Chris Wright's Blog at LumberJocks.com

A thank you

Chris Wright — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:17:32 GMT

I wanted to say thank you to all of you who signed the online petition to light the White House on April 19th for Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness day. Sadly we did not meet the signature threshold to trigger a response so the petition was removed from the site. For those of you who are unaware of what I am talking about feel free to read my previous blog entry. Thanks again for your support, it really means a lot to me and my family.

A call for help

Chris Wright — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:54:53 GMT

Almost four years ago my first son passed away from complications resulting for Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, a birth defect where the diaphragm doesn’t fully form and the contents of the abdomen, stomach, intestines and in some case parts of the bowel, push up into the chest cavity. This causes a dislocation of the heart and restricted development of the lungs. On average 50% of babies with CDH do not survive and about 50% of the ones that do require long hospital stays to recover. I share this information with you to ask for your help. April 19th is CDH awareness day and there is a petition on the White House’s petition page requesting that the White House be lit up for CDH awareness day. It would mean a lot to me and my wife and the families of all the other children who have suffered with CDH if you would join us in signing this petition. The goal is 100,000 signatures by March 9th.

Thank you,
Chris

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/light-white-house-international-day-congenital-diaphragmatic-hernia-awareness-april-19th/slTN4fmQ

Challengeing myself

Chris Wright — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:08:08 GMT

For those of you who are familiar with my projects, particularly of late, see that I like to make planes. In my projects section I have several Krenov style wood body planes, a few specialty planes, a scraper plane and my first attempt at a toted wood body hand plane. With each one I’ve tried to take what I learned in the first and put that knowledge toward the next, as I’m sure we all do. It’s become quite the “hobby” of mine and I’m looking forward to expanding this knowledge into making my own infill planes at some point. My point of this post is that I, and I’m sure a lot of you as well, like to challenge myself. Such is the case for the next two plane projects I’ve started. The first is my take on the No. 51 (either the Lie-Nielson, or the Stanley) Shooting plane

The other plane I’ve started is a copy of Stanley’s old No. 74 chamfering plane

With both of these planes I intend to make them as close to the originals as possible, only made from wood. The Shooting plane will have a 2 inch blade with the bed set 20 degrees skewed, which was a big challenge to figure out that compound angle. And the chamfering plane I plan to have an adjustable blade bed similar to the original. Now, some people will probably say, “Chris, why make things so difficult for yourself? There are much easier ways to make both of those planes.” And I say, “Why not. I have the time to tinker (which I know is a very rare luxury in this field) and I want to see if I can do it. I’ll get some pics posted as soon as they are finished.

One Year, and Counting

Chris Wright — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:42:55 GMT

Well, here it is. A full one year for me being a LumberJock. This past year has seen a lot of ups and downs for me, but the great thing has been that my fellow LJers here have always been friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. For your help in all things, whether it be related to wood working or personal issues, I thank you all. It’s been a fun year here, and I look forward to many more.

Briefcase #2: Cutting, sanding, finishing and glueing

Chris Wright — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:38:50 GMT

So, now I’ve got the bulk of the work done on the case. Where I left off in my last blog I had cut the sides and glued the top together.

Now, I got the top down to the right size. This was a little tricky because I wanted to keep the joint pretty much right in the middle of the panel. Once it was to size it was time to route a cove along the edges so I could fit them into the slots I cut into the sides. I used a cove cutting bit that I filed the guide bearing post off of so I will get a “tongue” that is straight on the edge so it will fit into the sides before the cove starts.

So I wouldn’t have any tear out on the end grain edges I clamed a piece of scrap to the trailing edge of the top.

Everything went very smoothly with the router table. Here’s the result.

I cut a piece of scrap quarter inch plywood to use as the bottom and stained it to match as close as possible to the sides. After the stain dried, I test fit the box to make sure the top, bottom and sides all fit nicely. Which they did, perfectly (not to boast).

Now that I’m satisfied with the fit, the final step I do before I glue the box together, and I do this same thing whenever I make my small boxes as well, is to do whatever finishing needs to be done to the inside surfaces. So, I sand, and I sand, and I sand some more, then I spray my finish. In this case I used a water based spray lacquer. To keep the miters clean so the glue will stick, I used some masking tape.

After the insides have been sealed and finished, it’s time to break out the glue bottle. These are simple 45 degree miters, so I spread some glue, not too much because I didn’t want any seeping out of the joint into the interior or the box. It’s not too difficult to clean out if some does, but why make extra work for yourself if you don’t have too. I’m using Merle Adjustable Corner Clamps to hold the joints together (http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/merle_clamp.html ).

So, next time, it’s back to the router table to cut the recesses for the splines.

See you then, and thanks for reading.

Briefcase #1: The Idea

Chris Wright — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:20:12 GMT

So, I decided to start an interesting project a few weeks ago and I thought I’d share my progress. I figured it would be neat to build a wood briefcase. Now, I know that in today’s business society people tend to use shoulder bags, “soft” briefcases or messenger bags to tote around their documents. But I figured, “what the hell, if anything it will be fun.”

Like the majority of my projects, it all starts with a drawing.

I planned the sides be about 5 inches high with an outside dimension of 18.5 inches by 13 inches. The sides and the top are going to be about half an inch thick. I didn’t want to go thicker because of weight.

The idea is for me to take one of my small gift boxes (like these http://lumberjocks.com/projects/11122) and just make it bigger, but a handle on the side and some case locks. Like the second of the two boxes I’ve posted, I decided to do the dovetail splines in the corners. This serves two functions: One – it reinforces the joints, and two – it looks nice.

So, digging through my left over wood pile I found a nice piece of cherry for the sides that I planed and cut down:

And I beautiful piece of quarter sawn white oak that I glued together for the lid:

As I get further along with this project I’ll post more pictures.

Thanks for looking.

REMOVED

Chris Wright — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:05:46 GMT

REMOVED

A Word on Shop Safety

Chris Wright — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:36:04 GMT

So, we are all aware of the inherent dangers involved in woodworking, and if you are unaware of these dangers then you really need to pay attention. For those who are a little squeamish then I recommend skipping past the image, there’s some blood.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit, that of all the possible things that could have happened here, I am very lucky.

This happened about 2 years ago now. I was cutting a thin strip of wood on the table saw, I was using a push stick but I had my left thumb tip on the waste piece in a position that I thought was far enough from the blade, I was paying more attention watching the blade cutting through the top of the piece when I felt a quick tug on my thumb. And I remember thinking to myself, “did that just happen?” Not looking at my thumb I reached down and switched the saw off, then when I looked I saw a small trickle of blood go down my thumb I thought, “yeah, that just happened.” And I went and cleaned myself up and bandaged everything. I was more embarrassed than anything else.

I was very lucky in that it only took a bit of skin off and a small part of the nail. It’s all healed and looks as if nothing has happened. So, what did I learn from this? Well, it just went to reiterate what I teach my patrons when I run them through the safety course, “Know where your hands are at all times.” So, take it from me, always pay attention to your hands, and use a push stick when you’re close to the blade.