It needed a little cleanup on the ends, and I lucked out, only barely nicking this nail with a router bit.

The plan is for it to be counter height:

I decided to do a decorative treatment on the ends of the rails, somewhat ‘greene and greene’ influenced, but just out of pine, so not nearly as ornate as their work.

I’m going to have to wait a bit to get the locking casters for budget reasons… so I designed removable feet.

I rounded over all edges of the pine legs with a 1/4” RO bit, and also put a 3/8” roundover on the top.

I’m using a wipe on poly/BLO/Tung oil mixture from Rockler, the Sam Maloof forumula.
It imparts a very amber tone, but the grain pops incredibly at the same time.

I need to pick up some 0000 steel wool and rub down the finish (plus sand off some pencil marks on one leg, then apply a couple more coats of poly on it before putting it into use in the kitchen.

My wife updated our middle son’s bed from a twin on a ‘loft’ to a double bed awhile back. My work schedule kept me from finishing the bed until now. (couple of months of him sleeping on the box spring and mattress on the floor)

Adam’s a football player, and still growing… so I decided to build it hefty. The legs are 2×6’s with 2×10’s for the rails (2×6’s glued and pocket screwed to them to hold the box spring).

Now my wife and he get to put some finish on it (it was all sanded before assembly)

I’ll make it a project when it is up and in use and Finished.

Recently my wife upgraded one of my son’s mattress from a twin to a full size, going from a loft style (no box spring) to one with a Box spring in the process. This mean that his Old bed frame which was half of a bunk which he and his older brother split into two mini lofts is now out in my shop in pieces waiting for a new life as a tool stand or some other useful reincarnation.

To get his new bed up off of the floor I’ve started (should be finished later today) building his new bed. The budget was tight, but we needed this, so I went with dimensional lumber, which he says he’ll stain and then we’ll slap a coat of poly on it for good measure. I expect it will be installed by sometime next week.

The design evolved over the past few days, but essentially is a 4 post frame using 2×6’s for the verticals and 2×10’s for the rails. That was partly to keep the box spring hidden, but also to add strength. The rails will be bolted to the head and footboard assemblies, so it will come apart into 4 pieces for transport when we move in a couple of years.

Several friends over on Family Woodworking helped out with the design, including a lesson on how to use sketchup from Dave Richards over the phone one evening. I put mouse to desk and came up with this design.

Of course I had to christen our new crossover vehicle as an official woodhauler…

it barely fit…

Adam helped move the wood out to the shop, and we got to work cutting the pieces. About an hour later (if that) we had them stacked up:

I always buy a couple of extra boards just in case… in this instance that was a good thing…

For christmas I received this dado stack set

I put an auxiliary fence on my miter fence and went to work

Note to self, Pay atention to the layout lines!

I hauled a few 2×4’s up to Grizz’s shop and we got nearly all of the parts cut to dimension. I could just as easily done it at my shop, but it was fun visiting his shop as always.
Once I got them back in my shop, here’s what I wound up with:

all cut to length and ready to go, except for the holes for the cross clamp piping.

I tried assembling the legs, got most of the way through one, when I realized i hadn’t drilled a pilot hole for the lag bolt.

well it was late I was tired and I had to stop when the wrench I was using slipped off of the bolt head and flew across the shop. (NO I did NOT throw it, honest) Time for plan B.

Meanwhile I also needed to drill the holes for the pipes, and my forstner bit set just wasn’t up to the task. on my way home from work I picked up a 1 1/8” spade bit, called a speedbor. Man does that thing make a hurricane of chips:
you can see the swirl in the dust it leaves behind, Someday I’ll shoot video of how it throws out a cloud of chips, different than any other spade bit i’ve used. I highly recommend them if you’re in the market. They leave an extremely clean hole, even on the exit without a backer board. There was very little tear out in the dozen or so holes I drilled. No pics of drilling the holes themselves, but the two crosspieces which hold the main pipe clamps, plus the two long boards needed holes. The two short pieces were simple, the two long ones with the 8 holes were a bit more of a challenge. to keep them in regiistry, I screwed the two boards togther, marked the location for the top pieces and did them all at once. That was a bit of chore, my litlte benchtop DP doesn’t have a long throw, so I had to drill some, stop the motor, raise the table, drill some more, etc…

The next day I loaded the two legs, one mostly assembled, the other in pieces, plus the main beam into my truck and headed off to another friend’s shop. He had the tool I needed to finish the assembly in no time.
A ryobi 18v impact driver. sigh Someday…

Back in my shop yesterday, I got to bolting the leg assembliies and the main beam together: got everything to this point and I was starting to dry-fit the two main pipe clamps, which is when I realized that I had the legs just a tad too wide…

Mr Impact to the rescue, it was quick work to tear it all apart, lop off about 3” of beam, drill two more pilot holes, and bolt it all back together after checking for square. When I shut down for the evening last night, here is where it stood, and how…

I had screwed the back piece with the holes in it on, but when I fit the three board glue up on , I had a gap I didn’t like. I decided to screw them together on my ts, which will get me a better joint (I hope). I’m probalby going to replace the back section at some point, so I’ll simply screw them together.

This is the 4th bench in my 12’ x 20’ shop… I had two in my old shop, which were very good at collecting clutter (still are in fact, so I may have to use sterner measures and tear one apart soon), plus my miter saw station which I threw together to build the shop. I like having the chopsaw handy, but I’m considering tearing that apart, keeping the top section around, but re-using the legs and more importantly the floorspace for this new bench.
Here’s a look… as you can see getting around in there is a lot tougher than it should be

interchangeable shafts and two different heads, one 4 blade, one 6 blade.

Oh, and just for fun I started another pen swap over on FamilyWoodworking.org

Here’s the box as it stands now. A buddy of mine and I jointly loaded it up for the startup:

There was a minor mishap as we were getting it ready. Another friend had given Mark a bunch of blanks… and it was from those that Mark was picking his donations when the bottom fell apart:

oh, and of course with all of those spilled blanks available, I did manage to get a few for myself:

Mahagony, Ipe and another exotic with a greenish tint which neither Mark nor I knew the name of. Pretty wood though, I’ve got a few pieces of it.

and here’s the map for that swap

oh, and two stops over in Hawaii as well!

19 stops at this point!

I have three sons, ages 21, 15 and 9, and every once in awhile one of them will wander out to the shop for a bit.

Today it was my youngest’s turn. We home school him, so this was a lesson for school. We used Math for the layout, and logic for how to go through each step in order.

Just a simple birdhouse, but he had fun helping me build it. He did the gluing, and helped with all of the layout and the assembly.

the vice on the left is a different model which I had for a friend of mine, neither one of us have installed them yet.
Speaking of which; since I have this already, I’m going to incorporate it onto the left end of the bench. My bench will be 5’ overall, and the pipe section will be 4’ long. Most of what I expect to be working on will be smaller than that. I’m still working out the plan on that end, but essentially I’m planning at least initially that i’ll glue up some filler boards for the trough. I will incorporate the planing stop into the mount for the vise .

I’m planning on getting some assembully done tomorrow. I will have to see if I have a forstner bit large enough to drill all of the holes, if not, I’ll swing by Sears and pick one up.

I cut the 2x materials to length, these were all pieces left over from my shop build, so zero cash outlay:

First I measured and drllled so I could bolt the vertical pieces to the joiists. 4 3/8” bolts in all on each piece.

Then I screwed a 2×4 to the wall to support the other end. And toe-nailed (toe-screwed?) the horizontal piece to it. It is only a temporary solution, eventually I’ll be putting a piece of plywood on there, and at that point I’ll rig a temporary brace, pull the rack away from the wall, slip the plywood in and then hang some joist hangers to give the ends better support, but this will do for now.

I’m taking a break to grab some dinner, then I’m heading back out to the shop to muscle the sheets up into the rack.

and while that looks like it is pretty low… It is a good 6” above my head. the Bottom of those joists are at 10’3” high. The vertical drops are 3’ long so I’ve still got clearance. My plan is to have my drill press station and bandsaw over there. I might hang a flourescent fixture there as well at some point.

Thanks for Looking!

Thanks for checking in, hope you enjoy the ride.