bah... let's go back to the drawing board...

so after glueing everything up for the last 48 hours, it turned out that there is some oddity and my joints are not tight enough. Which cause the shelf to break appart :(

Time for the 2nd try, to see if we can get it working this time and use this one as a model how not todo it...

starting with the glue-up of the stereo rack

Over the last couple of weeks I got so carried away with all these projects, which are going on that I slightly neglected my stereo shelf project and now finally found some time to work on it again.

It's basically the moment of truth now, were everything needs to be glued up and prepared for finishing it.

So this weekend I'm starting to glue the pieces together, after dry fitting everything again and to check that everything is somewhat square. Surprisingly enough, nearly everything seems to fit and is pretty square. Not perfect 90 degrees, but about 88-90 degrees mostly.

first side in clamps and wooden supports.

Now the main challenge is, to make 2 with only 2 parallelle clamps and to pray that the glue doesn't split the wood or that I get the glue all over the wood, since I still have to stain it and finish it somehow.

Speaking of finish?

The current idea is to have a couple of orange shellac coats over and than stain the sections dark mahogany and the boards for the components a light cherry.

Now I mentioned other projects. 

1.

We basically finally bought a hedge-trimmer and so I'm busy trimming all our hedges and trees. Sadly it can only cut 5/8th of an Inch, so I'm still stuck with using my 15$ crosscut handsaw to cut branches.

2.

we started taking out all the tiny and medium sized palm tree, which means Robin is digging a lot and I'm practicing with Axed and Machete quite a bit. It works, but it's slow going. Still refusing to buy a chainsaw.

3.

My neighbor cut down an old peach tree, so I rescued a couple of logs of peach. To cut them into boards on the bandsaw. Well free wood is never really free wood. Since so far I'm at -30$ for a broken bandsaw blade and the wood is to tough to be cut with my 1 1/2 hp bandsaw. Guess I have to build another plywood sled

4.

My little company is picking up right now a bit and so I have quite a lot of work todo in my spare time.

5.

we need to get started with replacing some Fence section, hence the additional income is right now really really helpful. Since fencing get pricey quite fast. But hey I get my first door to build and arbor. Since we hope to have some tomatos or so growing on it.

Something like this

without the flames obviously...

2 years are up time to upgrade the pc at home

Recently I noticed that my system is getting rather old and is becoming a touch slow for my software development needs and so it was time to upgrade a couple of components. Mostly the harddrives were exchanged for a couple of SSD's and my pair of 6950 graphic cards for a pair of 7970 graphic cards. After all the LCD displays like to be driven at full resolution and I do have the vise of playing to much skyrim and sim city. And my old cards did get a bit slow for my liking at 2500x1600.

Which I was not really prepared for was that I needed...

• a new case for more harddrives, since my VMWare images are now in the Terra-byt region
• a ridiculous 1200 Watt power supply, since my 750W is highly overloaded with running all the hardrives and graphic cards. I don't think it's good, if It keeps running at 820W. So for now disabled some harddrives again und drop the CPU to 3.2 GHz instead of 4.5GHz.
• how big 2x7970 graphic cards are, running each at 1GHz and having each 3GB Ram. This is combined more Ram than Robins and My laptop have together...

It does look nice and tidy in there. Now we just have to wait for my Power supply research to finish, pick one and install it.

Rough finish of the legs

so I'm finally at the point, were all the leg's for the stereo rack are glued together and cut to size.

all the leg's ready

pairing the mortises and tenons for the main shelf

 Sadly I'm not making as much progress as I wanted to, since I was also researching how to make some very very thin 'Abendbrot Bretter' for my friend Martin and this took a lot longer than expected. Since they kept splitting on the seems.

they are about 1cm or 1/2" thick and the main cutting board is 1"

But after a lot of different tests and playing around I finally got them to work and holdup.

I really want to make some for myself right now

a dangerous addiction...

last christmas my parents and robin gave me 3 tools, which are made by a small little company in Maine. Called Lee-Nielsen Toolworks.

These were 3 chisels in 1/4, 5/8 and 1/2 size. Which do more or less everything I will ever need from a chisel. But they are so beautifully made and lightweight. I haven't touched my Crown or Fuller Chisels than and terrible neglected them. There is just no point in using anything else anymore. Which brings me to my current dilemma.

The more I work with power-tools  The more they annoy me, because of all the noise and dust they generate. So I try to use hand-tools, whenever possible.

Don't get me wrong. I love my bandsaw, table-saw  mortiser, drill press, planner and drum-sander and don't want to miss them. Especially the table/band-saw. Since I can't cut or draw a straight line, even if my life depends on it. But something is just really justifying in using a plane or chisel to fine-tune and optimize joints. And I really dislike my 'el-cheapo' router-table, since every-time I use it, I worry about my fingers. It's just such a flimsy tool...

And since I got spoiled by using Lee-Nielsens terrible overpriced tools, I can't help myself, but wanting more and more. I don't need a full chisel set, since I barley ever have the need for anything bigger than 1/2" Chisel. But there handplanes are just so beautiful and well made...

Needless to say, I splurged yet again and order a Small shoulder plane and a Dovetail Saw. (Which I will most likely return, since as I mentioned I can't draw or saw a straight line....) But I hope to learn how to cut a dovetail in 30 days with a handsaw or just have to face the truth and stick to tenons.

Now the good part is that there is a very low risk of me acquiring a lot of handplanes, since they are

a) way to expensive
b) I make my money with software development and woodwork is an attempt to get me away from the pc and make some money to keep us in nice furniture.
c) I don't have a workbench, which means I won't be able to use any bench-plane.

Speaking of workbench, I actually attempted a while back to build one, around 2-3am in the morning over several weeks, using left over pine and fir from the doghouse. And it was a gigantic disaster. It warped, was to light and lacked any form of vise. Which meant I kept using clamps to awkwardly hold pieces in place.

So I would love to build a nice workbench sometime around the end of this year, except that hardwood is ridicules expensive and you literally need several hundred board-feet of maple for the top. I run some quick calculation and came up with a number of ~1800$ to build a workbench, just in wood and an end vise.

Maybe I can keep left over parts from my cutting boards and patch a top together over time, which will look funny. But aslong as it's flat and heavy should work.

Speaking of nice furniture,

at this point in time I have enough projects on my 'honey do list' to keep me busy for the next 1-2 years. From building a small reading table, over building 2 nightstands, a bed and headboard, refinishing the kitchen table again, turning chair legs to fix the broken chair to building planting boxes for the backyard...

I guess I'm going to generate a lot of sawdust and maybe a piece or two of furniture...

making progress with the stereo rack...

at this point I spend close to 5 days just prepping wood, cutting it down to size, cutting and mortising tenons etc...

Tonight I finally managed to test fit the first shelf (roughly, way way togo before the tenons are all precisely squared)

dry fitting the shelf to get an estimate if my crazy idea will work...

gluing up the shorter legs...

24 hours togo, before these are dry

The sad part is, I have about 40 clamps at this point in time and keep running out of them. And have honestly no idea yet how to get my hands on 4 more 50" cabinet clamps, to glue up the legs to the tenons. I just refuse to pay 80$ for such large clamps, which I barley ever going to use. For my cutting boards I need 20" clamps max, which 'only' cost 40$ a piece....

But once the shelf is done, it should roughly look like this (from the architecture point of view, haven't decided on chamfers and so yet.)

rough design, no details added. Since it would take to long

The design itself is done, using google sketch-up. Which is a fantastic and easy to use software for 3D designs and basic modeling. The best part is, that it's completely extendable by using the programming language ruby and provides me with plugins to calculate how much wood I need and how it has to be cut.

too many projects

I guess I should start to hire some woodchucks for my little woodshop. Since I'm starting to get a little much on my hands to handle and my garage looks like a lumberyard.

First of all I'm now 13 days late to deliver a part of my valentines gift to my darling of wife. Since I can't figure out how to finish this project.

Basically I promised her a little guinea pig cage, so that Mojito can 'roam' the 'great outdoors', meaning our backyard and be save from Hawks and puppies.

The initial part of building the frame was rather simple and straight forward and I literally used every power tool in my shop for this. Which is exciting, that they are all playing together.

pairing the lab joints, with one of my christmas gifts

they are getting more and more precise

turning the tenons on the lathe, as an exercise to repair our chair-legs.

all parts are cut and ready to be glued up

frame is ready, now how to stop the guinea pig from escaping?

But I'm stuck at the point of adding some form of wire mesh, to make it look nice and safe. This has been the stand of the last 13 days and there is no end in sight. Which makes me feel rather bad.

The second project was to re-saw a part of a tree, for my friend martin and flatten the surface (so that he can polish it) This was done in about 6 hours and not to bad, and promptly maxed out the capacity of my bandsaw.

martins mystery wood, which smells strangely like cat urine...

building a small sled to keep all my fingers save and sound

cutting the first slice on the bandsaw. This piece of wood is about 14"/35cm heigh.

all cut into 1 1/2" slices and ready to be flattened

Last but not least, after 2 years of research and planning I decided to buy the first parts of the stereo system, I really want to have. Meaning speakers and amplifiers, but these need an audio rack. Apparently at a depth of 20", my amplifiers are now to deep and to heavy for normal audio furniture. Which means I need to build my own (or buy one for thousands of $$$, which I refuse).

So now I'm designing my first piece of furniture and hope it will work out ok, which will be a long process and let's me work with some new wood, called poplar. Which is rather cheap and affordable.

working with purple hearts for accents. The 'drill' is btw a mortiser, which drills square holes

first 30 mortises and 30 tenons cut and paired. Again using one of my beloved chisels

a first try at the legs, using a lock miter joint to simulate 3x2" wood. Since it's impossible to find in this size

glueing up the first leg

using a small block pane to cleanup the joints. Not to happy with the legs at this point in time and I really need some more lie-nielsen planes.

So at this point I invested about 200$ in poplar and generated quite a bit of saw-dust, but have no real results. Besides 5 legs, of which one is not really up to my standards and one cracked under clamp pressure. Which makes me rather nervous about trusting them with my amplifiers.

progress with the mini lathe

Now that I finally learned how to sharpen my lathe tool and after picking up any thicker wood (2-3") I can find for the last couple of months.
I managed to turn my first 'muddler' for mojitos.

Which is made from some ash and took about 3 hours of turning and sanding up to 600 grit. Still need to practice a lot more, since it still has some tool marks.

first real attempt at turning something

basil is keeping watch, that nobody touches my mojito

Next job, turning a new chair leg for our broken chair, once I find a 2-3x thick piece of oak somewhere and learn how to follow pattern.

I'm also making progress with turning baby rattles, now I just have to get the size right...

'little' baby rattle for my co-workers newborn. About 13 cm long, turned out of a single piece of ash.

Christmas (long overdo)

so after a couple of busy weeks, I finally had time to give my beautiful wife her well deserved christmas gift (well next to the other stuff she got actually on christmas)

 For some reason making her coasters took a lot longer than expected. Since bloodwood is amazingly hard and ruined a couple of my saw blades in the process.

sadly the picture does not do justice how beautiful they are

Another delay was caused, since I wanted to utilize the beautiful face-grain and cut not batch it, as you can with end-grain.

Also I finally managed to finish the development of our christmas pictures. Which shall be used for next years christmas cards.

finally nearly perfect 

smiling is optional in this family. But at least all have the same expression

Basil is ain't that happy with the stupid santa head.

Jet 16-32

so about a month ago, I got a really nice delivery for my little cutting board business. A 16/32 Inch drum-sander, which is making live so much easier regarding sanding boards to final thickness and getting them perfectly flat.

it works for cutting boards 

for really thin little coasters

Needless to say it generates a lot of dust and was one of the reasons that I had yet again to rearrange the whole garage and run 4" dust collection hoses to our little dust collector.

SawStop

recently my wife and I talked a bit more about me and my woodworking hobby, since our garage is now more or less a complete wood-workshop (Still missing a jointer, but no space). One of her main concerns is my safety, especially after I got a bloody nose from a flying piece of Wood, due to some form of kickback. Apparently it's a bad idea to cut a round piece of wood on a band-saw and I learned yet another lesson. Wear a face-shield, not only when you work on the lathe.

Now the scary thing was, that if the same thing would have happened on the Table Saw, instead of the flying piece of wood, I possible would look at serious surgery and a bill of 40-50k$ to reattach missing fingers. Needless to say, we are selling the tablesaw right now and replacing it with a SawStop model, to reduce this risk. Since frankly there is no reason not to do it.

Now you might wounder what a SawStop is and how it's different?

It basically has a monitoring system, triggers a brake, if it discovers a finger touching the sawblade. Which is mostly useful during a kickback event, when you hand get's drawn into the blade rather suddenly.

Only question left is, which particular model to get. I'm kinda considering the 52" Fence model or the 36" Fence model, since this is about as big as I can go in my garage. While still being able to park a car.

puppy house - glue up

we are nearing the final stages of the puppy house and started to glue everything up.

running out of space...

And apparently I have to reorganize the garage yet again to make more space and have space to walk around. I do have more or less given up to ever park a car in here...

puppy house - roofing blanks are finished

so the next step was to cut all the roofing blanks and glue them into the rabbets of the rafters. For economical reasons we chose cedar fence boards. Since they resist insects and rain quite well, while being rather cheap at 2$ a board.

glue is drying...

Now ones the glue dried we will sand down all the rafters, remove glue squeeze out and fill in the voids to make it look a bit nicer.

Also as you can see I acquired some 48" cabinet clamps, which are just amazing and I want more of them. But so ridiculous expensive.

puppy house is starting to get a roof

now that the Thanksgiving stress is over, I have a little time to focus on the puppy house again. Meaning working on the rafters and finishing the skeleton for the roof.

current roof so far

Nothing fancy joint wise, just the attaching the rafters to each other by a couple of bars and reinforced them with some dowels.

But yes we are getting done with the doghouse.

making of two cutting boards

now since I acquired some more maple and cherry, it was time to make more cutting boards to sell them  and actually make some money with this idea.

So here is the making off.

After sawing down a board of maple and a board of cherry to 18" long and 1" thick stripes, we assembled our desired patterns and glued them all up.

still don't have enough clamps...

after planning the blanks to thickness and remove the glue squeeze out

preparing the route the edges

routed edges for our one board

preparing to finish it with mineral oil

drying in the air and soaking up the oil

Now let's see how long it takes for them to sell.

But after making these and removing all the tear-out from the planer I was just praying for a 16"+ drum sander. A 10" drum sander is cheap, but absolutely useless for any board bigger than 9".

siding - we are making progress at last

now we are finally at the point were we can put the siding on the doghouse and I'm proud to say there are still 0 screws or nails used so far and it is rather sturdy and gets more and more stable with every piece I add.

I'm also started to realize that it's not the power tools, which are expensive and needed. The most expensive part so far are accessories and wood. Like it's just ridiculous how expensive clamps, chisels or saw blades are.

Anyway since I can't use nails to attach the siding, the only choice I have were to use dados. Which are frankly one of the easiest joints to make (if you got a dado blade or a router)

basic concept of a dado joint

Since this project is getting more and more expensive and I'm way over budget by now, I ended up buying cheap cedar fence boards and cutting them to size and plane them to 1/2 thickness (since my largest router bit is 1/2"). And during this process I learned that cedar wrecks absolute havoc with my planers dust collection. Basically the 2" hose I use to connect the planer to my shop-vac keeps getting clogged all the time and forced me to disassemble the planer 3 times to clear out all the stuck shavings since there is not enough suction. I start to see the point of commercial dust collection systems with 4" hoses.

After planning all the cedar, cutting it to size and routing the dados in the struts we ended up with something like this

first parts of the siding are fitted

 Now since the cedar was considered green, it promptly shrunk by about 1/2" over night and left me sitting with something like this...

after a night of drying some of the walls shrunk...

Which means we need to cut some form of outside molding to make it look pretty and make it windproof. Maybe some rafter for the rain run off...

rafter - cutting the bird mouth joints

Since the lap joint's were done yesterday, it was time to cut the bird mouth joints today. As preparation of assembling the roof tomorrow

First how does a bird mouth joint look?

standard birth mouth joint

The next step was to calculate the approximate position and our old friend Pythagorus came to the rescue, since our roof is going to have 90 angle at the top.

a*a + b*b = c*c

And since our dog house is 42" wide, the approximate position of the joints should be around 30". I'm saying approximate since we also have to include the width of the saw blade (slowly learning....) and that our fence is not that precise.

cutting the miters on the table saw

 The first step was to cut the miter on the table saw, while utilizing a block of wood with a clamp as a stop to ensure that all the joints are cut at the same position.

a bit wide

 Now the first cut was just a bit wide and since we did this in batches it meant that all rafters were a touch to wide. Not a big problem, since the joint needs to be on a double top plate anyway and so we just going to cut the top plate a touch wider.

finished joints

And there are our finished ratfters, with two bird mouth joints each, a lab joint and cut to size. Still not sure what todo with the ending, if I leave them at they are round them over. And how to put the wooden planks on. Maybe cutting some rabbits or so.