywood in Somerville. For $3 labor they made all the main vertical cuts in this diagram. This saved me immensely over trying to get the whole sheet home and then deal with cutting it in my meager shop.

Even with the cutting done at Boulter, I still had larger cuts to make than I can achieve with my puny table saw. So that meant using the circular saw. First I picked up a new blade specifically designed for cutting plywood. It had tiny teeth and cut a kerf maybe 1/8" wide. I also used this handy hint to support the plywood while cutting. This woorked much much better than my previous technique of letting the cut off piece fall onto a waded up blanket! Here is a picture of the jig just after making a cut:

To finish cutting, I used the table saw for the small pieces (pink in the diagram) and excess from some of the others.

Next came the edge banding. I'd bought a 50' roll of pre-glued iron on maple from Boulter and a trimmer from Rockler in Cambridge. It took some time to get the hang of just how much heat to use but it came out pretty good. (had to glue down a couple ends later on)

Right about now I was thinking I was making progress and with a little bit of time applying stain and what-not I'd be getting right to assembly. That turned out to be wishful thinking.

First I had to apply a washcoat to partially seal the wood in order to prevent blotching. While at Rockler I'd picked up a copy of Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner which Woody from Rockler said was the practically the bible on wood finishing. This turned out to be a good purchase because it does a great time explaining what all the finishing options really mean. This included the advice not to believe the labling on the washcoating that you can apply the stain in 2 hours. I ended up giving it 8 and the results seemed good. (although I didn't do a test piece in 2 hours to compare)

In any event, this meant that the staining took much longer than I'd intended. Because of this I didn't want to wait before staining the backs of the upright panels. I ended up "tenting" them so that I could stain both sides and still let the dry. Clumsy, but effective.

Once the stain was dry I finally got to assembling. The biggest challenge here was attaching the top using only wood glue. I ended up attaching the legs first and then using the bar clamps as shown in the following picture.

The doors were attached using piano hinge and magnetic push latches from Rockler. (no handles needed).

Tasks remaining include appling a little more stain to the center drawer and painting the white feet black.

(21:27) [/woodworking] #

Sketchup Hints

Some simple things that have made my sketching much more productive. These are really simple, but some took me a while to figrue out...

• Click and then move. There is hardly any reason to click-drag.
• For creating models where you care about dimensions, you can type in precise lengths after drawing something. For example, make a rectangle on the intended plane. Then type 14", 1' 6" for 14 inches by a foot and a half. This works for all sorts of things, lines, tape measure, moving things, you name it.
• You can make multiple copies via the Move tool. Make the first copy to the desired spacing and type 3x for 3 copies.
• Groups/components are your friends. They prevent other geometries from sticking to them and with components, you can make the change once and it will be refelcted in all instances.
• Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Then define some for yourself. I've added:
  • Ctrl-E - Edit/Construction Geometry/Erase All
  • Ctrl-G - Edit/Group
  • X - View/X-ray

(22:31) [/woodworking] #

CD Shelf

My latest obession is the free version of SketchUp and today I used it to design a simple CD shelf. For materials, I had a 5' long 6"x1" piece of red oak which at a nominal 5 1/2" wide just happens to match up perfectly with the size of a CD jewlcase.

First I used SketchUp to play with how I wanted the shelf to look. Because the CDs aren't going to weigh very much I decided to simply attach two end pieces to the shelf with dados and hang them using keyhole cuts in the ends. Here is the final visualization:

And a detailed view of one end piece, with dimensions:

To build the actual shelf, the first thing I did was mark up the cut lines on one of the end pieces. The mechanical pencil lines were hard to see, so I enhanced them in this picture:

The first cut was the 3/8" deep dado. The dado comes first because I need the long board to be able to use this handy dado jig I made a while ago:

Now I moved over to my (super handy) Makita sliding compound miter saw to cut the end piece to length and make the 15-degree angled cut:

And just like the first end piece is finished (minus the keyhole):

The opposite end is the same except the dado needs to be cut on the opposite face.

This was the first time I tried to cut a keyhole using my router and I was a bit unsure of how to set up for the cut. I ended up clamping stop blocks on my mini router table as shown. Connecting those two blocks with a third across their face probably would have made things easier. But it worked:

With the cutting done I glued and clamped the ends to the shelf:

To finish the shelf I gave it a coat of stain, and that's where I ran into a bit of trouble. I'd gone a little heavy on the glue and where some of the spill had been didn't take the stain. I'll have to figure out how to avoid that problem in the future... Hopefully it isn't too noticeable:

If you'd like to see the model in SketchUp, you can download it from the 3D Warehouse.
(22:10) [/woodworking] #

The Patio

So we saw these Platta decking tiles at Ikea

and said "what the heck." Just laying them out on the ground didn't feel all that satisfactory. A frame of some sort was called for. I picked up a bunch of pressure treated 1x2 strips and cut to size. Then came the drudgery, cutting notches in each strip so they can all fit together and make a flat, square frame. With a new mortising bit in the router and a jig I built previously things went about as fast as could be expected. The jig:

The frame being glued up:

One problem I ran into was that my frame had supports under the centers of each tile. This left a little too much spring at the corners when walking on them. To solve this I cut short cleats to put under the corners and serve as feet. After drilling pilot holes and screwing to the frame with 2" decking screws, here's what it looks like:

And one more in a real life setting:

(20:24) [/woodworking] #

Bookcase: Assembly complete

I've been spending some of my time off from work building a bookcase and just finished the assembly:

Click through to the picture on flickr for more photos of the construction. Now to prime and paint...

(11:35) [/woodworking] #