Weekly Blog - November 3rd

[john]

The saga of the wine rack continues. Haven't you heard that before!

I was into the finish sanding when I realized that I hadn't drilled holes for the plugs that would hide the screws holding the sides to the top and bottom. No problem, just get the 3/8" Forstner bit out and drill six holes. Did the bottom just fine. In doing the top, I noticed that some pilot holes drilled for the temporary assembly were in the wrong place. Again no problem, they are small and a little filler would hide them. However, in thinking about this while drilling, I promptly drilled the plug holes in the wrong pilot holes. There went the top. After some time I thought I could have salvaged the piece by adding decorative plugs as I did on the cutting boards, but by then the top had met with an "incident" and was no longer usable. So it's back to cutting wood for a new top.

All this while my mind had already moved on to the next projects. These were inspired by plans in a recent Canadian WW magazine for some serving trays, and a desire to try turning. The recent post about coffee mugs and an email from Rockler advertising ice cream scoop kits reminded me of my bottle stoppers, again.

After sharpening my chisels, I cut a couple of cedar practice blanks and proceeded to turn. Based on my results, it will take a lot of practice and I may not finish any stoppers in time for the craft show on December 7th.

As for the trays, I was hoping to use some of my scraps but most are too small so I will have to cut into some real wood if I want to proceed with these.

Oh well, it's a new week so maybe I can have another fresh start.

Have a Safe and Fun week!

John

[charlese]

As noted last week we decided to do a smaller phone chair with drawers. Since that's what my bride wants. I decided to try to do it with scraps. and decided on a post and frame kind of structure. Started by drawing and then routing. This is all good if I don't give up on drawing before all dimensions are finalized. Although these pix were posted earlier this week in another discussion, thought I'd put them here too.

John - sounds like you've got more fish in the pan than the crowd can eat. Maybe you get a chance to take out some of the frustrations on the ice. There is a guy on the Kings named Brown (team captain) who loves to do heavy body checking. Maybe he thrives on that because he is so young, but how about in a couple of years.

Besides the shop - I spent an inordinate amount of time on the computer. (It rained here for the first time in several months. We got .40" in two days over the weekend. That's a lot for here! Since July we have received .47" and that's about average. Anyway it was too chilly for these old bones to get into the shop so - took the opportunity to review the forum's archives from 2004, when I got started. Retrieved all of the photos I had posted under the "General Woodworking" heading. This took quite a while, as I kept getting distracted by some of the neat conversations we all had. Noticed there are some subjects that keep coming up every few months. Guess that's because we all have had the same problems. It was a fun review, -now to go through "Beginning Woodworking, "Woodworking Tool Review" and "Maintenance and Repair"

[john]

Chuck:

Your first picture of the calipers reminded me of another topic I had wanted to comment on in the blog. SS has their dial calipers on special at about $18. Unfortunately we can't really take advatange of this up here as shipping and potential customs brokerage would cost too much. Also as mentioned before the Cdn distributor does not offer all the sales. I would certainly purchase them at that cost.

Would you believe the tool I use as calipers is an old 4" ruler that I inherited from an uncle. It has a sliding brass insert in it that allows me to take outside measurements. It slides out completely to allow depth measurements as well. The only trouble is the markings seem to get smaller every year. I may spring for an electronic one soon at about $35 in the local market.

As for hockey, it sure is taking a lot of my time. Every game day (Tues. & Friday) I have to find 12 - 18 spares to fill in the holes amongst the 44 players scheduled to play. That requires about 3 hours of phoning in the days before. Recently we had a new "young guy" (57 yrs) join us and he met our oldest player (82 yrs) and realised he had to play 25 more years to match that career.

Have fun.

John

[perryobear]

Hi guys,

Well, most of my woodworking time was of the "carpentry repairs" type around the exterior of the house taking advantage of some nice fall weather.

I did have the opportunity to help the wife with one of her projects. It's called wood lathe art and it does produce some 1/8" thick "scrap wood" not worth saving. But I did get to use the old SS jig saw to cut a couple of replacement pieces for her, and I did assemble the frame. I figure if I use "my shop" to help out with "her project" it's a good thing for the shop's future, yes?

Here is a photo of the finished project.

[ATTACH]2315[/ATTACH]

Have a good week everyone,

Dennis

[fjimp]

Dennis,
I would suggest it's good for the shop life, an opportunity to help your wife display her rather considerable talent, an excellent use of what to someone else would have been disposable scrap and lastly bring joy to all who see your wife and your considerable talent. Great job I am impressed. fjimp

[perryobear]

Hi fjimp,

My wife did work hard at the project, painting, fitting, and assembling the picture. I was very pleased both with her efforts and the final result. But it would be unfair not to admit that she started with "kit" from Woodscapes. The kit provides the needed materials and most of the artistic design.

We are preparing to start a second Woodscapes kit. This one will require significant additional woodworking effort. If that works out OK, maybe the third attempt will be completely "from scratch".

Thanks for your interest,

Dennis

[charlese]

Hi guys,

Well, most of my woodworking time was of the "carpentry repairs" type around the exterior of the house taking advantage of some nice fall weather.

I did have the opportunity to help the wife with one of her projects....
Dennis

Dennis, It's kind of funny that as I sat watching some early election returns and starting to view the Forum - I had just finished reading your first sentence, when there was a big noise from the kitchen and Mrs. hollered HELP! Seems the silverware drawer slide had broken and the drawer was really askew. Another carpentry repair! Glad I didn't make that island!

That is a very good looking painting and frame. Nice work to both of you!! I don't understand where the lathe work comes into the snow scene. It looks like slats put together at an angle then painted. Is it something else?


John - talking about calipers - I bought the caliper that Shop smith has on sale. I was disappointed in that the 1/64 scale is in the interior of the circle and my eyes don't allow reading it without a magnifying glass. I don't do decimals very well. They are on the outside scale. Other than not being able to read it - it's a well constructed hard plastic caliper.

I have been using a metal caliper that like yours is growing harder and harder to read. So I sprung for the caliper pictured above. Got it on a sale from Woodturners (Craft Supplies USA) for $23.99 plus shipping. (it was an e-mail special - can't find it in their catalog now) It will show decimals in inches and millimeters as well as fractions of inches. This is a great caliper! The only problem I am having with it is I really don't know (yet and at a flash) what's bigger - 7/8" or 57/64". Since the display will change at every 1/64th inch I'll have to practice up on knowing 32ndths and 64ths.

[judaspre1982]

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[perryobear]

Hi guys,

Yes, Dave is correct, it is lath, no "e". Sorry for the confusion Chuck. I am afraid even spell check wouldn't have rescued me on this one.

It is thin (about 1/8" thick) wood strips but with a much smoother surface finish then the "real" lath that I have encountered in the old plaster walls of my house.

Dennis

[charlese]

Oh!, I remember that stuff! Lumber yards used to sell it by the arm load. It was fun to lay the plaster over the lath, but often disastrous to replace old electrical wiring.

Dennis - you guys (Maybe just your wife) have certainly found a real good use for these little boards!!