I tried the “Espresso” crap and what a load of poo that was. I told her that I would rather masterbate with a cheese grater than cover this oak with that! And she agreed lol so this is the result.

It’s not the best changing table in the world but it’s solid and and should last quite a while I hope. Thanks for following along!

I did lose a chisel in the process.. Not sure if this is normal but I wasn;t doing anything abusive except chiseling out a small mortise through red oak with opposing grain…..

I guess I will be needing a grinder soon.

Also .. Who needs some 50” clamps? This guy.. had to get creative with the end pieces.

Annnd here are the rest of tonight’s pics. On deck for tomorrow is the back stretcher with will probably be a lap joint since my chisels are out for the count now. The install the backer board and a couple shelves then a few coats of “Espresso” Poly Shade (the wife wanted that so that’s what it gets) so it will match the crib.

I also wanted to address the comments about never using the changing table for changing diapers. I know this… you know this but I have a 9 month pregnant wife who is going to be induced a week and a half early who is really upset about the lack of furniture for the baby in his room. So if she wants a diaper station.. I can try and build one. We haven’t had a shower for the baby because we are located on a Navy base in the PNW and all of our family lives in Texas. They are too cheap to fly out and see us or even get anything from the registry so everything we have for him we have had to buy ourselves and money is tight. This is the least I can do for her.

Now back to the build.

The sides are my first time cutting joinery like this but I am having fun and learning things along the way. I just cut a dado and chiseled it out to fit the side stretchers in. Glued them in and doweled them. Pretty sure the dowels are over kill but I want it to be a bit more sturdy than the crap from Wallyworld.

Still pretty much making it up as I go along but I think I can get this at least ready to have some finish applied by tonight or early tomorrow after work. I basically have the rest of today, half of tomorrow and all of Saturday to finish so it’s basically a flurry of sawdust in the shop right now lol.

Here are todays batch of pics…

I was at HD this morning picking up a small piece of plywood to fix a glider footstool with and I saw in their bargain bin some “Espresso” particle board shelves which are the same color as our crib and this gave me some ideas. I grabbed 5 of those and some culled lumber and today it will somehow become a changing table that will hold us over till the radio cabinet conversion is finished.

So here is what I have to work with plus a few cut offs from my work in progress workbench build… lets see what we can build from this… Total spent on lumber.. $30.

Any ideas? This has to get done in the next couple of days..

Just a quick update this morning. I had planned on keeping this update till I was finished but I couldn’t help myself. I just finished rough cutting the legs and I am pretty excited to say the least. It is a HUGE relief to have that part behind me because all that is left is a lot of rasping, filing and sanding to get the final shapes done and the “Possible Catastrophic Failure” meter is very low from this point on. However the shaping will have to wait till after I get back from the families house for Moms day stuff.

I was originally planning to just scan and print the design I drew up last night and use the 2 as templates but for whatever reason my scanner is refusing to scan. I then broke out the pattern makers tracing paper from the wifes sewing kit and traced the design onto another piece of paper and then went back over that with pencil.

Then it was just a matter of cutting them out and adhere them to the legs using spray adhesive.

After a few tense minutes at the band saw I now have 2 “close enough for government work” symmetrical legs ready for final shaping :D Thinking back I should have done a pre assembly before cutting just to double check that no integral parts would be lost in the design but a quick after assembly proved that nothing was lost and all functions wonderfully so I got lucky.

There you have it. I am probably about a day away from finishing at this point. The next update will be a Project post so stay tuned for that!

Thanks for following along on this silly little build of something that could be purchased for less than $10 but… where is the fun in that?

All the pieces laid out with epoxy curing on the pins..

So today was filled with frustration and epoxy and a lot of brass dust. It started with cleaning up the mortise that the arc goes through and embedding the head of a copper rivet into the back wall to keep the arc centered and give it some backing when the set screw is tightened. That was an exercise in patience trying to position it and get it epoxied into place without disturbing it’s careful placement. That mortise is barely wider then the brass is thick and was a PITA to cut. I was a little bit worried that it just wasn’t going to happen but a lot of drilling and scraping with a box cutter I was finally able to get a small scroll blade with one end cut off and the other end secured in a vise through it to finish it up. Then I squeezed a mini flat file through it and used it like a saw to get it an even width. After that I drilled a 1/4” hole 1/3rd of the way through the other side to allow the threaded rod on the arc to sink into that leg when closed.

Then drilled the hole for the threaded end of the arc in the other leg and counter sunk that on the inside for the spring to rest in.

OH and THE SPRING! This morning after I finished polishing up the brass arc and getting the mortise cut I was working out a spring of some sort to push on the arc for fine adjustment. I was testing out different metals I had laying around and was ready to settle on a strip of bent brass. I was holding it in place and squeezing the legs closed to test it’s springyness when I heard a POP! Oh man I was afraid to look. I just knew that I had popped a hinge which would have meant starting over from scratch. After gathering up the courage to have a look I was relieved to see that it was not the hinge that popped but the glue joint holding the hinge into the hub I have the legs attached to.. PHEW! When I had glued those up I used the red original Titebond because of its fast tack time (no real way to clamp those) and it doesn’t have the strength of Titebond III. So this time I re-glued it with III and I am now more confident than ever of the durability of the actual hinge portion of these.

After that I scrapped the metal strip idea and started scrounging through boxes of bits and parts for an actual spring that would work. I needed to be able to get 1/4” threaded rod through the middle of it easily in order fo rit to work and it needed just enough give to push but not so much that it will break the hinge joint again (lesson learned). I was about to give up when I found my stash of guitar pickup tension springs. They are tapered and the small end was just a bit too small to fit but a bit of finessing with a pair of needle nose pliers got them opened up enough to work.

Now all that was left was to make the pins and determine the angle for them to be installed in so that the tips would touch when fully closed. Some time spent with a tracing, a triangle and a protractor I had it all laid out and ready to be transferred to the legs for drilling. I did my best to get them exactly symmetrical and they are a smidge off from one another but they touch and that’s what matters. I am probably the only one who would notice such a thing but I see the flaws in just about everything I make lol.

I cut two lengths of 1/4” brass rod and chucked them into my hand drill and then chucked a large sanding disk onto my drill press and when to town sharpening them to a point. It was trickier than I thought it would be getting the taper the same on both but again…. an exercise in patience…

I think I have rambled on enough for this update. All I have left to do is determine how I want the legs to look and get started making them look that way then apply a finish. However as they sit now they could very well function as intended with no further modifications so I am pretty stocked about that! If you have any ideas for the leg taper please share them. I’d like to do a bit more than just taper them.. hope that makes sense..

They have a final capacity of a little over 5”. More than enough for dovetailing I think.

EDIT

After posting this I sat down and started working on the leg design. Here is what I came up with. Please let me know what you think..

From what I can tell the hardest part is behind me and now it is just a matter of shaping and fitting the adjuster arc to the legs.

I also got the fine tuning nut built up and tapped. I still need to make an adjusting screw for the arc but that won’t take very long.

Today at the OB appointment we were told that we will be induced on the 20th so only a week left to get this and my tools swap project done before baby arrives… I’VE GOT WORK TO DO!

So enough of my blabbing here are some updated pics of todays progress.

Mortises came out much tighter than I thought they would.. quite pleased with myself :-)

Stay tuned for more..

I got the legs rough cut and ready to be mortised into the hinge. I also got the brass curve cut. The geometry of that thing is a bit confusing but I think once the legs are shaped and the mortise is in place for that to go through it will make more sense. Right now the curve doesn’t seem like it will want to go through the same spot on the leg throughout the sweep but, we shall see.

Some quick pics for this morning..

Today was a day of trial and error. I don’t have any real plans drawn so this is a “make it up as I go” project.

I spent the morning piecing together the hinge portion of the compass. I found some plans online and scaled them down by about half so they would be small enough to easily fit in my finger tips but large enough to still have some structural strength.

Most of this build is coming out of my scrap bin so most my cut offs atm are cherry and padauk. I chose padauk for the hinge and I might regret that later. This stuff likes to splinter a bit so after cutting and drilling everything I soaked the hinges in superglue to harden up that part of the wood a bit.

I have pics of the hinge after getting mortised into and glued to the hubs that will mate with the legs. I filled any gaps with wood glue and rubbed padauk saw dust into it so it looks a bit fury in the pics but I have since sanded down the patch and it worked great as a filler.

I also have the legs glued up, planed and cut to length but haven’t taken any pics of them just yet. That will be in the next installment.

I also have some brass left over from my marking gauge build for the tool swap that will get used on this.

So on with the pics.

This is the basic design I am going with (for function not so much form)..

And here is my hinge. The parts that the rivet is going through are less than 1/4” square and were pretty nerve raking to cut out without destroying it in the process. I did have 1 failure but whats progress without a few back steps right?

More to come and thanks for reading :-)

Taking a BLO bath :-)

I am pretty happy with myself for getting the saw kerf cut free hand with nothing more than a scribe line and a HF flush cut saw :-) Sadly I was so “in the moment” that I forgot to take pics of the procedure. I hope I can still garner some Galoot points for it anyhow.

It is nearly done. I just have more shaping to do and then it will be ready to go. Pretty excited to say the least. I think I might be getting the hang of this wood working thing finally lol.

Pics of today’s work.

Stay tuned for more…

Now as I sit here preparing to cut my first ever dovetails (seriously have never done this before) I need to get my saws in order. I have been putting off sharpening these for a while now and it is time I gave them some attention. What spurred this on was last night I picked out a cutoff from the oak pile to make a quick saw bench out of and when i started to cut it to length all of my cross cut saws just laughed at me and went no where with it. I think a butter knife is sharper.

So basically this will set me back a few more weeks probably but I need to build up a saw vise and get these sharpened up before they will be of any use to me.

I am also going to replace the gents handle on my 8” Crown with a new handle. I have a piece of cherry picked out for that.

So that is where the bench stands (or lays I should say) for now. Hopefully sometime before my soon to arrive son graduates high school this will get finished up!

My soon to be sawbench top ready to get flattened.

Somewhere in this pile are some legs I am sure of it…

The Crown about to get a facelift..

The offending saws.. right to left are.. Atkins Rip Saw, No-Name Cross Cut Saw, Disston Rip Saw and Tyzack and Sons Tenon Saw.

It appears to be an old 1940’s – 1950’s radio cabinet with radio, speakers and turn table still intact (though the functionality is in question). The wife wants me to covert it into a changing table/dresser type of a piece for the baby room. I said I would see what I could do and it looks like it should be somewhat a simple thing to do. MY only request was that I be allowed to try to keep it as original looking as possible because it really is a gorgeous piece of furniture.

So here it is. I would really like some suggestions on how to approach this project and also how to clean up old finish. I was thinking a 3M pad soaked in BLO and a lot of scrubbing but other suggestions are very much appreciated.

And a look at the radio which I hope to covert into a guitar amplifier at some point.. lots of yummy american vintage tube goodness in here..

Stay tuned for more… I only have about 4 weeks to get this done before my son arrives.

Just a refresher.. the before..

Annnnnnnd The After!

Thanks for reading!

I still need to trim up the ends and get the skirt glued up but this is the end width of the top plus tool tray. Once I finished with that my wonderfully tuned and sharpened #6 arrived from Mauricio which showed me just how lacking and out of shape my current selection of tools were.

So I have set upon a side mission of getting the tools I have collected to build this bench with in good working order. If your tools don;t work then end result of your project will suffer the consequences (and so will your back and shoulders lol).

I am wrapping up my hand planes and have built up quite a nice selection of them.

Next up will be learning saw sharpening. I have about 5 saws, some rip and some crosscut as well as a dovetail saw and a backsaw that all need some bit of attention or another. These will be crucial in the upcoming steps of cutting tenons and trimming the top.

After that will be sharpening up my small selection of chisels and we will be off to the races once again.

So right now my benchtop is acting as..well… a bench top on sawhorses lol.

HOWEVER…. I did get a workbench related project finished today.

Some of you may remember my earlier attempts at bench press turning a crank handle for my hand wheels.

The first version was pretty rough and looked like poo on a stick. I then turned a second one which worked ok but just never quite looked right.

I had every intention of replicating the second handle for use on the smaller wheel but when I was done I realized I REALLY liked what came out of the “lathe” only problem was it looked nothing like the first one and made it look pretty bad as well.

So off it came and yet another handle was turned and this time I can officially call them a set and done!

Off with the Pics! For all you Sailors out there…. there is a clue as to what will come for the handwheels in the third pic… second clue is that it will be fancy ;-)

So what to do with the old handle? Well make an awl out of it of course!

Stay tuned for more. I really hope to have some progress made on this very soon. Thank you for reading.

Scrub the base clean and prepped for paint.

Now you can clearly see the patent markings..

Same for the frog..

Prime then paint… I don’t bother masking the areas that need lapping since they will all be sanded clean anyway. Saves time and leaves a cleaner line on the japanning from what I can tell.

While that was drying outside I got started on the hardware. Everything got scrubbed on the drill press and wire wheel and the brass took a Brasso bath..

Hardware done..

Once the paint had cured enough not to run when tipped I placed it in my redneck drying kiln.. aka the shop oil heater lol..

Stay tuned for the conclusion :-)

While that was soaking I started on the tote repair and looking for a new front knob in my “box o’ shame” aka my parts box of either poorly purchased planes or parts that got replaced… does everyone have a box like this or am I just really bad at this lol…..

I was able to find a knob that is a very close match in wood color as the tote which left only the tote to be repaired.

Luckily it was a clean break so gluing it up was pretty straight forward. After the glue was set it got a good sanding with 220-600 grit and a long soak in BLO. Came out pretty good imo…

I had a peek at the items in the soak and it is going to need a bit longer. My brew has lost a lot of it’s potency and I might end up doing a secondary Evaporust soak if this doesn’t get ‘er done.

That said it does still have enough juice to lift the rust under what I thought was 80% of salvageable japanning causing it to bubble up and flake off easily. So looks like I will be painting this one. So to help get the rest of the old japanning off I have it soaking in some citristrip right now before going back into the de-ruster.

I just got it out of the mail today and had my first look at it and to my surprise it is a Sweetheart model :D

It has had the cap screw replaced with a bolt and the front knob looks like someone turned it from a broom handle and the tote is broken in 2 but over all this thing is really solid. Even the lateral adjuster is nice and snugly attached to the frog which is often loose and floppy on the other used planes I have bought. The blade had a slight bend towards the top which I have already straightened out.

One patent date on it of APR-19-10 not sure where this puts it in the Stanley lineup but I’m happy with my purchase so far. I just need to get over to my buddies house and get the Evaporust he picked up for me at HF yesterday.

More to come on the rehab.. today was a teardown and look type of day. Lots of pics..

Here is the deal. I am active duty military so I know I WILL be moving at some point. With that in mind I have to be mindful of what I build and the fact that I will need to load it into a truck at some point.

My second project for my shop was to be a tool cabinet for my various hand tools and such. Right now they are scattered all over and tucked away wherever I can find room. This bothers me to no end. I absolutely hate not having a home for each tool. Perhaps it is the number of years spent in aviation maintenance and having proper tool control drilled into me or my natural AR nature but I have to have a central container for all these tools soon.

Now the quandary is that I can have 1 very heavy item that takes up a set amount of space in a moving truck or multiple slightly less heavy items taking up a lot of space in a moving truck. I would like to try for option number 1 if I can.

I have read and re read CS’s book on workbench design and I know his thoughts on under bench storage but I have seen examples that work (see Smitty’s bench) and I like the idea of using the space under the bench for more than a junk/saw dust collector.

Here is my initial thoughts on how to accomplish this most effectively. Keep in mind this is my first Sketchup attempt. The measurements are arbitrary since I am just doing a rough draft and the joints are rudimentary at best but this is just to get a visual of what is inside my head and see how they fit together.

I battled with the straight leg or splayed leg debate for a bit and went with the splayed. One because of the added stability and two it provides more storage space and the 20 degree tilt of the back legs makes for the perfect hand plane storage rack. I would like to make that rack hinge up to allow more storage behind it on the backside of the cabinet but that may now work out. I’m going to try and see if I can find a way to make it work.

So anyhoo.. here is what I am talking about. Let me know what you think, even if I am completely off my rocker (which is entirely possible).

I look forward to your thoughts. You guys haven’t steered me wrong yet!

The day started out innocent enough. The plan for the day was to knock down and even out the thickness of all the boards making up the top so it will be easier to level once it is assembled.

As you can see I was less than accurate when ripping the Oak for the laminated pieces..

I started out just scrubbing away the squeeze out and the high boards. As I got closer to even with one of the outside edge boards it became evident that I had (despite what I thought was careful planning) laminated the last board with the grain running opposite all the others… Well poo..

I contemplated this for a bit and figured since it is on the outside and not the middle the only correct thing to do was cut it off and add a new one.

So out comes the circular saw and accessories for a quick run down the top..

And then my Atkins rip saw to finish up.. (I really need to get on with tuning this guy up..)

With that board removed I have a 9 1/2” slab to even out. I’ll re add the missing board between the dog strip and the skirt later on if I think it is needed. I might end up liking this depth (which will come to around 14” when it is all said and done).

A few more hours of scrubbing and the top side of the bench is even and actually almost level! It still has a bit of a dip in the center but that will be taken care of once my No 6 arrives :-).

Now.. the other side! which is in much worse shape as far as evenness of the boards..

I spent another hour or so scrubbing away at that side and allllmost have it evened out but I’ll have to finish that up tomorrow. My arms are tired and the wife misses me so that is all the shop time I have for today.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more! Comments and critiques are always encouraged (your comments keep me motivated to keep going!)..