I don’t know this guy. I’m just sharing some pics of a cool desk that were shared with me.

This started going down hill when my Milwaukee cordless drill, which I love, has started crapping out on me after only a year of light hobby use. This drill had performed great for me. One of the things I liked was how it seemed to have full power right up to the last drop of battery life. Sunday afternoon I was trying to drill some pocket screw holes and my drill couldn’t do it. It was odd because I had half battery according to the indicator. I grabbed a fresh battery off the charger and I had the same results. I am very disappointed. The drill was a tremendous performer but only lasted a year. That’s strike one.

Now we move on to the drama. My table saw is screwed up! I wanted to adjust the bevel to 45 degrees to make a cut and it seemed very stiff. After digging in I found that the back of the .. um trunion? was digging in the back guide. There is a front and back curved slot that the whole assemble slides in when you adjust the angle. The curved slot on the back was actually getting cut into as I tried to change the angle. This was actually shaving off metal. I don’t know whats wrong or how to fix it. Strike two.

I was able to crank the thing to 45 degrees out of frustration and just try to make my cut and get on with my day. Turns out in the two years I’ve been woodworking I have pretty much learned NOTHING. I realize now that I don’t know how to make a safe bevel cut. Should the waste be on the left? Couldn’t that trap the scrap under the blade and give be kick back? Should the waste be on the right so its free to fall off? Well the scrap is actually sitting on top of the spinning blade. Guess what happens next. The scrap that was sitting on top of the spinning blade hit me right on the forehead. It rung me bell a little bit. There was only minor bleeding. This was a scrap of 1 inch think oak about the size of half a playing card. Strike three.

Pack up for the day and reassess my hobby.

The plane was personally tuned by Joe Hurst-Wajszczuk, author of Furniture You Can Build: Projects That Hone Your Skills and an editor of Woodcraft Magazine. The box the plane came in also included some wood shavings Joe took while setting the plane. I look forward to getting shavings that thin for the first time.

The other prizes included a combination water stone, a spare blade for the plane, a digital caliper, a sanding screen, and a couple copies of the latest issue of Woodcraft MAgazine. I thought maybe Joe didn’t realize he gave me two copies of the oct/nov 09 issue of the magazine but then I saw on page 8 there is a picture of my project and a short blurb about the contest and the winners. Cool.

Thank you Rick for running the contest and your podcast and thank you Joe for the prize package!

First: draw the leg down from the table to the point where the taper should start.

Second: draw a rectangle on the bottom of the leg that is the size and in the location of the finished tapered leg.

EDIT Then just pull it (oops! don’t use the pull tool) move the surface of the smaller rectangle down to its final length. DUH! Everyone else probably already does it this way but this is a new technique for me and wow is it faster.

Something simple like this would have taken me a long time before. Now I can whip out a table like this is a couple minutes including mortises and tenons.

Thanks again Sawdust Chronicles!

Spaids

PS
Congratulations to all the contestants who were able to complete their contest piece! I probably had some of the least distractions and personal time challenges of any of the contestants and I still had a tough time finishing this in 30 days. Way to go guys. If you didn’t finish on time but you did get started, please keep us posted on your progress and share it with us here on lumberjocks. Oh an if you don’t mind, send me a message that you were entered in the contest and I will add you to my lumberjocks buddy list so I can keep up with you and your projects.

That finish is very hard. Its “special” and you should resaw this stuff off before using it. Don’t run it through your jointer or planer. After I slice the finish off with my bandsaw, milling this stuff was very easy. I cut them a hair long and to the correct width.

These pieces are 1/4” thick. I’m going to join the drawer corners with a 1/4” box joint. I prefer using stock that is thin where appropriate. Thicker stock is easier to generate and work with but I always feel it looks too bulky when the material is thicker than necessary. Plus I don’t want the drawer to feel any heavier than it has to. I decided to use a box joint in the last day before I began work on the drawer. I’ve tried a box joint once before so I had the jig I made for those already. I’m new to woodworking so any joinery method is going to be a challenge and a learning experience. In the end I went with the box joint because it would be visible when the drawer is open. I have posted EVERYTHING I have ever done on lumberlocks, jigs included. This is my box joint jig.

I put some blue tape on the pieces to help with chip out. After every cut I stopped and used a scary sharp chisel to slice off the small fibers that were left by the cut. The tape would have a small flap with long connected wood fibers stuck to it. With out the tape these fibers could have been chipped/torn out during the cut. The dead blow on my table saw is there to adjust how tight the box joint is. You need to test the joint and then tap the jig left or right to get a perfect fit. I tried box joints in mulberry before. This time its oak. I don’t know if its the wood or that I have learned a couple things since my last attempt but these are my best joints to date.

By raising the dado stack I cut the fingers of the box joint a touch long. I did this so I could sand down the end grain after glue up for a glass smooth joint. And here is a test fit of the drawer before working on the drawer face.

By this time it is getting late and its the last day to finish this on time. That means no more screwing around with the camera! There was a small snag on the back corner of the drawer as I closed it. I didn’t want there to be any drawer guides on the side because you would see it. I realized that it needed something to let is shut smoothly so I ripped a narrow strip of oak and glued it in the center of the drawer box. Before attaching the drawer face I nibbled a small notch in the front and back of the drawer to ride on the oak strip. Now the drawer runs smooth and straight. I used business cards as spacers for the drawer face to get an even reveal all around the opening and carpet taped it temporarily. While it was taped on I drilled the hole for the knob. I removed the tape and glued the drawer face on now having the knob screw as an alignment pin. I tightened the knob on and put a clamp on either side of the face and let it dry.

All that was left was lots of sanding. More sanding than necessary but it doesn’t hurt. I used tongue oil to finish it. I cut the first coat with some mineral spirits and the wood really drinks it up. Tongue oil is a fool proof finish. You can’t put too much on and all you have to do is soak it. Wipe up all the excess and your done.

A detailed sketchup of this project is posted in the 3D warehouse as well as a couple other sketchups I’ve done.
Thanks for following my build blog.
Spaids

But like I said, I’m not that good yet so first I made a template to help me make a template. The narrow piece is a hole guide. Those two holes are 1/4” from the edge and the designed distance apart. (I honestly don’t remember right now how far apart they are) I would slip a tight fitting dowel in the first hole and through into a hole in the piece below it. Then with the drill press off I would lower the forstner bit and line everything up. I hold everything in place with my left hand, raise the bit/turn on the drill/cut the hole with my right hand. This took a long time. Once I had a full row drilled, I used the template (the big one) to cut a full row in my guide (the little one). Then all I had to do was line it up once and double stick tape it in place fro drilling out a full row of holes. That was much faster.

The final template could be carpet taped to let me drill the whole field with a single alignment.

The top isn’t glued in at this point so I can take just the thin piece to the drill press.
Here is the top right after drilling.

To do the mating holes i just flipped the template over when I drilling the holes out. Now I can glue this bottom half together and worry about the 1/4” reinforcement dowels. I needed to drill 1/4” holes and plan on doing this with me drill press and a forstner. To my horror I discover the limits of my drill press! I couldn’t fit the cabinet on its side in the drill press and would have to drill the 16 1/4” dowel holes by hand.

I made another small template for lining the holes up and clamped it to the leg while I drilled it. I also held a square in place to give me a little reference to help me drill straight. You can see that there is not much room for error here.

The holes are a half inch deep. That puts them a quarter inch into the thin panel. I was very nervous about blowing out the top or bottom of the panel. After every hole I would pace around a little while.

With the cabinet finished I tried to fit the first dowel and it was too tight for the hole. I turned to the lumberjocks forum and received a lot of good advice. It turned out that my dowels were not round and I ended up with my own solution for fitting them.

My Hitachi belt sander almost seems to be made for this use. The back of the belt sander works as a fence and the speed control is right there at the top of the sander. (the top of the sander in this pic but its mounted upside down). I also had trouble getting the back piece to slide down over the dowels so I fixed this with a tip I heard in one of the sawdust chronicles podcasts.

I tore off a strip of sandpaper and sprayed 3M spray glue on the back of it. Then I sprayed it on some scrap 1/4” dowel and chucked it in my drill press.

Finally I get to put the top on.

After a few minutes of feeling stupid I discovered that its much better to squeeze the dowels in rather than trying to tap them in. Hammering one would want to help an adjacent dowel get lose. And then after getting them in the bottom they couldn’t be lined up with the top and tapped in. Putting some light pressure with the clamps and squeezing the dowels in was pretty easy. (once I figured it out)
Midweek END

Weekend 5: The clock is ticking and I have to make a drawer. Just 10 minutes or work to go right? CHA HAA! NOT!

So how do I make a stopped dado? I decided to make some pencil marks on the “fence” that would indicate where to stop. The position is based on the thickness of the drawer face because I want it to sit flush inside the case. If I measure it will be wrong so I just use the drawer face itself.

If I feed the piece from right to left and stop when the back edge hits that line then it SHOULD be perfect. Right?

Well here they are. Two pieces have the rabbets and the through dados and the other two have the rabbets and the stop dadoes. I squared them up with my chisels and they look ok. OK anybody see a problem with this picture?

Those stop dadoes are both right sides! I need a right and a left. I had to make two passes on the router table to get the dadoes wide enough for the board. So no matter how careful I tried to be the dados are not in the center of the pieces. That means we have left and right pieces. D’oh! Luckily there was enough scrap to make another one.

So here it is unglued just being set up for a once over to see where I’m at.

OK this is a simple beginner project but at this point I’m pretty stoked. I designed something and it actually appears to be turning out ok. Now if you think the design sucks thats fine but you have to admit that it looks like the picture doesn’t it?

I think thats as far as I got on weekend 4. Weekend 5 is coming up and that is not going to be enough time so I’m going to have to work on this during the week. My wife and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on the 27th of this month and my gift was… you guessed it. Shop time. Next blog

Mid week: holes. lots of holes.