well, I overcame – sort of – my wheel issue. I got them mounted onto 2×4s and hinged onto the bench. For now, it will be staying on wheels until I figure out how to get the wheels out without the possibility of crushing my toes. I added two shelves yesterday and both are full – which makes the bench extra heavy. I’m planning on getting the plywood that is sitting in the bench’s future home cut today so I’ll post a few pics here once it warms up a tad and I get out to the garage.

I would recommend to anyone considering this plan to print the pictures and make sure they are enlarged enough to read. When planning out the holes, they give you the measure to the center of the 2×4. I went the extra step and marked out the 2×4 (which I can’t see now that the black paint is on but oh well). The enlarged drawings are a big help. I had other ah ha moments but I didn’t have anything to write them down on so I’m hoping I’ll remember them tomorrow when I go back out to my momentarily all mine two car garage shop :D

I laid out the train track today to see how large my oval can be and still give us walking room around the table. Looks like it will be 4 feet long by 3 feet wide. The couch itself is 20 inches high. It appears the display box itself needs to be 8 inches deep to be able to hold the buildings and for the lid to close. Guess I better see if I can pull something together in sketchup. One of my helpers posed for the pic :)

Well, I’m relieved this project is finished… but I’m ready to start another. I learned a lot while building this – namely I need to go back to basics and some easier / simpler projects. Especially with time constraints like homework. :) Please ignore the dog hair – I was in the process of cleaning and rememebrered I needed a pic! Now I’m off to plan my next woodworking adventure!

as you can see, I’m really eating some humble pie since I thought I would get a jump on finishing and be smart…not realizing I’d have to come back and remove it do to various reasons. talk about a learning curve on getting into all of those angles and such!

Anywhoo – in the course of trying to properly size the doors in the front, come to find out something is out of whack – even with me checking for square multiple times and being right on. I believe something happened with the center support if memory serves, but at this point I can’t say. at this point I’m just trying to get the spacing around the doors to be aesthetically pleasing, and make it so both hit the center support so they will catch the magnetic clasp. This of course is no easy feat…. other than that – the only thing to do is rabbet the backs of the doors so I can install glass, create the top (I believe it’s biscuited but I may need to kreg jig it), fix it so it looks ok and is sturdy, sand and restain, and it’s complete.

Simple, huh?

So the question I’m forming is regarding the doors…they’re due to be flush with the front frame, but of course since my interior dimensions have fluctuated a bit, my doors aren’t centered on the center case divider. I’m trying to decide what to do about this. I’ll take any and all suggestions. The doors themselves are just pocket hole screwed right now – I wanted to be able to eyeball the situation and take pictures :)

I’ve spent a good bit of time sharpening the blade to my great granddad’s old Bailey/Stanley plane. It’s almost sharp enough to cut hair with, but not quite. I realized this past weekend that one of the screw holes for the frog will need to be epoxied and redrilled. I had reached my frustration point…I was feeling like I was making some progress by getting the blade done, but still work needed done on the sole and now the frog…all doable work, but I only have two weeks until I have to start another school quarter, my time to get hopping on this project is disappearing before my eyes.

I made a trip to my local blue box store to see what my options were…after all I am hoping to only have to use it minimally… picked up a cheap low angle stanley block plane. Got home, and the sole appears to be flat, so I sharpened the blade up. I got what I paid for… the blade shifted all over the place, can’t get anything to line up right long enough to take a pass. Could be user error as well, but I decided it was time to talk to the Woodcraft folks again and see about getting a middle of the road plane that I could do minimal work to and possibly get my boards squared by the weekend.

I should get the lady’s name that manages to give me great advice – and almost talked me out of a new plane. I decided to pick up a Wood River #4, and save my granddad’s plane for when I had the proper amount of time to focus on it instead of trying to get it done to get onto the next task. The plane is still in the packaging on the desk as I try to validate how much of my plywood is out of square… so I’m still weighing my options…at least until tonight when I open it up to hopefully just sharpen the blade. fingers crossed