Back in the Machine(ist Chest) Shop

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 8:08 pm

A few more bits of progress. For the metal lathe, I thought I'd remove the 4-jaw chuck, one part that would have value whether the rest of the lathe was OK or not. This was a bear! After nights of Kroil soak, I finally had to resort to an impact wrench. Impact sockets chucked tightly in the 4 jaws would just spin

. I finally clamped the 4 jaws right onto the square drive of the impact wrench, which worked. Before all this, I was 90% sure the lathe spindle was bent. Now, I'm 100% sure! But anyway, the chuck went into the Evaporust and it is a "save."

I got some early finishing and drawer fitting done. Outside is mostly done; insides are all in need of scraping and new felt.

[ATTACH]23409[/ATTACH]

holsgo · Post by **holsgo** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:37 pm

The spindle may not be bent. It's normal for threaded chucks to stick in place over time. You will find putting a di on the spindle nose and rotating the spindle by hand will give you a better idea. Just take some detailed pics and post them on machinist web. There are a few experts there that would love to see your tear down. If it's your first tear down, I know how you feel. I did my first metal lathe 2 years ago and needed all the help I could get. Now, I feel pretty good about them.
The chest is looking great.

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 8:23 am

Hi holsgo,
Of course I'm speaking as a detached observer who would not get pulled into any new hobbies

.... When the chuck was still on the spindle, I was pretty sure the wobble was there. After I got the chuck off, I confirmed a spindle wobble with both the flat-faceplate and the 4-jaw-chuck trials. The wobble location corresponded to the same index-position of the spindle with either accessory mounted. So I *may* have ordered a new spindle from eBay. And MAYBE some new bearings.....

How did you decide which machinist forum to enroll in? I have lurked Home Shop Machinist's (Village Press) forum many times, out of a sort of loyalty to their magazines which featured Shopsmith mod's (back in 2007) and their recent cover-story (in Machinist Workshop) for prdartmouths's belt-grinder for the SS.

The wooden chest is supposed to be for another nephew. Thought I'd have it done by Christmas, but the day-job keeps getting in the way....

holsgo · Post by **holsgo** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:00 am

I feel you nuhobby. I may have started the same way. May being the operative term.
I joined machinist web in support of tools4cheap.com. They had a bunch of parts and the forum was a bonus. After that I got hooked because the guys are great and very knowledgeable. One guy loves atlas and the feedback he gives is informative. Other machinist forums seemed snarky and never rally helpful. Don't even bother with practical machinist, you'll get a ton of crap for being a hobbyist. I read the 3 big machinist mags too, but machinist web just suited me.
I have a south bend 9a. And learned a ton over the last 2 years. Much of it from shop floor talk and machinist web.

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 6:17 pm

Today wasn't one of the better Norm Abrams days...

Exhibit (ExZipIt?) A: At work, in front of a certain "porcelain wall decoration," my pants-button flew off, and went deep into the Yellowstone system, if you will. Had to rely on my belt holding things together all afternoon.

Exhibit B: I used the split-rivets to install the new chest Handle. All went fine until the last planned smack with the ball-peen hammer.... then the top of the chest split apart. That was the last factory glue joint that hadn't come apart on the carcass, until now!

[ATTACH]23420[/ATTACH]

I had little choice but to re-glue the thing as is. We'll see if that holds up. I did get a long bead of wood-glue in there, with a good uniform squeeze-out all along the crack. As you can see, the original wood panels are some really nice QS oak, one reason a rebuild of an old piece can look good.

[ATTACH]23421[/ATTACH]

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:32 pm

The top repair I think is going to hold up. Now I've added most of the new hardware. If you look very close at this design, you can see each edge of the chest has a slight chamfer in the middle, but sharp edges near the corners. This can look a little odd during the work, but it looks better when the metal corners are installed.

I still need to fabricate a good front-panel, with some post & socket arrangements to keep it in place when the top is latched. It will happen, when I get to it....

[ATTACH]23426[/ATTACH]

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 6:41 pm

While I liked the looks of the old front panel, it was damaged, and the cross-grain glue joints had crept a lot. So now it was time to scavenge through my oak boards and figure out a frame&panel scheme. I decided to cut and plane part of the old panel to serve part of this need.

Here the 4 pieces intended for the frame (not yet at final size) are receiving some grooves:

[ATTACH]23459[/ATTACH]

I found a fairly figured Red Oak piece I've used before, to resaw. Luckily my BS blade just keeps going and going.... really couldn't complain about this cut:

[ATTACH]23458[/ATTACH]

This little practice layout confirms I should have enough wood to put things together... if I don't screw up:

[ATTACH]23457[/ATTACH]

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 5:18 pm

This I was not looking forward to. Sometime in the 20th century, drawer linings a lot like tar-paper were put in. I had to chisel most of it away. Then I got out the DremelGimmick which is actually not bad for this job. Some of the stuff, if I get it down to a uniform vellum-like texture, I'll call good enough. New felt will go over those parts.

Note also, solid-bottom drawers mostly have cracks in them due to cross-grain joints. I'm leaving those alone for the most part, no point in re-joining them. The more successful designs use composite or plywood or tin drawer-bottoms.

[ATTACH]23473[/ATTACH]

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 12:02 pm

I've had to stay away from the basement shop-work for a few weeks. Among other things, had relatives sleeping right there over Dec 30

. Well, the basement is mine again today, and it's snowing very heavily now.

I've been itching to get back onto that front-panel job. Ironically, that's the only area where I add a lot of individual proportions, but it's usually hidden in everyday use. In fact, I saw this photo of my nephew's Austin 'pad' recently, and the front-panel I'd made for his chest in 2012 was neither up nor down. I don't know where it went....
[attach]23657[/attach]

Also on front panels, I wanted to improve my work standards. The last chest job in July-2013 I had fouled up, and ended up putting a brass plate over one part I didn't surface very well. Since I like to avoid sandpaper wherever possible (just a 220-once-over before varnish), this made me look harder at finishing wild figure without paper. I got out my notes and book purchased personally from Nick Engler at the July-2008 Owners Weekend:
[attach]23658[/attach]

I was fortunate to see Nick Engler and Jim McCann teaching side-by-side that weekend. One excellent session was on hand-scrapers. They can do wonders, but it takes work to sharpen them. Nick espoused a sytematic grind/hone/burnish-a-hook approach. But Jim McCann just hits his scraper with a mill-file and moves on. For a few years I tried doing it Nick's way, but I realized after reading another forum just lately that I'd probably been creating too large of a burr "hook," which was subsequently too fragile. So I tried the Jim McCann method and I got a smaller incidental hook, but it does the job quite well. Here's some nice miniature shavings which accompany the smoothing of the recently-resawn oak panel:
[attach]23659[/attach]

On other topics, the glue-in of felt linings has commenced, and can't be rushed much. I'm also eyeballing my panel pieces so I can make a decision how to orient them on the final job:
[attach]23660[/attach]

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:57 am

Here is the view out the basement window these past few days:

[attach]23692[/attach]

I cut a rabbet on the new front-panel on the OPR table. Then, upon test-fitting, I saw that the bottom of the chest-carcass has a "bow". So I manually trimmed up the rabbet to more or less conform to that bow:

[attach]23693[/attach]

Upon further trims, I'm pretty happy, EXCEPT I cut the rabbet on the wrong face, so for all time the wrong face is exposed. I sort of liked the opposite face better in terms of grain directions, OOPS. Oh well, there are enough waves and lines that I guess I could argue for either way....

[attach]23694[/attach]