Still have a long way to go… and probably another three or for pours of concrete before the floor is complete… however… slightly higer res photos here

The truck arrived 15 minutes early… which caught us off guard as my helpers were still on the way… but the irony was when I joking to the driver he said “the other job they had for that morning, they were late… lol”

The pour went smoothly though it was a bit of hard work as we had to barrow around the house and down paths etc etc… however the driver was inpressed how quickly we did it. Especially when he came down after and had a quick look. He was impressed.

http://www.southernrider.co.nz/projects/basementfloor.php

We also put in a bit of concrete and back fill around the lower deck. But we will pour that another day (about three weeks time…
http://www.southernrider.co.nz/projects/lower_deck.php

All I can say now is hurry up and cure so I can use it… lol

The section we are doing first is the main part, and it is pretty hard to explain unless you know the layout of the land, but the the other end will be a lot harder as the last ower’s of the house must have just poured concrete in spits and spats when the had a spare dollar or two, so a lot of it needs to be dug out and reworked.

I will still have to work around the house piles but having a level floor here is going to be like bliss compared to what I am use to. To the left is the next section I will work on once the part is done, but that will be a step so I don’t need to put in a retaining wall further back as it slopes up the hill under the house, and t is working with the lay out of the land instead of trying to fight it… this is als the part that we have to pecarefule of as because when it rains the water drains down through this.

Digging out the floor

Ready to pour

Wheel barrow ramps

Nighthawk's workshop

Once I get even this section of the floor done I can clad part of the walls and start to get the place sorted… I want it done like yesterday but considering what wlse we have done about the place and we have only owned the place for 18months now we aren’t doing to bad. Not only that we have no budget and have been broke since the day we bought the place… lol

Anyway this is kinda the idea I have been thinking about for a while. Laminated pine to the rimu and cut. Just needs a good sand. Then the base and the top. I do have to make another top plate as the last one was not quite long enough.

Anyway it will be sanded and then glued and screwed. We need to find a bit of rubber for the speakers to sit on to help liminate vibration. I am unsure also if they will just sit of we connect the tight as one unit… will have to
wait and see.

I will be routing the edges with a round over bit… might have to borrow a friends bit the one I have not quite big enough really.

I may put another supporting bit of MDF inbetween the dishwasher and fridge, just to give a bit more… well… support…

New microwave oven shelve, the shelf only goes back just over 3/4, this is to allow as much air flow around the oven as we can, as it is a conventional oven as well so does need that air flow. The support wall on the right has a 45 degree corner cut off and beveled to allow the dishwasher and fridge power cables to pass through to the power socket.

Today however finally put on the scotia beeding. Cut some battens on table saw and a simple round over on the router and done. I made the battens thicker than normal scotia beeding but it gives the look of a base on the island. Well I think so anyway. Took about an hour to make and put on…

Only thing left to do to the actual Island now is paint it to match the kitchen walls so it blends in with the rest of the decor. The house 96 years old and the T&G walls Rimu (sigh) we wanted to have the same look on the island which is just MDF, so was routed to give a T&G look.

While I know this part is not wook working we also go spot lights installed, one angled done on to the Kitchen Island and the other two down on to the dinning table. Now give nice mix of ambent lighting, when you turn off main lights.

I could just about put this in as a project but, I didn’t do the bench top, and well there are still a few things to do till I class it as finished… ie finish the floating floor, edge beeding and carand most likely a shelf of some description under microwave, needs painting, and extra support wall (maybe)... tis all good.

Thanx for reading… (if you did or just looked at the pretty pictures… meh it okay either way) lol

Regards
Nighthawk

Amazing what a bit of paint can do… not only does it make the place look tidier, but can also brighten the place up.

Though painting the bricks (and there is a bit more to do yet) did chew threw the paint but once it is on the repainting later on will be a lot easier. See nice and bright, makes the place happy… though kinda reminds me of the flat we use to live in before we bought this place … hmmm thats a bad thing.

The bricks are support bricks for the upstairs coal range, which is on a wetback… heats our water, keeps us warm, boils the jug for coffee, and cooks food… all for a bucket of dirty coal…. lol

Before I know it, I will have painted the whole basement white and still have no floor… or interntal cladding for that matter… but it will be shiney.

Put over the wood rack that has very poor lighting as it goes up and under the house and difficult to get at on the best of days. while it is not bright, it actually works enough to see the wood length where as before we couldn’t, you could just see the front half… They just plug in to normal power socket and we have light… tada… yah. :-)

Complete darkness and no flash

Complete darkness and no flash

using flash

Might get a couple more as you can string them together I believe up to 20 metres or so…

As the person that I did these for will put the finish coating on, I don’t believe he has decided yet what he is going to do… I thinkk he wants to stain them… haven’t a clue.

Final sanding done…

It took a little longer than expected as one of them got dented badly (not exactly sure how as of yet) and I had to get them dents out with hot water and steam and then let dry and then, more sanding…. mutter mutter swear curse… mutter mutter…

All that is left to do now is make some speaker stands… and we are sort of undecided what we want to do. I don’t have enough rimu to do what I wanted to do… and it so damn expensive I am not going to buy any.

Just the stands to go… if he truly wants them…

Over all so far happy with the results of this project… Hmmm haven’t really got a clue for an idea about the stands yet… hmmmmm

He has also helps me organise the basement a little, and the ongoing joke is he is building his shop in my basement… Anyway, he is young and doesn’t have a lot of tools of his own (he just borrows from his work or friends and always gives back in tidier contion than he recieved when finished … rare but true.) The other day we visited but had to take a chisel so we could fix a new door that wasn’t quite right…

Template… x3 just incase…. but didn’t need them.

Anyway his birthday (so we found out…) is this weekend, and me and my partner decided to go by some basic tools and a nice metal tool box for him. Not top of the line tools but not exactly cheap junk either…

Tool box … well can’t give an empty tool box… so we put some tools in it.

I then found a scrape piece of wood and scroll sawed out his name, gave it a damn good sanding, varnished and use epoxy to stick it to the tool box.

Cutting out the name plate

Use turps to get the paper & glue template off, wait to dry and then give a sand to smooth edges…

Epoxy name plate on to the toolbox lid. Looks really good and once glue sets should be stuck good.

So hopefully he likes his present… we think it is pretty cool. Speaking of that he is here… got go…

Before the sanding and re-oil…

All I did was give it a light sand including the running stem and then used linseed polishing oil for a protective coating and put the old work horse of a clamp back to work.

light sand and clean stem… reoiled.

My friend said why don’t you replace the clamping heads… well it wouldn’t be the orinal then I said… Like grand-dads old axe out the back… its been in the family for generations… it’s 150 years young… even though it has had 5 new handles and 3 new axe heads… but the same axe and as good as the day it was made 150 years ago… lol I even put back the orginal split pin (though this has been changed over the years)

Old work horse still going strong…

The good thing I like about this clamp is that it doesn’t over clamp and bruise the the wood you are clamping… and it is quicker to actually clamp than the moder twist F-Clamps…

I may make another one, copying this one as a template, and see if I can make it all out of wood… which wood be cool… Pun intended.

Now big sis wants to sand whole table back and redo just to spruce up. Now we all love wood, but her house has heaps of natural wood showing and with the table, it actually becomes to much so she is thinking of … eeeek painting it. (shock horror I know, but I actually on this occasion agree with her, sad but true.) And the table is only pine… boring…

Broken join and the dowels are broken. On the right the leg has come loose but no broken dowels. So can glue and clamp that one back on. Broken leg also had a crack which also broke a piece off so need to glue that back together first. It became a fiddly clamping exercise there was no straight angles.

Well it was interesting clamp… It looks as if one clamp is actually doning nothing but in reality it is stopping the broken piece from sliding up. I wonder how the main part will work… I was hoping to get away with one clamp, but of course not… anyway it looks off but thats where it needs the bit of pressure to hold.

Has all been sanded now and undercoated… ready for another lite sand and first top coat.

19 Dec 2011
Gave the top a light sand, and got the paint me sis wanted to use. Now the lighting is not the best where I am doing this and probably what it is, but the red looks very pink and well… lets say not me. Anyway I have applied the first top coat of red. I will allow that to dry for a day or so and they sand in between coats, it will only need a couple and then a finishing coat which I am not sure how to get just yet, as I don’t have a compressor and spray equipment at the moment. Something I am working on though.

However worry about that when the time coems. The legs will be a charcoal black colour. I know I know canterbury colours. Whilst the tabel will look okay. I is very retro.

9th January 2012
OKay a bit of an update, we have given it another light sand and put the first coat of charcoal paint on the legs, and a second coat on the under belly of the table. We will be giving the legs another coat soon, and and then tackle the table top to get the best we can before putting a lacure to try and protect it all.

Whilst it is red and mean RED, with the dark chacoal legs (which was my idea, initially big sis wanted all red) the black legs breaks it the colour and is not so bad… but it is RED and RETRO. She now says was a good idea to do that.

More images here

Now the floor being concreted is not in the budget for at least another year or 2, so I have to make do with what I have… but it doesn’t mean I can’t try and make things look tidy and good… But it does mean I am limited to what I can do…

This will not be my main work bench but one for doing smaller jobs…

The tinker bench before

The tinker bench after

Paint bench add new MDF top and paint… add new tool board and paint… Over all it was MDF we were given

Clamps are off and the long slow timely process of sanding to get them loooking good. This will also hide any inperfections of our glue up… Doh Have taped newspaper over speaker faces to protect them the best we can, so no dust can get in anyway. Also have done the same to the back hole where the connection and pre-amp go.

Again my problem is dust and I don’t have any dust extraction as of yet… sigh!!! so we are doing it in short bursts and this will take a couple of days or more… as I have couple other projects on th ego as well… Making interesting when I don’t really have a nice shop arrangement… :-(

I work out of a small basement, (still has the uneven dirt floor) and working round house piles, so space is at a premium. For a while I never even had a router, and once I got one I had to work out the best way for to set it up. No room really for a table… While I was thinking about this, a job came up that needed some attention so we got some custom wood mounted the router to it, clamped a it to the mitre saw arms and then clamped a straight edge fence. And at the end of the day was all that was needed to do the dados for the speakers

Old simple jig… and was all required for various jobs.

After that we then needed to use a round over bit which changed the way the jig would work. So simply put, the jig required an upgrade, and a more permanent jig. My mate Hayden also said at the time “hey, you can use the old vacuum cleaner part and add a vacuum port at the back.” Which well we did and works great. (another story that very vacuum blew up in my face… sigh)

Part of vacuum cleaner head.

The jig is very simple and because it is simple it is so quick to set up. One end of the fence is bolted and pivots while you move the other end and simply clamp once you have the distance from the bit for a dado, and even quicker for a round over or other profile with a bearing, you simply get your test piece of wood press against the bearing and swing the fence and clamp.

Because it swings on the pivot it means I don’t worry about that end of the jig, just measure from the bit to the fence and swing fence into postion then clamp it down, and you are locked. You don’t really need the double ended adjustment as such. If I need a bigger space for a dado I can easily put in another pivot hole and the swing the fence back the other way… Personally doing it this way there is less chance of me making a stuff up… lol

Like I said its not pretty but the jig works really well and is very simple which I like… and I am considering that I don’t really need to make a complete adjustable router table. Everything is easily accessable the way it is, and this jig takes up no space (well it does but if you know the way my basement is laid out and how I have the mitre saw you will know what I mean… )

Round over bit a scrap piece of pine on all four edges… it works perfectly.

Not only that it works just as well as any professional built router table I have used in the past and it cost nothing as it was made out of a scrap piece of custom MDF and 2 scrap pieces of pine glued together, and old vacuum cleaner head.

I don’t have room for all the big fancy tools that I would like to own, so one has to make do with what one has and think outside the square and I think on this occassion it wll work perfectly.

Regards
Nighthawk

My Wacky Projects

Okay we first made a router jig so we can do some nice daedo to fit the speakers into and then finish the cross cut table sled for cutting the panels… after we have biscult jointed them together.

This is another joint project with Hayden we had fun on the coffin so thought it would be cool on this one too… But apparently he isn’t qualified. (internal joke) Anyway he measured, and I biscuit joined three panels which will be cut for the four sides, tops and bottoms… we will do the backs seperately. (I think) We will then routher the daedo’s and then cut down and then mitre and then glue and then cut more and then hoefully sand which means things are going as planned.

So the clamps are off and we set mitre saw to 45 degree. We even check to see if it is true… and well we can get any closer, but believe it or not the table saw does not quiet get to it 44.5 – 44.75 so close but yet so far. Not close enough for a trim final cut. That will be annoying…

Anyway, we routered the daedo’s and rabbits on the all pieces & cut the back piece of the speaker boxes on the table sled. We even upgraded the router jig so the fence will swing and be adjustable.

Dry run fit… not to bad…

We then did a dry fit and is pretty close on speaker needs a bit more work done to it. But once all glued up and clamped tight they are going to look pretty nice.

Well we will see how the rest goes in a couple of days….

Having the right tools for the job can make things so much easier, yes I will agree with that statement. However as we all know you don’t always have the right tool or all the tools you require or want to have in your shop, in my case a basement. One thing I have learnt though, is learn the full capabilities of the tools you do have, if you do this then you may find that you already have a work around for many things that you didn’t realise.

Simple things like no table saw to cut various cuts in a various ways, while yes it may be alot easier having one, and yes I still struggle when I want to rip long or wide cuts… but think what other saws you have that could also do the job, circular saw , mitre saw, scroll saw and also don’t be affraid to bring out those hand tools like hand saws and cooping saw and chisels. With a bit of practise and thought you will be supprised in what you can do and achieve and it will open up other projects that you can now have a go at.

Now again I am not the best wood worker heck I don’t pretend to be. I myself don’t have all the fancy tools you see on many of the wood working video’s.

eg; now just take it over to your table saw and…

Well I don’t have one. (okay I do now since about a month ago), and that will change how I operate and build things, but I will remember that I didn’t always have one. If I am showing someone how to make something or do something then I will also try and come up with alternatives of how to make with out a certian tool.

If you don’t have a scroll saw then maybe a copping saw will do the job you want done. Don’t have a router to smooth sharp edges, then maybe a belt sander or orbital, even a hand plane. Whilst it may not give the same result as the router you can still achieve a great look.

The circular saw, you can still do a bit with it. You can set the angle of a cut, the depth and if you uses a straight edge jig or make a running jig for it (or buy one) you can still do a bit with it. Yes it is not as easy and there is more fluffing around but you can achieve it. Heck hand saw and sanding you will still get there with a bit of practise.

So don’t be too put off if you don’t have the all the fancy tools, there usually is another way of acheiving the similar out come, and sometimes it is a better. So sometimes you need to think out side the square.

Have fun.

Regards
Nighthawk