I thought I was making a lot of posts, until I noticed Gary has been a member a little longer than I have, but has out posted me by about 8:1. I wonder if he ever sleeps.

In the past few months the site has grown to the point there’s a whole new crowd of people to get to know and learn from. (Lord knows I need that).

I have to say I’ve learned a lot from everyone, and became friends with many of you.

I’ve had two picnics where I’ve had the pleasure of hosting a few great people in my shop, which I enjoyed immensely. (I have some pictures to post from this years picnic, which took place on the 21st of June). If you’ve considered hosting one, I do recommend it.

Well anyway, it’s been great getting to know the people I do, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the rest of you!

Thanks;

Lee

I made up a few of these, some I gave away, others are still hanging around.

They’re easy to make, and useful around the shop. Not to mention they look great and are a good use for small scraps of exotic woods.

The ones below don’t have the leather contact cemented to the face of them. It’s this leather that keeps them from marring the surface of the wood your hitting.

I made a plexiglass template for this one since it makes building them easier, and reproducing a piece of cake.

The normal way for me to build a curved front apron is with bendy board over a form, and then put in the vacuum bag for a few hours.

This one I made using M.D.F., using small pieces and “laying them up like a brick wall”. Just different sized pieces on every other layer, with the joints staggered. Four layers of 3/4” M.D.F., to end up with a 3” apron.

The segments are end glued and clamped with pinch dogs. If your not familiar with them see:

http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com/Pinch_Dogs.html

These simple little devices are extremely handy, and I use them often. Just today I used them for a face frame glue up, which without them would have been somewhat difficult.

After the segments were dry, I glued the layers together and let them dry. Once the glue set up I cut the shape out on the band saw, on both the front and rear sides. After a little sanding to clean them up, they’re ready for the veneer.

Using pinch Dogs for glue up.



Clamping Layers together.



Clamped up Layers.



Glued up Layers.



Apron cut out.



Plexiglass Layout Jig and M.D.F. Shaper Jig.



M.D.F. substrate ready for veneer.



Laying up the veneer on back side using blue tape. Plexiglass template ready to cut veneer. Notice the cut line has blue tape as well to keep it from splitting.

Veneer layed up with veneer tape on front, blue tape on back removed.

Blue tape at back edge to create hinge. I can flip the veneer back and apply hot hide glue.

Lee

This table is a little fancier than the last one I posted ands does have a few advantages.

For example there is no back to this cabinet. Both sides have the same door arrangement, so accessing the router is easier to make height adjustments.

Also there is a lot of bit storage in the four vertical pull outs. These too can be pulled out to either side so your able to access them easily.

The mounting plate was originally made from 1/4” Lexan, however there was too much flexing taking place for really accurate work. I replaced the Lexan with 1/4” aluminum plate. This is rock solid and provided the stability to do really intricate and precise work, as the Incra jigs are designed to do.

In the picture the table is sitting on a furniture dolly. Since having bought a shaper this table, like the last one is rarely used. Now it supports a Blum hinge machine, which is very heavy. Having it on wheels make it easy to move around the shop.

While this cabinet does have dust collection, and it works fairly well, it’s not as effective as the one on the other table.

By the way, the laminate was left over from a job. (I don’t want anyone thinking I bought this color for a router table)

I bought the set for the first set of raised panel doors I made. The doors were for another contractor, and he needed them pretty quickly.

After seeing the plans I realized I could make good use of a fence like that. It had the same adjustments as a shaper fence. The left and right fences could be moved in and out as well as be adjusted sideways to allow for different width bits. The fence parts were fitted to the base using dados and provided very strong and dependable settings.

I also didn’t have a router table to install it on.

So I bought a counter blank made from glued up pine, about 1 1/8” thick, and was pre laminated with Formica.

I built a quick and dirty Router table on the side walk in front of the job, (no shop in those days, and no real professional woodworking experiences).

I could see the contractor was a bit nervous after seeing me build this outside the project, but he knew my work from some construction projects, so he approached it with the idea I could probably do it.

This quick and dirty set up ended up being used for about twenty years. And with the original 3 H.P. Hitachi router it was fitted with, it did a considerable amount of work in addition to the doors.

It worked very well except the dust it created made it impractical for indoor use. So I designed a dust collection box consisting of three parts, which fit around the independent fences. Since some router bits remove wood from the entire thickness of an edge, the independent fences are necessary. It also meant the dust collection parts had to work independently of each other had to be independent of the fence itself.

The resulting dust collection chamber worked extremely well, removing about 90% of the airborne dust.

This method works very well and is simple. Actually, it’s so easy it seems impossible, but your results will be perfect. We use it on very high end work, with no problem as the joint is furniture quality along it’s entire length.

This is a top secret trick, so don’t tell anyone okay.

Lee

She has expensive taste, and wanted a floor that was somewhat different than the norm.

We spent a lot of time a showrooms looking for a floor she was happy with. She narrowed it down to 3/4” hardwood, and was having trouble with choosing between Maple and Brazilian Cherry.

I suggested mixing the two, by using the darker Cherry as a border. Since she is Greek it seemed liked a good idea to do Greek keys in the corners.

We also wanted to do something in the middle section to break up the large field.

We used blue painters tape over her existing wall to wall carpet to show her the exact design we would use. We would leave it for a few days for her to get used to the design, then change it a little and leave it again. After a few tries, we came up with a design she liked, and worked with the furniture in the space, regarding size and layout.

Since the floor is tongue and groove, all of the changes in direction meant milling a groove, or adding a tongue.

The Greek keys and small pieces in the field decoration required a fair amount or work, which we did in the shop.
The floor was drawn on the computer, and printed out. Then we colored coded the border pieces to keep track of which piece was which.

After milling the parts in the shop we painted the backs of the parts to correspond with the colored drawing. Once we started the installation this color coding really helped speed things up. We were able to tell where each part was for without measuring anything.

Lesson learned here: German guy’s have trouble with Greek keys!

It did come out good though and she was very happy with it.

Lee

It’s made using Curly Maple Veneer over bendy board, and Rosewood.

The curves were formed in a vacuum bag over a form, and an air bladder.

The finish is conversion varnish.

Thanks;

Lee

I may have just made it more confusing than it needs to be.

I was able to find a few photos of making a drawer for a desk I built.

I hope this helps.

Lee