Rob 's Blog at LumberJocks.com

My wife needs help (oh that doesn't sound good;)

Rob — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:39:16 GMT

She’s applied for a amazing job in Austrailia and would like for you to watch her short application video and vote for her (5 stars would be nice!). I thought some of you would appreciate the video as there is a short clip of her in the shop giving hand planing a try. Check it out!

Table saw injury :(

Rob — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:48:18 GMT

I’ve been hesitant to post this because it is something rather embarrassing and unfortunate that I’d really like to just forget. Unfortunately I’m reminded every day when I look in the mirror! However I post this as a reminder to us all just how dangerous our tools can be. This is the result of table saw kickback…

I remember what happened. I was getting ready to do a carpentry job away from the house one day. I needed to make a simple gauge block to help me. I went to the shop to quickly make a couple cuts. And as I pushed the small piece through the blade it got caught on my blade insert that had warped slightly (cheap Borg ply!) and whammo it suddenly flew up into my face just like that. A trip to the hospital and four stitches later and then this photo. If this helps someone respect their tools more or prevents an injury then it’s worth sharing my stupidity I suppose.

An Inexpensive Workbench #3: Dogs, Holes, and New Jaws

Rob — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:42:17 GMT

I substituted my cheap temporary construction lumber jaws for some good ash jaws. I’m so glad I practiced first because originally the jaws were about 1/8th below the bench top surface. Now they are flush.

You can also see that I added some dogs and holes. I tried to cheap-out and use 3/4 wooden dowels for the dogs which will definitely get you by in a pinch, however, I think you will find replacing them all the time annoying. Also they don’t hold as well as the Veritas dogs I decided to splurge on! Man these are nice; which figures since they are made in Canada!

I never did mention the vise handle. I had a large dowel that I spoke shaved down to the proper size then I used small pieces of the original size to cap the ends. Not as nice looking as the Veritas but it saved me 5 bucks. Here’s a pic of the bench in use. I needed to flatten out my cutting board. It’s nice to have a thick, flat surface to reference off and clamp to.

And here’s a little pic of the shop reorginisation to accommodate the new bench. I just moved some shelving around. Put some lights above as well as my small fleet of planes.

That’s all for now. Immediate future plans are to round off the vise corners, put a coat of finish on, and add a shelf underneath. Stay tuned and thanks for dropping by!

Rob

An Inexpensive Workbench #2: Mounting the top and vise

Rob — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:45:01 GMT

My bench costs rose slightly today. I bought some lag bolts to attach the top to the base. $3.50. Let’s see, about 60 in wood, 65 for the vise, a bottle of glue; I figure I’m close to $135 into this so far. I still have to get some hardwood jaws for the vise but I’m pretty sure I’ll keep total cost under 150. Here’s a pic with the top attached …

After flattening the top I went ahead and attached the vise. I found the instructions kind of complicated so I’m using scrap wood from the bench for the jaws temporarilly. Now that I’ve got the hang of it I’ll move on to hardwood. Oh, by the way, I glad I picked up a transfer punch set recently; I found it pretty indispensible today in mounting the top and vise. So here it is with the vise in place …

So that’s it for today. I cleaned up the shop after and check out this pile of shavings!

I guess the next step will be adding dog holes and getting proper jaws. Thanks for stopping by!

An Inexpensive Workbench #1: base complete & hand planing the top

Rob — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:11:50 GMT

I’ve been working on a new bench and thought I’d share the progress in case anyone is interested. I read Scott Landis’ Workbench book and a few excerpts from the Swartz’s book and I’ve come up with this. I’ve totally cheaped-out so far, and so far no regrets. Everything accept the vise faces is going to be constuction lumber; 2×6’s and 2×4’s (where I come from these are made from Spruce). $60 is the total bill for the base and top so far; I haven’t bought the jaws yet.

Here is the base. The dimensions are 33 high, 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. Once the top is on the bench should sit at 36” the same height as my table saw so that it can be used to help support long boards for infeeding. The joinery for the base is with dadoes.

Tonight I glued up the 2×4’s for the top. I picked the straightest boards from the Home Depot pile. I know you should let wood acclimatise but I wanted to get them together while they were still straight so I glued them up right away. It gives me a bench top over 3” thick so I’ve got room to plane it flat again if need be.

I then cut the glue up down to 6 feet in length with my circular saw. And then I broke out my new (well really old actually but new to me) jointer plane and went to town. This is a lot of fun and excellent exercise to boot. First I planed the bottom flat, flipped it and started on the top. This pic is where I’m at now, mid-way though the top. I’m done for the night, I feel spent after planing for two hours straight!