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#1 ·
180819 Shop Blog

Pneumatic tool Handheld power drill Hand tool Tool Gas


New… Old Yankee Workshop
If, like me, you grew up in the 80s and 90s watching Norm and his ilk on PBS, but then got into woodworking in middle-age 10 or 20 years later, you might be surprised to learn that the world has moved on. What was New Hotness of woodworking in 1988 may well be out of date 30 years later in 2018. Attachment methods, tool technology, and other techniques may have changed. You owe it to yourself to get caught up, and I haven't found a better way to do that than YouTube. A few YouTubers that I've found very helpful so far include
The Wood Whisperer
Jimmy Diresta
Stumpy Nubs
Ron Paulk
Steve Ramsey
Frank Howarth
John Peters Art & Home
Jay's Custom Creations
April Wilkerson
HomeMade Modern

Tack Cloths are… Tacky
A case in point relative to the above is my foray today into the world of tack cloths. I grew up here all the PBS guys constantly talk about wiping down the work with a "tack cloth" after sanding to take off the fine dust. So I ordered some up from Amazon and tried one out today. Up until now I've been using a damp rag with just water to wipe down the work, and it's been working just fine.

So today, instead of using my tried and true damp rag, I got out one of those tack cloths. My god is this thing sticky! I made the mistake of getting it out with a bare hand, at which point it was pretty much too late. I wiped down my one piece that I was going to use to test the sprayer, and then dealt with the sticky hand until I could get it washed off.

I came back later after the sprayer experiment and put on gloves and used the rag to wipe down the rest of my pieces, but I think it may have left a light residue on them meaning I'll have to ultimately come back with the damp water rag anyway.

Sand the parts, not the product
My pieces today were some basic shelves. 18×28 sheet of plywood with a 2"x28" strip glued to the leading edge on each side to make a 1&½" total thickness at the edge. What this means is that I have these inside corners behind the lips, and when I was sanding these pieces I couldn't really get those inside corners. The reason this matters is that the rougher inside corner played hell with the tack cloth, and I suspect will do the same with the damp rag.

What I wish I'd done, and started to do, was sand the strips before I attached them to the shelves. The only difficulty in this is that I would wind up sanding 2x no matter what since when I installed the strips I left them a little proud and came back and flushed them up with the router and flush trim bit. Anyway, minutiae of this particular project, but with experience comes hindsight and I'll know for next time.

Paint Sprayers: worth the squeeze?
I bought a HomeRight Super Finish Max HVLP Paint Sprayer from Rockler a few weeks back specifically for this project. So far I think I like it, but thank God I took the time to test it out today before I got into the production pieces.I first sprayed a small piece of cardboard using just water, then emptied that out and added the Polycrilic I've been using, then sprayed a very small scrap of the same plywood, tuned what I thought was a good volume of spray, and then worked on the bottom side of one of the shelves. Some lessons learned…

The viscosity matters a lot. I first tested with just water, and the spray volume for that vs the Polycrilic was massively different. I got the pattern tuned in for the Poly on a scrap, and I'm going to mark the adjustment knob in case it drifts later.

Thinning? I didn't thin. The chart that came with the sprayer said to use a nozzle of a certain color for Poly, so that's what I did. It seemed to go OK. Time will tell. The nozzle was pretty easy to get on and off once I figured out the wrench.

Blow then Spray. The trigger is kind of two-stage. The initial travel of the trigger just starts the air blowing. Then there's a slight hitch in the giddyup, at least on mine, and then the pain starts flowing. It's almost like the trigger pull on a double-action semi-auto pistol where you have some takeup at first and then the pull gets harder as the hammer starts to move.

This thing blows! Once you get that air moving with the initial trigger pull, it really starts pushing out air. It blew things off my assembly table, it blew the kraft paper edge up and over so I wound up on top of my test piece, etc. it's a lot of air. Be ready for that.

Dropcloth. I used some Duo-Finish Light-Weight Kraft Paper as my drop cloth today, and it wasn't good. It was too think, and since it lacks a shiny side it also allows everything to soak through. I'm sure it's gluing itself to my assembly table as I type this. At a bare minimum I need something with the gloss back. Or maybe just use a tarp and be done. Something better has to happen.

Cleanup. So far seems pretty simple. I dumped the leftover material, ran some cold clean water through the gun, then used some warm soapy water to run through the gun, and then took apart the nozzle and used some warm soapy water to clean those parts, then ran clean water through the gun again and then rinsed off all the small parts with the clean water. We'll see how that worked out next time I use the gun. What I think would be helpful would be to use one of the small aluminum pans I have for barbecuing to wash the small parts and
Get another paint container for the gun. Looks like they sell them on Amazon and Home Depot. That way I could just seal up the material in one container and use a fresh one to actually do the cleaning. Probably a good idea to just go ahead and get a couple.

Sherwin Williams out at Home Depot
Evidently Lowes inked an exclusive deal with Sherwin Williams, who makes Minwax, who makes Polycrilic. Not sure the ramifications of this long term, but in the short term I need more Polycrilic to finish this project and stopped at Home Depot yesterday to pick some up. Nope. Only Varathane. Which I hear is better, but which may or may not match my current project. So I wanted to stick with what I've got. So far my local True Value still has the Polycrilic, so maybe it's just the big box guys not all chains. I'll pick up some today either way. Yesterday I stopped in but couldn't remember the sheen I'd been using.
 

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#2 ·
180819 Shop Blog

Pneumatic tool Handheld power drill Hand tool Tool Gas


New… Old Yankee Workshop
If, like me, you grew up in the 80s and 90s watching Norm and his ilk on PBS, but then got into woodworking in middle-age 10 or 20 years later, you might be surprised to learn that the world has moved on. What was New Hotness of woodworking in 1988 may well be out of date 30 years later in 2018. Attachment methods, tool technology, and other techniques may have changed. You owe it to yourself to get caught up, and I haven't found a better way to do that than YouTube. A few YouTubers that I've found very helpful so far include
The Wood Whisperer
Jimmy Diresta
Stumpy Nubs
Ron Paulk
Steve Ramsey
Frank Howarth
John Peters Art & Home
Jay's Custom Creations
April Wilkerson
HomeMade Modern

Tack Cloths are… Tacky
A case in point relative to the above is my foray today into the world of tack cloths. I grew up here all the PBS guys constantly talk about wiping down the work with a "tack cloth" after sanding to take off the fine dust. So I ordered some up from Amazon and tried one out today. Up until now I've been using a damp rag with just water to wipe down the work, and it's been working just fine.

So today, instead of using my tried and true damp rag, I got out one of those tack cloths. My god is this thing sticky! I made the mistake of getting it out with a bare hand, at which point it was pretty much too late. I wiped down my one piece that I was going to use to test the sprayer, and then dealt with the sticky hand until I could get it washed off.

I came back later after the sprayer experiment and put on gloves and used the rag to wipe down the rest of my pieces, but I think it may have left a light residue on them meaning I'll have to ultimately come back with the damp water rag anyway.

Sand the parts, not the product
My pieces today were some basic shelves. 18×28 sheet of plywood with a 2"x28" strip glued to the leading edge on each side to make a 1&½" total thickness at the edge. What this means is that I have these inside corners behind the lips, and when I was sanding these pieces I couldn't really get those inside corners. The reason this matters is that the rougher inside corner played hell with the tack cloth, and I suspect will do the same with the damp rag.

What I wish I'd done, and started to do, was sand the strips before I attached them to the shelves. The only difficulty in this is that I would wind up sanding 2x no matter what since when I installed the strips I left them a little proud and came back and flushed them up with the router and flush trim bit. Anyway, minutiae of this particular project, but with experience comes hindsight and I'll know for next time.

Paint Sprayers: worth the squeeze?
I bought a HomeRight Super Finish Max HVLP Paint Sprayer from Rockler a few weeks back specifically for this project. So far I think I like it, but thank God I took the time to test it out today before I got into the production pieces.I first sprayed a small piece of cardboard using just water, then emptied that out and added the Polycrilic I've been using, then sprayed a very small scrap of the same plywood, tuned what I thought was a good volume of spray, and then worked on the bottom side of one of the shelves. Some lessons learned…

The viscosity matters a lot. I first tested with just water, and the spray volume for that vs the Polycrilic was massively different. I got the pattern tuned in for the Poly on a scrap, and I'm going to mark the adjustment knob in case it drifts later.

Thinning? I didn't thin. The chart that came with the sprayer said to use a nozzle of a certain color for Poly, so that's what I did. It seemed to go OK. Time will tell. The nozzle was pretty easy to get on and off once I figured out the wrench.

Blow then Spray. The trigger is kind of two-stage. The initial travel of the trigger just starts the air blowing. Then there's a slight hitch in the giddyup, at least on mine, and then the pain starts flowing. It's almost like the trigger pull on a double-action semi-auto pistol where you have some takeup at first and then the pull gets harder as the hammer starts to move.

This thing blows! Once you get that air moving with the initial trigger pull, it really starts pushing out air. It blew things off my assembly table, it blew the kraft paper edge up and over so I wound up on top of my test piece, etc. it's a lot of air. Be ready for that.

Dropcloth. I used some Duo-Finish Light-Weight Kraft Paper as my drop cloth today, and it wasn't good. It was too think, and since it lacks a shiny side it also allows everything to soak through. I'm sure it's gluing itself to my assembly table as I type this. At a bare minimum I need something with the gloss back. Or maybe just use a tarp and be done. Something better has to happen.

Cleanup. So far seems pretty simple. I dumped the leftover material, ran some cold clean water through the gun, then used some warm soapy water to run through the gun, and then took apart the nozzle and used some warm soapy water to clean those parts, then ran clean water through the gun again and then rinsed off all the small parts with the clean water. We'll see how that worked out next time I use the gun. What I think would be helpful would be to use one of the small aluminum pans I have for barbecuing to wash the small parts and
Get another paint container for the gun. Looks like they sell them on Amazon and Home Depot. That way I could just seal up the material in one container and use a fresh one to actually do the cleaning. Probably a good idea to just go ahead and get a couple.

Sherwin Williams out at Home Depot
Evidently Lowes inked an exclusive deal with Sherwin Williams, who makes Minwax, who makes Polycrilic. Not sure the ramifications of this long term, but in the short term I need more Polycrilic to finish this project and stopped at Home Depot yesterday to pick some up. Nope. Only Varathane. Which I hear is better, but which may or may not match my current project. So I wanted to stick with what I've got. So far my local True Value still has the Polycrilic, so maybe it's just the big box guys not all chains. I'll pick up some today either way. Yesterday I stopped in but couldn't remember the sheen I'd been using.
I like to use a coffee filter to wipe dust off of pieces/parts.
Much better than a tack cloth.
 

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#3 ·
Weekly(ish) Blog #3: 180922 Shop Blog

The wife recently finished painting our cabana bath, and wallpaper'd one of the walls with some nautical charts, so we're about ready to add some towel/robe hooks. Because (a) this is the cabana bath and (b) with two little girls we seem to constantly be looking for places to hang up towels, we wanted a lot of hooks. We've used boat cleats as towel hooks elsewhere, so she ordered up 10 from somewhere. Also the cabinet doors are a shaker style so we wanted to mimic that with the towel rack. This is what I came up with.

Automotive exterior Rectangle Automotive design Font Electric blue


I was kind of struggling as to how to hang it, and I thought I could use a fench cleat that wouldn't extend to the ends so I could keep it flush looking without just screwing it directly to the wall.

Rectangle Automotive exterior Parallel Diagram Machine


I initially was going to use MDF, then because of the french cleat design wanted to use poplar, but then my local Home Depot didn't have any poplar so I wound up with their fanciest pine (yes, I know, fancy pine is an oxymoron). With a single 2Ă—6x8ft I could get all the rails and stiles out of one piece.

Got the wood home, chopped it down to 73", and hit my first snag. Evidently my chop saw is out of alignement, but in a very odd way. It's pretty square in the horizontal, and that's something I can tweak. And it's square in the vertical at one side of the cut, but not the other. For example, when I lay the 2Ă—6 flat and cut across it, the vertical cut at one of the 3Ă—4" sides is perfect, and the other side it just out. Not quite sure what to do about that frankly, so I moved over to the table saw to make those cuts. Ripped the 2Ă—6 down to the 2.25" width I needed, and then squared up the ends. this worked great for the little 5" sections but the 6' sections were kind of a bitch to cut even with my Incra 1000HD miter gauge. In retrospect I suppose I could have kicked the extension out for a bit more support.

Once I had everything cut, I laid it all out and started to second guess my dimensions as I felt like the verticals were maybe too short. Ultimately I figured I had all the wood cut I might as well carry on. Here's what it looked like mocked up.

Wood Composite material Rectangle Hardwood Flooring


Wood Table Rectangle Hardwood Gas


Wood Table Rectangle Tool Wood stain


I figured I probably didn't really need an actual French Cleat, as I'll certainly hit at least one stud with a cleat location, and in any case I intend to screw the cleats through the piece to the mounting board on the wall. Still on the fence about this one, actually. More on that in a bit. So I just hogged out 1/4" out of the back of each of the stiles. I'm pretty sure that typically the rails sit between the stiles but with this being such a long piece that didn't make much sense. I used pocket holes and glue to attach the rails to the stiles.

Then I used the router to hog out the back of the frame to accept the panels. It's cut 1/2" deep and 3/8" wide. Mostly because this is the bit I had, but the 1/2"+ depth is pretty important to get the 1/4" panel and the 1/4" mounting board to fit behind.

Next I got out my chisel, and tried squaring the corners. I did this on two and figured this was going to take me forever, so instead I went over to the chop saw and put two 22.5-degree cuts on each corner, which fits the rounds without showing through the front.

Here you can see the hogged out back, the pocket holes, the two corners I chiseled, and the 22.5-degree cuts I wound up going with instead.
Wood Rectangle Door Beige Hardwood


And here's where I ended day 1, after sanding the panel faces and edges, and sanding the face of the frame to try and get the stiles flush with the rails. I did remember to sand all of the 3/4" faces of the rails and stiles before I assembled everything, so I'm pretty happy about that. I'll still have some finish sanding to do on the final assembled part, but the bulk of it is done.

 

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