And yes, the shop is long overdue for a general cleaning and reorganization – that’s next summers high priority project after insulating and dry walling.

One of the reasons for the delay in getting the new cutting board going (on top of not being able to work in the shop) was just being too dang busy to get over the Seattle and find the wood. Two weekends ago, I was finally able to get over there and found two nice pieces of turning stock at Woodcraft for the decorative parts and happily Crosscut Hardwood had some nice hard maple on sale…



It’s always a bit sad for me to look at a pristine board, even though it will be reborn as (hopefully) something wonderful, it will have to undergo much transformation and torture along the way.

Anyhow, I let the board rest in the shop for a week. As my little Ryobi chopsaw isn’t up to the task of tackling such a large and hard board, I headed over to a buddies where his big Makita made short work of cutting it down to size.



Here we can see all the components of the board-to-be as they were last week, the cherry and walnut turning stock, some cherry and maple veneer I may or may not use, and the maple that will form the bulk of the board cut down into 30” slabs. I’d have liked to cut it a little longer, as the length of the staves that will eventually be cut from the slabs determines the thickness and length of the final board… But the turning stock that I’m using for the decorative stripes is 30” long, so the maple must match that.

Since the week before I chopped down the board had been the hottest and driest in Kitsap County history, I decided to let the slabs rest a week before cutting them down further.

Which brings up a great worry for me – the board is being built in the Pacific Northwet, but will be used in the dry heat of Southern California. The possibilities are endless for problems. So I’ll make it as thick as possible to resist moving, and rest it as much as practical so that I don’t “lock in” any stresses.

Monday, I got up and headed out into the shop fairly early…



If your brain is the most important tool in your shop, a nice cup of coffee is the most important accessory for that tool! Especially on a cool and damp morning.

Other than getting enough caffeine in me, the other task to start the day is a little cleaning and organization in the shop.



Isn’t she pretty? All clean and freshly waxed for a days work. I took a moment to enjoy it as it won’t be so pretty at the end of the day!

The first task I tackled was to machine the turning stock. The first step is to make two sides flat and square to each other on the jointer.



One can’t forget one’s safety equipment!



I keep mine on the filter handle for my dust collector. When I step over to it to turn it, it’s right there at eye level where I am less likely to forget it.

Once two sides are flat and square to each other, the next task is to move over to the planer to make a third side parallel to one of the sides flattened on the jointer.



Then the last side is brought into true on the table saw.



You can also do this on the planer, but doing it on the saw lets me remove the excess material and cut all the pieces being machined to the same dimensions in one easy step.



To take off even this small amount of wood would require either multiple passes through the planer, or a fairly aggressive cut. It’s a philosophical thing really. (If you asked ten woodworkers how to do a simple task, odds are you’ll get eleven answers. At least)

Now, some may ask what I worried about getting the thickness consistent between the two pieces, but not the width. The answer is simple, I’ll be cutting these pieces into thin strips, so the width at the point is irrelevant. A little forethought can save you from doing work that doesn’t need to be done. Failing to think things entirely through can lead to problems down the line – and will later in the process.



A thin strip ripping jig (the blue thing in the picture) makes this a breeze. Once it’s set the proper distance from the saw blade, all I have to do after each cut is move the fence over to hold the stock firmly against the jig and featherboard to make another strip of the same thickness.

With the decorative bits done, I turned my attention to cutting down the slabs into staves.



The setup here is a bit different from cutting the thin strips… because I don’t want to trap the heavy stave between the fence and saw blade (it could be caught on the blade and hurled towards my face with great force), I use an auxiliary fence to set the distance between the edge of the board and the saw blade. Rather than moving the fence between cuts, I just adjust the featherboard between each cut to hold the slab firmly against the auxiliary fence.

One of the things wood working shows mislead you about is how much time adjust the setups between cuts takes… It’s kinda like watching a cooking show where the chef slides a dish into one oven, then turns to another oven and slides a finished dish right out… :)

The staves were cut a bit oversize – the wood can move considerably after being so dramatically cut (from stresses locked into the board either while the tree was growing or while the lumber was dried, and as the newly exposed interior acclimates) I need to leave room for this to happen before machining down it’s final size. I’m racing to get this all done before cooler weather means I can no longer work in my unheated and uninsulated shop. Labor Day is fast approaching, and while everything needs time to rest, the weather rapidly turns colder afterwards.

Anyhow, several hours after setting the coffee cup down on my bench all the wood is done and ready to rest for a week…



If you’re wondering why there are only two pieces of walnut and four of cherry when both started the same size… let’s just say I cut the walnut first and there was a learning curve involved in using the jig mentioned above. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Besides, there are no mistakes in woodworking – only design opportunities.

Despite all that, I messed up a little bit on my planning (remember what I said earlier about forethought?). The thinner pieces are already trimmed to their final dimensions, while the maple staves are not – which means it will take more effort to make everything come out right next week.

Experience is a harsh teacher.

Nothing to be done about that now, so it’s time for my best Scarlett O’hara imitation – “Fiddle-dee-dee, I’ll worry about that tomorrow”. (My best imitation isn’t very good – be thankful you’re only reading it, not listening to it.)



What this morning was a pristine operating table is now a bloody abattoir covered with sawdust, shavings, and tools.



Like geological strata, the dust collector bag is a record of what has transpired in the shop. On the bottom, some pine from one project. Above that, some poplar from another. Then a thick layer of sapele dust from when a buddy brought over the pieces for a large bookcase and we flattened and squared them. The layer of dark walnut dust is barely visible above the dark sapele and below the lighter layer of cherry and maple above it. Topping off the whole layer cake is a melange of wood dusts swept from the floor and cleaned out from inside the table saw cabinet.

All done for the day, so time to turn off the lights and head into the house for a belated lunch. See you next week, same bat time, same bat channel!

But, even though the first piece has too many mistakes in it to go out the door with my name on it, a promise is a promise.

So, as I’ll talk more about in the next entry, I’ve started work on a new board. I’ve decided to blog about it to talk about the lessons I’ve learned along the way, as a tutorial to accompany Marc’s excellent video (from his site: part 1 and part 2) and as something I can point her to so she knows I haven’t forgotten.

Because it’s aimed at such a diverse audience, parts of it may seem a bit odd, so bear with me. I invite my fellow Jocks to chime in with advice and commentary on the various steps.

This morning, I’ve been working on bolting up a project and listening to the birds assault the blackberries across the alley. All of the sudden I realized that their calls were coming from inside the shop… For about fifteen minutes, while I stood and watched in awe, a pair would poke among the berries, fly into the shop and perch a moment to sing to each other, and then fly back to the berries. Then suddenly whatever will o’ the wisp brought them into the shop whisked them away again.

To whoever keeps the universe cranking – thank you for that brief time of beauty and awe.

I was working on the router table, and after starting the router noticed I had left a tool on the table right next to the bit. (Stupid mistake #1.) So I reached in to remove the tool from the table… (Stupid mistake #2, and I bet you can see where this is going…) and hit the spinning bit with my right index finger and took a nice chunk out of the tip.

Now I’ve got this huge splint/bandage on the finger (typing this has been amusing to say the least), and will have it for at least two to three weeks. This halts a number of projects, and I may still be bandaged when I’m supposed to be helping with a culinary demonstration… :( :(

Ah well. If it were easy, what would be the point?

But this entry is in my shop series, not my general grumping because I got truly good news for the shop today:

First you have to understand, I know less about electricity than I do about woodworking. I can replace a lamp socket, or a light switch, but that’s about it.

We’ve been having some problems with a kitchen outlet, so I had an electrician out today. While he was here, I asked him to look at my shop/garage (which is detached from the house) to see if we can run 220 out to it and to get an estimate as to the cost. He checked inside the panel and it turns out there is already 220 to the panel, they just tapped the 110 the shop is wired for off of the 220. So just by replacing the subpanel in the shop, I have 60 amps available whenever I am ready.

I’ve been annoyed because the weather prevented me from insulating and finishing the walls in the shop, but that’s turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

But I got a visit from the insomnia fairy last night, and despite caffeine am still mildly groggy and slow. Too groggy and slow to work smartly or safely.

I love Lumberjocks, but it’s no substitute for actual shop time.

Grumble, whine, whine

Off and on over the winter I’ve been pondering the 21st Century (or New Fangled / Seven Clamp) workbench by Popular Woodworking’s Robert Lang. A few days back, it occurred to me that it could also be designed and built using a box beam structure (inspired by the beam-and-base system featured in FWW’s Winter 2008/2009 Tools and Shops special issue) and converted into an assembly bench using the center well to hold jigs rather than a clamping system. (Though there is no reason you couldn’t install a clamping system and use it as a workbench.)

Though I’ll probably never build it, the mental exercise of designing it is fun so I thought I’d toss my work to date up here on LJ and see what you think.

Version 1.0

General pondering on the design:

All of the box beam are identical, allowing them to be cut from 1/2” plywood with a single setup. The beams are glued, and could be held together with screws or brads. (Given the number of beams being assembled, using a brad gun sounds like an awfully good idea.) The beams for the top are then glued to each other and then further strengthened by adding a 1/2” MDF top.

I’m not entirely sure how to attach the base boxes to the table top without assembling the individual components (tops of the base beams and bottom of the top beams) and then assembling the boxes on top of that. Thinking about this as I write, you could also design the table top beams around a single sheet with dadoes to hold the vertical webs…

The center well is deep enough that a length wise clamp system (as in the original) could easily be installed, and could also possibly be designed to be easily removable.

With sufficient forethought, one could also also the width wise clamping system. You’d need to drill all the required holes prior to assembly.

Links:

• Sketchup Model

1 – Glued up the leg and reinforcing patch mirror image from what they should have been.

2 – Glued up the replacement leg and reinforcing patch for #1 upside down.

The third glue up was the charm – damn good thing poplar is cheap down at the Borg.

At the rate I am accumulating learning experiences, I’ll be a genius soon!