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#1 ·
The Cranky Sailor Workshop - Ep 1

Okay, I don't normally get into the whole 'blogging' thing but with a sentence of encouragement from a fellow LJ I thought I'd take the plunge and show off the length, breadth and depth of my woodworking disabilities on my first real job for another person who actually has money to pay me.

A few things first off..

1. Yes, it's messy. My shop..I know. We just moved into our house a few months ago and things aren't fully stashed away yet. I straighten things out on a daily basis and field day towards the end of the week but clutter is unfortunately my constant companion.

2. I appreciate constructive advice. I'm only at the Junior Chipmonk Woodworking level (got the merit badge to prove it!) and I am quite aware that how I do things isn't always, or perhaps mostly, isn't how things are done by the pros. I'll take advice although I might be past the point where I can make use of it on this project.

3. If you don't like the blog, well, it wasn't my idea! Without mentioning names it was brought on by 3fi~gerpa~. So there.

I now return you to "the cherry coffee table" already in progress:

My neighbor was visiting and saw some of the things that I'd built in the past and 'mentioned' how much she'd like a round topped coffee table made of cherry. Having danced this dance before I told her that I'd see what I could do when I had the time, figuring that the subject would die out like has happened many times before. Well, over the course of several weeks she persisted, even when I told her that the materials alone would run to over $500, so I agreed to make a rough sketchup drawing and see what she thought.




I dunno..I guess you'd call the style…traditional? Simple? Simplistic? As I was going through my stacks of magazines last night I realized it looks similar to a Stickley tabouret. If it was stepped on and squashed by an elephant. Or something.

She loved it. We discussed a few more things but she didn't want the design changed. Armed with her approval on the design I went wood shopping, even got taken to the 'secret warehouse' of rough lumber at Frost Hardwood and brought home some rough stock and started milling. This was my first opportunity to turn ol' Frankenplane loose using my newest, bestest buddy, the 21st century workbench which I built last month. It rocks! Only figuratively, of course; it's stable as heck and heavy as you'd expect from about 160bf of solid ash.




Things went fairly well and I was able to get the stock milled straight and it even stayed that way. I considered myself to have had a good day. The next day I milled out the legs and stretchers and marked my mortise and tenon locations before life intruded and took me away.

Today I wanted to get the mortises and tenons cut and fitted then get started on the half lap joinery on the stretchers. I'm getting better at mortise and tenons but still they sometimes come out looking like something a retarded beaver got a hold of, so I had my apprehensions at this point. No, seriously, I've made some horrid MT joints before. I dragged out the mortising attachment for my drill press and quickly realized that it doesn't fit this Delta dp at all. The sliding blocks which secure the fence to the table are too large to slide in the channels provided in the dp table. Problem. I then spent the next few hours brainstorming up a work around.



Finally! A use for that X-Y milling table I got off craigslist two years ago! Then I commenced to burning holes in some cherry. I was quite pleased with the final result as long as you recall my poor track record.




Two of the MT joints slipped together with nothing more than a few light hand taps and required really no fiddling with and the other six only needed minor trimming.



And I do mean MINOR..this is the sum total of all shavings I needed to remove to make the tenons fit with only light tapping to seat.



I fit the joints all together and this is what I ended the day with. I can work on the half laps tomorrow and even start final milling and begin laminating the table tops.




Thanks for looking!

Blue
 
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#3 ·
Since 3fingerpat and I are distant relations, I wholeheartedly agree with the decision to blog about your project. I hope the constructive atmosphere around here encourages further postings. A very nice design (damn Sketchup users), a great opportunity, and an entertainingly informative blog. Keep up the good work.

I'm currently wrestling with whether to take another commission for a dining table , especially since I haven't made ours yet and Turkey Day is fast approaching…
 
#5 ·
Thanks for taking a look.

Pat- I would never knowingly let down the Goat Locker. That's what initiation was all about, right? Well, that and providing endless hours of entertainment for all the Genuines.

Captain, I really need to learn more about sketchup..like how to make components or at least how to make the individual parts interact more elegantly. I've got a sketchup for dummies book which I fully intended to read on my final deployment but something prevented me from ever getting too far. Oh yeah, it was being the doc for a cruiser..a never ending job. I loved it though. :) Anyhow, my sketchup skill are rudimentary at best right now but it did allow me to design something simple. I do admire some of the plans I've seen using the program, facinating level of details can be included.

I do intend to post pictures of my shop and equipment one of these days. After a field day. Between projects. When inertia isn't such an issue. Honest!
 
#6 ·
Personally, I think cherry is the bestest wood out there in terms of warm and inviting while still being very elegant. I like Walnut too but it's dark and sucks up the light. Cherry, to me, is a perfect furniture wood. Have you given any thought to the type of finish yet? Will be watching this one develop!

Oh, and yer bench totally rocks!
 
#8 ·
Looks like a grand start! This is going to be a very interesting blog, and I will enjoy following it.

I like the project and it's design. What is going to be the final diameter of the top?

Adding this to my ever growing list of "I am going to have to make one of those" Lumberjocks projects

Great looking shop bench and tools…I am envious. Do you always wear sandles in the shop?

Keep up the good work
Trev
 
#9 ·
Heh..I wondered if someone was going to call me on wearing sandals in the shop. The answer is yes. And no. Sometimes I wear closed toe sandals (river rafting shoes) and sometimes I wear my steel toed boots. It's a habit I picked up in Hawaii where sandals (properly referred to as 'slippahs') are 'man for all seasons' footwear and the weather in San Diego is nice enough to make them nearly year-round shoes. If I'm doing much work with heavy stock I'll usually wear steel toes or if I'm going to be moving around the shop a lot and don't feel like shattering a toenail when I kick something, I'll wear closed toes. Otherwise I just can't beat the ease of kicking off the sandals when I come inside..seems the wife doesn't like sawdust, chips and curls trampled around the house. Go figure.

Dimensions of the project: 36" top, 29" round bottom, 18" tall, 1" thick top/bottom rounds.

For finish I'm thinking an oil (tung, danish, BLO..dunno which) followed by a more durable topcoat. Maybe poly.
 
#11 ·
The Cranky Sailor Workshop - Ep 2

Since a few of you made the mistake of actually reading the blog and some even commenting, well, just like a major TV network, I'll keep this dog going.

Disclaimer- The term "exactly" when encountered in this blog should be interpreted loosely, roughly translated to "as close as my old eyes can get it" or "somewhere between gnat's ass and half-assed close".

Today I wanted to get the half lap joints cut so I could actually fit the table base together and see if I'd made any major boogers yet.

I started out with my trusty Combination square (not pictured), my marking knife, the stringers and two pieces of scrap to help me along.



The stringers are 29" between shoulders and I milled all the stringers to 1" width which means that each side of the crossing stringer needs to be 14" from the tenon shoulder in order to be dead centered. I cut a scrap of ash (I seem to have lots of ash scraps lounging about for some reason) to exactly 14" long and then ripped that in half so I'd be able to verify both distances simultaneously.



I then removed the top stringer and far strip, butted my square up against the remaining stringer (which I was holding securely in place), removed that stringer and struck a line with my marking knife, thus defining one shoulder of the half lap. I then placed the stretcher back on top, butted it up against the square, grew a third hand and held all that in place while striking the far side of the half lap with a marking knife.

There aren't any pictures of this since my hands were pretty much fully occupied at the time. It brought back memories of when I was a mechanic for Sears (was it really 23 years ago?!) and always wished I had another elbow about halfway down my forearm to reach bolts in those places that automotive engineers think are 'ideal'..especially since they aren't ever going to have to access them! Rat bast…nevermind..

Where was I? Oh yeah, well, once I'd struck the two side lines I ended up with something like this, accurately defining the width of my stringer:



Normally I'd have just used a mechanical pencil to mark the lines as they seem to be pretty constant due to the lead being a set size but when I really get myself into a lather thinking I need real accuracy I reach for that marking knife. First few times I used the marking knife didn't come out so well. The knife wandered all over the wood surface while failing to follow the reference surface. I kept flashing back to the scene in Jaws where Sheriff Brody is trying to tie a bowline and Quint is sitting back chuckling at him while saying, "heh heh, it's not too good is it, Chief?" Finally I read an article on marking knives and found out that they aren't used like you're cutting the cheese wheel…light strokes are all that's needed. And the article was right. Light strokes tend to follow your reference very well, you just have to make a couple of passes for good visibility. I have to admit..there might be some value in listening to what people with experience have to say.

I then used my combination square and transferred those lines around the sides of the stretcher, marked the depth for 3/4" because my stretchers are all milled to exactly 1 1/2", and then went to the table saw. Since table saws, much like plants and women, respond best when showered in compliments, I praised my sawstop repeatedly concerning its accuracy and cut repeatability while I was dialing in my mitre stops and setting the dado stack height. With both of us satisfied, cutting commenced. Say what you will about my methods, it worked out:



Slight hand pressure was all that was required to seat that joint. Without boring anyone (too much..) suffice to say, I did the wash-rinse-repeat thing three more times. Not too shabby and I'm reasonably happy with the results if you discount the underexposed photography. My PhD camera failed me! PhD = Push Here, Dummy, sometimes referred to as 'auto-focus'.



And once I had the stringers together it just seemed natural to shove the legs into place. Like this:





I'll be dipped if it doesn't bear passing similarity to the plans. So.. parts are straight, MT are tight, half laps are tight and square, the legs are square to the stretchers, stretchers are flush to the top of the legs..this must be my lucky day! ~speculatively eyes the wife and considers asking for a new tool~ Nah, probably not THAT lucky….

Maybe I'll work on the tops now…or maybe I won't. Either way, thanks for looking!

Blue
 
#23 ·
The Cranky Sailor Workshop - Ep 3

Company is coming over today so not much going on in the shop. So I figured I'd quickly post pictures of my shop. I had to clean it up some since one of the guests is the guy who got me into woodworking in the first place and I want to present a good impression. Of course he'll still remember my box of cordless Ryobi tools and BTS-20 portable table saw which I used on a 10' x 8' covered porch in Hawaii, so this should stand out a bit above that!

Also, here is something I've NEVER seen covered by any of the big wood magazines. This finishing technique is so simple a monkey could do it!

Wood Finishing video

Dynablue's Shop tour

Thanks for looking!

Blue
 
#24 ·
The Cranky Sailor Workshop - Ep 4

Today was practice day in the shop, and a mighty fine thing that it was! Today was the first booger while cutting out the practice tabletop. Fortunately it only cost me $12 worth of MDF and a broken bandsaw blade.

Moons ago I constructed an add-on bandsaw table from one of the many magazine articles on the subject and, unsurprisingly, it included a circle cutting jig attachment. I've cut some small circles with it before but it's only rated to about 30" instead of the 36" I needed. I figured that wouldn't be a big problem, I'd just flip the guide rail end for end and that would give me the ability to enlarge my circle cutting ability. In theory. In practice it turned out a bit different.

When I first constructed the guide rail I drilled the bushing hole for the pivot pin a bit too deeply (drilled through the bottom) and fixed it with a little veneer-style repair on the bottom. I never gave it a second thought because the slot that the guide rode in only has a big enough slot to allow for blade changes and the patch was fully supported, something that was no longer the case since I'd flipped the guide. I should have thought longer term for my repair and so my first mistake today was made about 18 months ago. Durned butterfly effect! After I'd measured and drilled the pivot hole in the bottom of the 36 1/2" x 36 1/2" MDF blank I moved it to the bandsaw table and at one point it slipped out of my hand and dropped onto the table from a couple inches height but then I seated it on the pivot, addressed the cutting edge of the blade to my project edge and commenced to cutting. At first things went well but as I swung the second corner around it failed to clear the riser block.

That should have alerted me to a problem right there..first corner made it, second corner didn't. Now if I'd had Euclid as my shop aid I'm certain he'd have pointed out that since I'd started with a square I was no longer cutting a circle but since he had the day off and geometry wasn't my strongest subject I didn't pay attention. I merely shut off the saw, congratulated myself on having practiced first so I wouldn't make that mistake on the real deal and used my jigsaw to cut off the corners of the blank to give me swing clearance. The deed done I turned the saw back on and continued my cut. After about 1/8 of a turn I realized I was cutting a tighter and tighter spiral, a fact driven home at that very instant by the snapping of my bandsaw blade. Crud. NTSB post-accident analysis tells me several likely things happened:

1. Flipping the guide end for end changed the offset of the pivot hole and I was no longer pivoting in line with the cutting teeth. The pivot point was actually about 3/8" behind the teeth, that was going to give me a bad circle anyhow.

2. Dropping the MDF likely broke the veneer on the bottom of the guide and allowed the pin to drop below the guide surface as I basically screwed it around which caused #3 below.

3. The MDF shifted forward (towards the blade) as I rotated it and probably pinched the bandsaw blade against the throat plate causing it to break at the weld or simply shifted the blade laterally enough to make it track at a non-survivable angle.

4. Operator inattention to the warning signs led to equipment failure and ruined materials. Fortunately no injury was caused other than to my pride. Fortunately I wasn't an hour past my airport when the problem occurred.

I used my other blank, cut a new guide rail with the proper alignment of the pivot hole and successfully cut the second top without incident.



I'm certainly glad I practiced before just tossing a blank of cherry up there!

Then I turned my attention to a task I've not accomplished in my couple years of woodworking, tapering table legs. Well aware that I hadn't done this before and mostly hazy on how it was going to work I'd purchased a $9 fence post at Home Depot and this morning I ripped it down to match the dimensions of the actual table legs. I marked my shoulder where I wanted the taper to begin and marked the foot where I wanted the taper to end and then sat and scratched my head on how to make a jig to line up those marks and hold the wood securely in place. I was tapering three sides of the leg using different tapers on the front and sides so a single use jig wasn't going to cut it. I needed something to let me alter the angles. Taking a gander at my voumes of scrap wood and drawer full of Rockler parts and pieces I began to formulate a jig idea in my head and over the course of about an hour came up with this number below.

WARNING! This jig is horridly rough and those with easily offended sensibilities should move on now!



The MDF was cut after the mitre bar was installed so I just ripped the edge which gives me a good approximation of where the blade is going to greet the wood. Line up my shoulder and foot lines with the edge of the MDF, lock it down and presto! A taper is born. I will probably cut slightly proud of the line to allow me to finish with a pass or two from a hand plane. The center section is two thicknesses of wood with a 7/8" shallow groove gnawed around the 5/16" slot which lets a toilet bolt slide back and forth, increasing the reach of the toggle, which allows me to use the jig to cut from either mitre slot.





Simple to use instructions are placed on the board to avoid operator error in the future. The center bar also serves as a convenient place to drive the sled from and keeps hands clear of the blade although a plane tote style handle would be better. Best of all, it worked!

I haven't seen this jig before (or I'd not have spent an hour scratching my head) but for those of you who've rode the ride and bought the T-shirt, I'm not claiming it's an original. It's just a Dynablue special.




I'm pretty happy with the jig function..not so much the form factor. I'll probably keep this jig idea, lengthen the bar and bed to allow for longer legs and actually take some time to make it less… Halloweenish.

So all in all, not the best start to the day but things ended up okay.

Thanks for looking!

Blue
 
#30 ·
The Cranky Sailor Workshop - Ep 5

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the blog boards comes another episode in the misadventures known as Dynablue's woodworking projects. I've got no pictures this time but will post them on the next one.

Mainly I hadn't blogged because there wasn't much going on with the table that was of really any interest. Gluing up tabletop blanks, sanding, oiling, gluing parts, having nearly ruinous experiences routing bandsaw marks off the edge of the top, etc.. We've all been there, done that, bought the crummy T-shirt. I also have been derailed a few times by inlaw visits, the myriad of 'new house' projects (trim and yardwork..English Ivy which has been ignored for 20 years is a PITA, BTW), and a general lack of enthusiasm for getting much done. Fortunately the lady I'm building for wasn't pressing me since she lives across the street and can now see my house since I've yanked out the ivy. No joke..there were two pine trees we found buried in the ivy which were nearly impossible to have seen before. We'll see if they're maybe going to live after we pulled ivy off up to about the 20' mark; still some more up there we couldn't get but I only had a 17' ladder.

In short, I've been busy and lazy all at the same time. Don't try that at home, kiddies, I'm a professional!

Where is the table now? Well, it's been lovingly given some sanded in BLO coats and currently the legs and stretchers are sitting in clamps awaiting dry time. Three legs anyhow, seems that I've got to have one able to come off so I can put in that pesky lower shelf. The stretchers have been drilled for screws (elongated across grain to allow for expansion) and it goes together and mostly resembles the sketchup plan. Mostly. Where does it miss the mark? Well, I mentioned the little router incident..

In my vast 'been a woodworker all week' experience I was always taught not to climb cut with a router as that's a quick road to loss of control and disaster. That was sage wisdom that I followed almost all the time except when a case of the stupids caught up to me. But in my prep for removing the bandsaw marks from my tabletops I read many, MANY articles on router jigs and techniques. One of the popular woodworking magazines mentioned that best, smoothest results came from a spiral upcut bit used on a very light climb cut and anything else was very liable to burn the wood. They mentioned several possible problems and their solutions but concluded that for this particular type of cut their way was the way to go.

Cue the stoopid musik..

I listened to them. I had made my circle jig using the PC straight edge guide, minus the straight edge part so that I'd have a micro adjust feature and could, therefore, take exceedingly light passes with the router. I secured the table top down with double sided tape just like they showed me (yes, lots of it), I practiced on a piece of MDF (yes, no grain, I know that..but practicing the technique), I lowered my never-been-used spiral upcut bit (with the router off) and swung the full circle to make certain that I was getting a light cut with no pesky oblong piece waiting to snag my router and congratulated myself for taking such precautions. In retrospect I'd have been better off breaking my arm patting myself on the back because then I wouldn't have turned the bloody thing on. For the first few inches all went well, I had tight hold of the router, it was cutting smoothly and then somehow something caught the bit but fortunately I had a tight hold on the router so it didn't kick anywhere. Unfortunately it tore the entire top off my routing surface, dislocated the pivot pin on the router trammel, rotated the top about 10" and drove the bit into the wood so hard it split along the grain over 3/4" into the top in several places. All before I could release the plunge or even think about turning off the router; it was that quick. This was accompanied by the most horrendous noise in the world which turned out to be 10% splitting wood, 10% router motor and 80% very angry sailor. Now I retired from the Navy as a Chief Petty Officer and an initiated one at that..so when I choose to do so I can make very spectacular noises and colorful 'sailor speak', as my wife coyly terms it, but in this case I was so angry I couldn't even cuss. Nope, it was more of a choked howl of anger and anguish all at the same time. Worse than 'cat in heat' crossed with 'little Jimmy plays the bagpipe'. At least I didn't cuss.

In a masterful stroke of guts and sheer determination, or perhaps I was in plain old shock, I set up the bottom shelf of the table and routed it, the normal way, and had no problems whatsoever. I ended up having to re-bandsaw the top and removed about 1 1/4" of diameter to get to good wood again. There went my nice overhang between the edge of the top and the outside of the legs, now it was down to a less traditional, more contemporary small overhang. Figuring that I was now going to take a loss on the project to the tune of another tabletop I went across the street, explained what had transpired and asked the woman to come see what was what..which she did, about 10 days later. In the meantime I had the project on hold because I didn't want to do anything until I knew what her response was. Turns out she likes it just fine and I could then proceed. Not like I would even dream that all customers would be that forgiving!

To somewhat more interesting fare. The finish of the table. I love the look of BLO on cherry (as you can clearly see by the pictures of my Morris chair that I haven't posted) but wanted to give her some options. I did up three scrap pieces of cherry, one with BLO, one with danish oil and one with Formby's Tung-ish oil wiping varnish which I then topcoated with three coats of Rockler's Wundercote. Never used wundercote before but it is such a nice to use finish. Dries hard in about 2 hours (temperature depending) and within four hours was able to sand to a fine white powder without clogging the paper. Water based, no real mess, applied evenly with a foam brush (of all things!) and it makes a nice coating. I 'stress-tested' the scraps at a party by using them as coasters. After up to four hours of sweating cups and glasses there were no water rings at all and people thought I had very nice coasters. Ah, woodworking novices, gotta love 'em! Anyhow the customer picked BLO as the best looking finish. The Formby's left a nice shimmer in the wood and was my personal favorite, while the danish oil left faint but visible blotching in the wood. So right now I have the bottom of the table drying while the glue dries for the legs. Oh! It's actually time to release the beasty from clamps.. so I'm gonna go.

Thanks for reading!
 
#31 ·
The Cranky Sailor Workshop - Ep 6

Well, the day finally came, the table is finished!



I've spent the past 10 days working against chilly weather and damp rain in my quest for a nice finish. The customer didn't want a mirror shine but instead wanted a semi-gloss, an effect I think came through nicely.



The table was finished with several coats of BLO sanded into the wood and topped off with 2 coats of Rockler's Wundercote gloss and a final of Wundercote semi-gloss. Between coats the tops were sanded with 320 and the final coat was buffed with 0000 steel wool to achieve a uniform flatness. Minwax furniture paste wax was scrubbed in with steel wool, allowed to dry 10 minutes and buffed to a shine with rough shop towels then further 'debuffed' with a very light final scrub with the steel wool. My wife says there are baby's who wish their butts were that smooth. Except for the picture show and a few hours of "suntanning" the finish I'm keeping it inside my house for two days to allow the finish and glue a final chance to cure and acclimatize the table to something other than the unheated/uninsulated garage/shop.



I apologize again for my photo skills. I took the pictures in full sun but the shadows still have a lot of digital noise in them; Hopefully they convey the real beauty of the wood. My wife pouted when she came home last night and saw the table sitting in our family room, not because she didn't like the table but because it looks so perfect in the room and we're going to have to give it a new home.



Thanks for reading and your patience with my protracted build time!

Blue
 
#32 ·
Nice table Blue. I do have a bit of criticism. That candle on the table is probably real nice in real life, but in the photo it looked like a piece of rusty plumbing, and I wondered what in the world it was doing there. LOL. I know what you mean about fighting the weather to get a finish dry. I'm doing that right now with my latest project. I spray lacquered 7 hours ago and it's still slightly tacky. at 70 degrees it's supposed to dry in an hour! So here is another cranky (ex) sailor. Now I have to wait until tomorrow to spray the next coat and so on.
 
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