Grumpy's Blog at LumberJocks.com

For all the Texans & others who like a laugh

Grumpy — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:13:01 GMT

An email from a friend that I thought was worth sharing;
Dept of water and Rancher

A Department of Water representative stopped at a ranch and talked with
an old rancher. He told the rancher, “I need to inspect your ranch for
your water allocation.”

The old rancher said, “Okay, but don’t go in that field over there.”

The Water representative said, “Mister, I have the authority of Federal
Government with me. See this card? The card means I am allowed to go
WHEREVER I WISH on any agricultural land. No questions asked or
answered. “Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?”

The old rancher nodded politely and went about his chores. Later, the
old rancher heard loud screams and saw the Water Rep Running for the
fence and close behind was the rancher’s bull. The bull was gaining on
the Water Rep with every step. The Rep was clearly terrified, so the
old rancher immediately threw down his tools, ran to the fence and
shouted out…..

“Your card! Your card! Show him your card!”

Plantation Shutters

Grumpy — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 01:10:58 GMT

Plantation shutters are very popular down under at the moment, at least on the east coast of Australia.
My wife and I recently renovated the bathroom, yes girls she did help with the wall cladding, plastering and tiling. We had a window that looked a bit out of place, a bit ordinary, and we say some plantation shutters in an apartment when we were on holidays in Queensland.
You know what woodies are like, I can make them I said. Well that is what happened.
After scouting around nobody seemed to know how to make them, especially the pivoting and the controlling mechanism. The rest was pretty straight forward except the shutters were a little tricky.
I used google sketchup to design the project and that was very helpful.

We had installed a new jarrah vanity so we wanted to match the plantation shutters to the vanity. Jarrah is a very hard but beautiful timber so I decided to use a softer material. My supplier Adrian at Trend timbers had some 6”X2” Australian cedar which was ideal for the job. Nice to cut and sand with a nice grain.
I used beadlock loose tenons, two to each joint. They aligned very well and required minimal adjustment with the belt sander after glueup with tightbond III. I used tightbond III because the shutters will be exposed to moist air.

I used double ended shelf supports for the shutter pivots. They have a spacer in the middle which is perfect for allowing side clearance. mind you I had a great deal of trouble finding someone who sold these little suckers which was hard to believe at the time.

To adjust the tension on the mechanism to open and shut the louvers I just used a threaded screw in plug on the outside of the middle louvre. A screw simply pushes up against the pivot and makes the louvre harder or easier to turn. I used a second plug at the other end to prevent the louvre from being pushed against the side frame. boy that was long winded.

The louvres are 90mmX18mm (3.5”X3/4”). They are tapered from the centre at 4 degrees down to 6mm (1/4”) at the end. I used the table saw to cut the angles with the blage set at 4 deg and used a long wedge (also cut on the TS as a support when cutting the other side of the louvre.
I used a cedar rod for the controlling mechanism with screw in eyelets. i made a small jig on the bandsaw to drill a hole on the edge of the louvre in the same place on each louvre using a spacer.

I made another small jig to centre the pivots in the louvres, you can imagine what would happen if the wher out of line.
I had a little difficulty with staining the wood to get the jarrah colour. It was too dark originally, but after a wipe down with a terps dampened cloth the colour lightened up perfectly. lucky me.
Anyway, here is the finished product.

Thanks for looking

Happy Easter

Grumpy — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:49:49 GMT

Have a great Easter Jocks and drive carefully. From down under where its nice and warm (whoops maybe I shouldn’t mention the weather).

Congratulations to GaryK

Grumpy — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:53:03 GMT

Congratulations to GaryK on reacting his 2000th post. Keep up the good work Gary.

Mitre Jig for the Table Saw

Grumpy — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:44:55 GMT

" alt="" />This is not a new concept nor is it my idea but I thought is was worthwhile sharing. My son recently wanted to make some frames for his university degree & other certificates. He had a little trouble getting the mitres accurate with the basic mitre gauge for the table saw even though I had made an extension piece for it.
One of Murphy’s laws says that after you do a job you think of a better more accurate & easier way. Murpy is also that pain in the neck that makes you get it wrong if you have only a 50/50 choice, or if there is anything that will go wrong it will. If I catch up with Murphy one day I will give him a bit of lip. Anyway we are right off the track now.
As I said this mitre jig is not my invention. It is fairly simple but consistently accurate if you set it up correctly. It works on the same basis as a T/S cut off sled. You need a flat board with a couple of runners underneath to guide the jig over the T/S surface. I used softwood runners cut to fit fairly snugly in the T/S grooves.

You will need to make sure the front edge of the sled is dead square to the saw blade and remains true when sliding back & forth on the runners. This should not be difficult if you install the runners at 90 degrees to the front of the sled.
Attach the runners the run the front of the sled through the T/S blade only as far as is needed to cut mitres, about 6” is ok for what I need it for.

Next you need to set two mitre guide supports at right angles to each other on the sled. The right angle is critical and the alignment to the T/S blade is also important. I found that a large builders square was handy to establish the right angle between the mitre guide supports. Using the front edge of the sled as a reference you then need to draw a line on the sled at 45 degrees to the front edge at a distance back from the front edge that will accommodate any stock you wish to mitre. (A 3,4,5 triangle can be used here to get accuracy over the longest possible distance to create the 45 degree mitre).

Then screw the mitre guide supports firmly to the sled at right angles to each other and one of them along the line drawn at 45 degrees to the front edge and adjacent to the slot cut by the T/S (boy that was long winded but it is really a simple concept).

Before you set the guides at 90 degrees cut a 45 degree mitre on each one and butt them together.
Lastly, run the front of the sled through the T/S and through the mitre guides. You should now have a perfectly lined up system that will cut accurate mitres every time. Tearout will be minimal because all of the workpiece is supported.

I have added toggles for added holding ability & also quick release.
The advantage of this jig is that provided you have the mitre supports at a perfect right angle all the mitres will be accurate because you use both sides of the jig.

If anyone has any questions I will happy to help out.
Grumpy

Fascinating Tree

Grumpy — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:05:00 GMT

Well Jocks, I thought these pictures were worth sharing. I don’t know the original source or even if they are genuine. Many of you may have already seen the pictures in a power point presentation. If anybody knows the source, or where the tree is located (if it is real) I would like to know.
(finally got there Tom).