pashley's Blog at LumberJocks.com

Sketchup #1: Progress report

pashley — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:56:27 GMT

Sketchup, the free CAD tool from Google, was made aware to me by FWW magazine in an article a few weeks back.

I was looking for a way to better plan my projects, and SU (SketchUp) seemed to be the ticket, so I downloaded my free copy.

I had a terrible time making heads or tails of it – and I am a bit of a computer geek. Making things as I wanted them was not easy – if possible. I was frustrated.

But, realizing that this really would help me design and produce better product, I kept at, picking up a “for dummies” book on SU and watching some things on YouTube.

Well, I got better and better, and am happy to report SU is really becoming an integral part of my wood working hobby.

If you’ve tried SU, and given up on it – don’t. Get a book like I did, or watch the YouTube videos; but keep at it!

Son of Biscuit!

pashley — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:05:17 GMT

I was planing down some 8” wide 4/4 oak stock, and since I only have a 6” jointer, figured I could run it thru the planer, and it would eventually come out flat.

I got down to about 3/4” and of course, it wasn’t. DOH!

Not wanting to thin the boards down even more, I thought biscuits would make everything pretty darn flat – at least enough to let me sand it flat.

It seems as though it will. I have the whole 33” square piece in clamps right now..seems pretty flat right now….hope for the best!

Church Lectern #3: Expanding wood...help!

pashley — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:41:48 GMT

I’m making this Lectern (see other blog entries), and I’ve run up a little problem. The lectern has, of course, the top table, and I’m aware how to control expansion with that.

However, I have two other shelves, one just below the top, and one near the bottom. My issue is, how do I allow expansion (which means cutting the board short width-wise) and still have a finished look? I’m guessing I can somehow affix it at the front (the top of the photo) and do a couple of metal table clips adjacent to that fixation…but what about the gaps on the sides (left and right in photo)? I guess I could use some molding to hide it, but molding isn’t really part of the Mission-style, to the best of my knowledge.

Anyone?

Planers can't flatten boards....really?

pashley — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:18:17 GMT

The common wisdom to flatten raw stock, is to first plane a face flat on a jointer. To get to opposite face paralleled and flat, you run that newly flattened side face down in a planer to your desired thickness. Sounds familiar, I’m sure. Hard to do that with 8” stock when you have a 6” jointer though.

The common wisdom also states that if you just try to run that raw stock through a planer, flipping it each time until you get it flat on both sides, you’ll end up with anything but. Supposedly, the planer rollers will flatten the board temporarily while it takes off stock…so what you end up with is a smiley-face shape board.

I’m currently breaking down some thick raw stock – about 5/4 oak, 8 inches wide. I only have a 6” jointer, so I can’t go the traditional route of jointing, then planing.

Thinking back to the conventional wisdom, I found it difficult to believe that rollers in a small planer had enough strength to flatten a board that thick.

So, I put a piece of this 5/4 raw oak through the planer, skipping the jointer. I put it in so that it would like like a frown, if viewed from the side, with a high point being planed off first. When I finally planed it down enough to reveal smooth wood on that side, I took it out, and a straight edge told me it was dead flat!

Flipped it over, planed down the other side….and now i have two flat, parallel sides!

Having said that, I think conventional wisdom would be true for thin stock, or soft wood.

My neighbor, an older man who makes great stuff, said he hardly ever uses his jointer, and does basically what I described to you.

Thoughts?

3 or 4 cords of maple....now, what to do with it?

pashley — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:21:44 GMT

My friend George, heats his house with a wood stop. Being the resourceful type, he got some free wood from a local veneer plant. Bottom line, he has in his garage, something like 3 or 4 cords of wood – in the form of 3 food maple logs. Probably 4 inches in width.

He asked me if I wanted some.

Ok, guys, what would I do with that?!

Church Lectern #2: This is what I was thinking of....

pashley — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:02:08 GMT

I did these “sketches” in Bryce to get an idea for proportions. I like what happened here. Problem is, in this sketch, the 4 main posts are 44 inches high, and my real life ones are 33, which is really the best height. However, I made the 3 raised panels to the specs in the drawing – 33” tall by 30” wide – way too big. The thing is way too big, when I tried to visualize it by laying out the posts and panels. Looks like I’ll have to take a good 8 inches off the width, and nearly as much on the height, then run those two edges thru the shaper again. Oh well; like the barber says, “I take always take more off, but I can’t put it back on.”.

This is why I’m learning SketchUp, so I can nail down the measurements!

Side note: while I was breaking down the stock for this project, unbeknownst to me, something was amiss in my planer. After putting lots of pieces thru, i noticed I was getting a wedge shape coming out the other side! I thought the problem was that I was not jointing the face flat enough…but that was not it. I had never taken out the knives on the planer to sharpen (or align) them, so I did. Apparently, the knives were out of alignment! After sharpening and aligning, worked fine, but I lost a lot of time – and stock – due to this problem!

Church Lectern #1: Interesting project

pashley — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:44:36 GMT

I’ve been engaged in building a church lectern for my friend’s startup, rather small church. Tried making a technical drawing in Bryce, and something got translated wrong, and now I have something way too huge, starting to look more like an altar rather than a lectern!

Back to the drawing board.