Return to wood working

It has been awhile....

Recently I rediscovered all my wood working tools buried in my shop and started adjusting them and putting them back into service.  While some tools never stopped being used, like my chop saw and drill press.  Others have quietly awaited my return.  Others, such as my jointer and lathe, are still awaiting them first use in many, many years.

I have not stopped making.  But the gleam and shine of 3D printing caught my eye.  I have played with Raspberry PIs.  Even had a fling with Arduinos and Bluetooth devices.  But it all came back to me when I found a hobby CNC machine.

Someplace that I can take my CAD background and marry it to complex shapes in wood, metal and plastic.  Learn the hard truth that sharp outside corners are easy, while you are restricted to the radius of your end mill for inside jobs.

It is good to be back in the hobby of wood working.  Even if it is not completely in the traditional method.  I do now have occasion to break out the #5 Stanley plane and gently make curls of wood again.  A sharp chisel lays nearby waiting to trim off the extra wain.

I will be sure to post some of my creations here as I explore this new path.

https://www.etsy.com/BeechCreekNaturals/listing/659390860/cherry-apple-pencil-case

All Road's Lead to Renfrow's

It's been a while since we were here, but the season has come around full circle and I guess so have we.  This morning (my birthday) we made a trip to Renfrow's Hardware to pick up some seed starting supplies and some more of their handy planting reference sheets.  These are now available on their website, but don't try and save a trip GO!

We are trying to avert last years disasters.  This year we are determined to have seedling success and aren't trying anything experimental.  We bought some trays with clear plastic covers and some six packs and a big bag of seed starting mix.  (With Elijah now in the picture I feel lucky to be planting seeds at all and have no guilt about not mixing my own!)  We will be germinating our seeds on top of the fridge and as soon as they have germinated we will be moving them under florescent lights until it's warm enough to move them outside.  (David is going to build a stand...more to come!)

If you haven't been to Renfrow's you're in for a treat.  It's located in the center of downtown Matthews adjacent to the farmer's market.  You can pick up anything from churns to chicken wire to onion sets to cow manure and more.  And the staff is humorous and helpful.  We've been getting gardening advice from them for about a year.  We love their planting resources and our favorite is Renfrow's Almanac which is a seasonal planting guide arranged by holidays.

We will be going back next week for onion, and strawberries - maybe some more blueberries.  "All road's lead to Renfrow's..."

Easter morning garden disaster.

Yesterday was a full day for Amber, and I.  We got up early, and went to the Farmers Market, and Renfrow Hardware down in Matthews NC.  While there we picked up 2 flats of plants.  All tomatoes, and onions.  There were to replace the seedlings, that our 3 year old turned into a big dirt pile.

Well this morning we had a similar disaster, but this time, it was not our 3 year old.  Last week we had to move our little green house that we use for starting seed.  Normally (now) it is zip tied to the back porch, but this time, when it was put back, it did not get zip tied.  Last night it turned over, dumping all of Amber's work.  We did have a few survivors.

Mostly basil, but the rest did not fare so well.... 

They have now moved on to what I call the mystery garden.  The mystery garden is a bed where we were growing composting plants, but will now also host everything else that happens to come up from the messes.  Who knows, it may be the best garden we have.   I suppose this is almost forced permaculture....

BTW, all the pictures are after we cleaned up.  I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of the pile before my wife and I started cleaning it up.

3 months... Oh my

Ok, so have have had a serious case of blog fade.  But to tell the truth, there has been nothing going on in my shop since January.  Well I think that is about to change.  Yesterday, Amber and I went to get some hardwood flooring for Jesse's room.  We got some red oak on clearance, that was pretty cheap as far as oak flooring goes.  (Any leftovers will probably become crochet hooks, and strikers for turkey calls.)  But while we were there the salesman was kind enough to let me peruse the pile of scrap they have for sitting pallets on.

I walked away with 2 pieces of purple heart, and 1 piece of what I think is Brazilian Cherry.  Some of the purple heart will go to strikers, but I think the rest will end up as Nostepinnes on Etsy.  Unless someone else gives me some ideas...

Here is a picture of the stick I retrived, plus some dogwood, and cherry from the last time I harvested wood at my parents house.  They are about 3' long and 2" square. 

From left to right: Dogwood, Wild Cherry, Purple Heart, Brazilian Cherry, Purple Heart

Oh did I mention that another dogwood blew over last week, so I will be making a trip to the mountains to get that too.  :)

Woven Together

This blog is supposed to be a joint effort - but so far David's is the only voice that has appeared.  Surprise, David, I'm here!  It makes sense to share this space together since the things we make are very often for each other, or made semi jointly, or at least heavily influenced by the opinion of the other.  I've often been jealous of how David can make at least some of his projects so quickly - less than an hour sometimes and he's done.  (Except for the crib, ahem.)  It just doesn't work that way with fiber (and I know it doesn't really work that way with wood, either).

I wanted to share in this first post a bit about our logo - also a joint project.  The tree is a weaving - and wanted to post a picture of it so you could see the entire piece, but I took it off the wall to save it from the tugging of little fingers and I can't remember where I saved it.  When it surfaces I'll post that picture.  This was woven way back in 2002 on a frame loom made of picture slats for stretching canvas.  It was my very first weaving and was supposed to be my sample to practice the various techniques we were taught (this was Fiber Arts I taught by Mary Tuma at UNC Charlotte).  I fell in love with the wall of shelves filled with cones of yarns free for the taking.  The greens drew me in and I made butterfly after butterfly of every one I could get my hands on not knowing what I planned to make, just that I had to have them. 

I didn't set out to make a tree, but when I began that little finger of brown that is the base of the tree and the darker green on the right looked to me like a shadow, very quickly the green was the rolling pasture at home and I was weaving the holly tree on the hill on Beech Creek.  It was like finger painting.  I wove this very quickly finishing in I believe two days (it is very small - about 4 x 6 inches or so). 

So, when with urging from my other fiber loving friends David opened up an Etsy shop we dreamed big about all that it could be - and maybe someday will be.  We dreamed big about leaving the city and going home.  We dream big and move slow - but we are moving!  We needed a logo.  I said it had to be green and I gave him my tree.  He took pictures of wood, played on his screen clicked some buttons and the logo is there and we both love it.  It was made by the two of us -  a graphic marriage of fiber and wood.

Drop Spindles

Back in 2006 my wife sent me to woodcraft to take a class on turning.  Well that class resulted in a pen, that I promptly gave back to my wife.  But what it also did is got me hooked on turning.  So, I started looking for a lathe that I could afford.  What I ended up with is a Jet Midi lathe that  bought off ebay.  It has a 13" length capacity, so I thought "Now what can I turn other than pens under 13"".  Well I settled on making crochet hooks for Amber.  That later lead to making a few drop spindles, and even later, nostepinnes. 

In hind sight, making nostepinnes would have been an easier, and less adverturous place to start. :)

Anyway, recently I have been tossing around the idea of making some more drop spindles.  I have made 1 turkish spindle, which was rather fun.  20-30 top and bottom whirl spindles.  Here are some of my favorites.

This last one if one of my favorites.  It is currently at Latta Plantation being used for demonstrations.  One of these days, I will have to go visit it again.

Here is a video of Amber using it not long after I made it.

Nathan's little bed 3

Last night I put together Nathan's bed, and put it in his room.  He was very excited to get his new bed, and promptly started helping his brother Jonathan make it. 

Overall, I am somwhat happy with the project.  I wish that I had completed it earlier, but when the garage/shop is below 40 I don't spend much time out there, and it has been a very cold year. 

Here is a picture of his bed this morning.  I pulled it out from under his brothers bed, and removed the mattress.

Nathan's little bed 2

Yesterday, I went out and milled the lumber, and got everything rough sized.  I then morticed the legs, and with the help of my son James, drilled the holes for the bed hardware.  (I will post pictures of how this all goes together later.) 

I then used a trick I used on Caelin's crib, and used 3/8" metal dowels to act as guide pins for the rails.  All this probably cost me about 6 hours in effort, but then I ran into a snag.  I don't have any claps long enough to handle the rail glue up.  So this afternoon, I will be buying 6' pipes to make pipe clamps with.

Anyway, here is were we are for now. 

Once I glue up the side rails, I will attach the supports on the side.

A pleasant surprise

It was snowing when we went to bed last night, but I did not expect to wake up to this.

Our littlest one couldn't wait, so he got himself dressed and went out into the snow.

Nathan's little bed.

Amber, moved my 2 year old in with the 4, and six year old boys.  The older boys are sleeping in bunk beds, and Nathan has a crib matteress on the floor.  So tomorrow I am going to build a small frame to hold the springs from his crib, so that he will have a bed that we can slide under the bunk beds.

Should go fairly quickly since I have some hardware left over from Caelin's crib, and some Sapelle legs already glued up.  They will just need to be cut down to 7" or so..

Seems this is turning out to be the year for beds.

Time for Caelin Part 9

This may be the last post I do on this project.  There is one last item to finish, but it can wait a little while.

Tonight we delivered the cribs to our friend Chris, Andrea, and Caelin.  This project took almost exactly 1 year from start to finish.  I went back tonight and looked at the Sketch-up file, and the created date is Saturday, November 28, 2009, 9:46:54 AM.  It turned out to be hard to let this one go.  There is still things I want to improve on with it, but I think it was time to say goodbye.

Under this pile of blankets are the pieces of the crib.

Here is the little man in his new bed.

This last picture is for my son James.  He wanted a picture of "Striker" in the crib.  (Yes I know the dolls name is not Striker, but James does not know that.)

In a few months, I will probably document making the slats for the bed version of the crib.  Till then.  I gotta find a new project to start on.

Time for Caelin Part 8

Before

After

Wish I had better pictures of the crib.  I will try and post some when I have it assembled, and before I hand it over.  :)

Sawdust Chronicles Challenge 2010 Part 13

Here is my submission document for the table.  If you have kept track of the blog there may not be anything new.  But it does wrap it up nicely.

With this project out of the way, I will now finish the crib.  Promise.

Check out the other entries here

Sawdust Chronicles Challenge 2010 Part 12 (Not that table)

Amber and I just moved the table to it's home in our house, and I want to take this opportunity to do a really quick summary of how this table's form came to be.  When Amber and I first talked about making a table for this challenge.  She clearly defined a table to me.  As it turned out, she was sitting at the very table she was describing.

Well I while the table I created shares some elements with the table described, it is missing some key features.  1.  It does not have a drawer.  That got tossed out early in the design process.  1, because I was doing two projects at once, and 2 because I was doing 2 projects at once, and would like to finish them both within a reasonable time.  Did I mention that I was doing to projects at once??

Well from that discussion, I came up with this design.

This is not a bad design.  But it was still too much like table #1 up there, and I wanted to stretch a little more.  So I came up with this design.

For the most part, this is the table I made.  After printing full-scale drawings, and making some of the stretchers and rails I refined some of the curves, and dimensions.  I also decided to soften the edges of the rails, while leaving the legs with a hard edge.  Mainly I did this for the shadows that it casts, but it also feels better on the legs if you bump into the rails.  The other change during construction was the rounding of the tops of the legs.

While it is hard to see in this picture, the legs are not chamfered at a 45.  That is how the cut started.  I rounded the bottom edge with a chair rasp to ease the line.

The legs where then tapered by 1 degree from the bottom of the mortise to the bottom of the leg.  In the photographs it makes little difference, but when viewing the table, it helps to continue the curve from the rail to the floor.

All that aside, I am happy with how it turned out.  Here is the table in it's new home, while it is not being used as a game table.

(My wife added the coaster feet... It should help to move the table around.  It really is heavier than it looks with that oak top.)

Sawdust Chronicles Challenge 2010 Part11

Done...  I put the last coat of finish on the table early this morning, and it is dry enough tonight to bring into the house.  As a whole, it has some things that I would probably change a little if I had to do it again.  But for what it is, I think it is pretty good.  It is certainly good enough for what we will use it for.

Here are a few shots of the table in our house.  Where the pictures were taken is about 3' from where it will live, but it is a decent spot for taking photographs.

James looking at the finished product.  The oak top from Ikea sanded out, and finished well.

The top looks really thin in this photograph, but it is actually 1 1/2" thick.

A better view of the table in its now natural environment.

My oldest son Jonathan was talking to me about how to set up a chessboard.  After all this is a game table.

An end view of the table.

Here is the first game of chess at the table.  Hopefully there will be many more of these, and some checkers too.  :)

As per the rules, here is the breakdown for materials I have in this table.

• Cherry Lumber $1.15 / bf.  I messed up one board, so I probably used 10.5 bf in the base.  So I have $12 in the base.
• The top from Ikea was originally $80 when I bought it for the bathroom vanity. The remnant I used was about half the original size so about $40.
• I used a little seal-a-cell on the cherry base. So $2 is sealer.
• I used general finishes Satin Arm-R-Seal Oil and Urethane all over the table.  3 coats on the bottom, 5 on the top.  I figure about a cup or so.  $7
• Sandpaper.  $5
• Remnant of a walnut dowel.  $1
• 8 brass screws, 8 steel screws, and 2 sacrificial metal brackets, and a little glue... $???

So my cost in materials for this table is around $66 - $70.  Not bad for something that should last us a long time.  Besides, the only thing I had to buy during this whole project was 220 grit sandpaper, cause I ran out. Other than that, all the materials were laying around the shop.

The final dimensions of the table are 28.5" tall, 26" wide, and 30.5" long.  I bet I could make it fit into Neal's box.  (Edit:  after looking at the rules again.  I am well withing the size limit. :))

Thanks to Rick for putting on the Sawdust Chronicles Challenge this year. It has been a lot of fun, and I picked up several new skills along the way. I also got a chance to use some of the tools that my wife has been buying me over the years.

Sawdust Chronicles Challenge 2010 Part10 (I can see the finish)

I missed putting a lot of steps on this blog, but it has been a bit crazy here.  (5 boys and all that)  But today, I finished assembling the base of the table, drilled 2 holes in the base for guide pins, and 2 matching holes in the table top.  Then I manufactured some clips to hold the top on, to allow for expansion and contraction.

We have had some L brackets lying around for years.  Well, now we have 2 less.

After I filed down the sharp edges, I made a notch for each, that would allow 30 degrees of movement or so.  Probably way too much , but I rather do that, then see which is stronger.  The Oak top, of the Cherry rails.  Either way, I would lose.

Check out the cool joint that you will never see, unless you pull the top off the table.

That is a product of making the tenons like this.

To make the mortises, I drilled them out at the drill press, then finished them with chisel work.  Not bad for something that won't see.

Now for the only bad news today.  I messed up when I measured the top, and now I have to fess up for the sake of the sawdust chronicles challenge.

This board is 1/2" longer than the rules allow.  If I were to cut it again now, I would have to completely redo the 5" wide bevels.  It aint gonna happen, I my score will just have to take a ding.  Course if I don't show anyone, no one would ever know.  Shhhhh

(Edit:  Never mind.  I looked at the rules again, and it allows up to 32".  I am good to go.  No bad news here.)

In 2-3 hours, I should be back out in the shop sanding down the seal-a-cell I put on the base, and starting the coats of poly. 

One last thing.  I had lots of help in the shop this morning.  At one time 4 of the 5 boys were out there with me.  James stayed out there most of the morning, sanding on a scrap of wood, and Joseph floated in and out.

James

James and Joseph testing out the strength of my vacuum hose.

Sawdust Chronicles Challenge 2010 Part 9

Did some of the final shaping on the rails today, and then dry fit them to 2 of the legs.  (I will do the other 2 tonight.)  Overall, I feel that it was pretty productive time with the router, chair makers rasp, and sand paper.

To get the profile I wanted, I routed a 1/4" deep chamfer along the edges of the rails.  Then using the rasp, I rounded them over and finished with sandpaper.  It didn't take long, as cherry is easy to work.