| Blog series by Gary Fixler | updated 184 days ago | 6 parts | 3477 reads | 49 comments total |
Part 1: general assembly
My Craftsman 13” planer is a real beast to move around in the shop. It’s very heavy, and really bulky. As such, it’s just always either in the way when I don’t need it, or really hard to get to when I do, having collected many items from other projects on and around it since its previous use. After setting up to use it, I’m often too tired to. I’ve even changed some projects to avoid planing altogether, just because I don’t want to move a few dozen th...
Part 2: flush sanding, a drawer, and a nice big mistake
I got the casters on yesterday, cutting some scrap wood board to fit along the edges inside the bottom, and joining them in with pocket hole screws from underneath. Extra sturdy now, and the wheels are all in plane with each other. I wasn’t sure how tall they were, and it was critical, as I was designing this to be as high as possible, while still fitting comfortably under my work table. I have Rockler’s digital height gauge, and it showed me they were all exactly 2.5” (actu...
Part 3: at last, a drawer
I have to say, posting projects as I do them does two things. I puts the pressure on me to not screw up, after getting great comments from you folks about how to proceed through difficult parts. I sure don’t want to come back and say “Thanks for all the suggestions, but oh well! I shattered the entire thing in a big kickback!” It also really drives me to keep working when I might otherwise say “Meh, I’ll finish that part tomorrow, or this weekend.” So thank...
Part 4: stain tests, and drawer stops
Up early, I got a little done this morning before work. I tested 2 stains from my small stock pile on some scrap poplar, the same stuff I used in this rolling base. That’s Minwax “Golden Pecan 245” on the left, and “Red Oak 215” on the right. The pecan is less saturated than the online sample. The red oak is much less red, and much more like chocolate, but I like how it makes the poplar sort of look like a hardwood. I’m tentatively going to use that ...
Part 5: staining
I know dark colors are a bad idea in a dusty shop, but I just couldn’t resist their siren song. Time to go crash my boat on the rocks! I looked at the colors of the planer, and with the help of our office manager at my company, decided I wanted a black cabinet with a red drawer. I labored over my choices for an hour in Home Depot, and even had them unpack stock boxes to get some Minwax ‘blank’ stain so we could mix up some reds. I chose “Spice” and “Chin...
Part 6: polyurethane, drawer handle, and bolting on the planer
I didn’t like how the “Ebony 2718” Minwax stain looked in the last entry in this series, so I grabbed a can of flat black paint from a recently completed project for my friends’ wedding, and after a 24-hour drying period, painted right over the stain. I went out to the shop several times yesterday to sand @ 220-grit, and apply another layer of Minwax’s water-based polyurethane. Water-based simply because I had it, and I also don’t love finishing ...
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