Archive for June, 2009

Failure – A learning experience

Jun 30

Posted by TheInquisitiveWoodworker in Projects | No Comments

The last couple of days haven’t been that productive. I’m working on the legs and apron for the small table project.

The tapers on the legs aren’t as perfect as I would like.

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It’s not as noticeable in the photo, but where the taper starts at the top is inconsistent. I could probably get away with it, but because of another failure I think I will just do them over.

The next failure was with the apron glue up.
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When I was working out how thick to make laminate pieces, I did a few test cuts. I then cleaned up the cut face with a hand plane. In the test pieces I had figured out the right thickness, including the amount of hand planning needed to clean up the cut face. When I did the final “production” cuts, the pieces ended up a little thicker than I had planned.

I went ahead with the glue up any way. I think the added thickness of the laminates made it difficult to press everything together. What I didn’t notice until this morning, was that the center piece of the mold had rocked up during the clamping process. This meant the bottom part of the lamination did get proper clamping pressure.

The first picture shows a gap in the middle of the lamination. I might let that one pass, but the other one is on the outside lamination. This gap will also be near the end of the apron, once I cut the excess off. This is a total do-over.

So, off to the local hardwood supplier to pick up more lumber.

If every failure is a learning experience, I should be a genius by now!

New Router and Router Plate Install

Jun 27

Posted by TheInquisitiveWoodworker in Projects | No Comments

For my birthday back in May I bought myself a new router (Bosch 1617 2.25 HP) and new router plate from Incra. Today was the day to finally install them.

I had an “older” router plate installed on auxiliary wing on my table saw. The size of the new plate doesn’t match current opening, and as you can see it has seen some use. So the table saw wing needed to be replaced.
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I chose to go with Phenolic Plywood, which I was able to find at my local Woodcraft. This stuff isn’t cheep, a ¾” x 24” x 48” was $59. It is a very nice grade of plywood, but I think Woodcraft has quite a markup on this stuff. I’ve seen full sheets for about $98. Dark green was my only color choice, but it looks pretty good.
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The original material used on the wing, wasn’t quite ¾” and this plywood was right on ¾”. The plywood stuck up just a little above the cast iron top. I had to cut some recesses where it sat on the mounting tabs.
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I just used a Forstner bit to remove about a 1/16” of material. It worked out nicely.

Next it was time to cut the opening. When I bought the router plate, I also bought a template for cutting the opening. When I installed the original plate, I had some difficulties. So I thought the template was worth the investment.
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The template really did make quick work of cutting out the opening. I’m glade I bought it.
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Once the rabbet was cut, I drilled holes in each corner of the material that needed to be removed from the center. I then used a jigsaw to remove the material, leaving the rabbet for the plate to sit on.
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I set the depth of the rabbet to a little more than the thickness of the new router plate. That way there was no possibility of it being higher than the surface of the plywood. I then used the leveling screws to set the level flush with the top
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The plate went in without much of a problem. Although, there was slightly too much play in the opening. Not much but just enough to cause a problem. In the upper left corner of the plate, there is an offset cam that locks the plate into the opening. Because of the extra play, the cam really didn’t engage. My solution was to add something in the corner to give the cam something press against.
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The screw worked really well! The screw was adjustable, which allowed me to set just the right amount tension.

Even though I bought a router plate for my model of router, it didn’t have a hole for the above the table adjustment the router had. After locating the position of the adjuster, it was an easy task on the drill press.
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Overall it was a pretty easy install and should a nice addition to the shop.

1 Year Blog Anniversary

Jun 20

Posted by TheInquisitiveWoodworker in Education, General | 2 Comments

When I started my blog 1 year ago, I wanted to post something at least once a week. Well, I fell a little short on that goal, but not too far off. I’m happy that I have continued with the blog. So many blogs fall to the wayside, only after a short period of existence. I never had high aspirations that I would draw huge numbers of readers, but there are a few of you out that return to see what I’m posting. For that I thank you.

The year in review

Recently I was thinking how little I felt I had accomplished in the last year. Then I started to look back at what I posted over the last year, and felt much better about what I accomplished. I attended my first weeklong woodworking class with Christopher Schwarz. I attended a great hand tool event, Best in the West. I started the mock-up of the small hall table, where I did my first bent wood lamination. I made a couple Silverware Trays as Christmas gifts. Although, I still have a couple more to finish! I built the Small Benchtop Bench, which was a very fun project. I attended a 1-day class with Rob Cosman, who is an amazing teacher. I hope I can take more classes from Rob. I built a bathroom cabinet for my brother. Although I used very few hand tools on this project, it was a very stratifying project. Then to top off the year, I visited the Port Townsend School of Woodworking. I met 2 great woodworkers there Tim Lawson and Jim Tolpin. You often hear woodworkers are the nicest people and these guys were no exception. Tim and Jim took time out of their busy day, to show my wife and me around the school. I’ll be heading over to the school for a class in August. With that kind of list of accomplishments, how could I have thought I hadn’t done much woodworking!

In the near future
Things have been pretty busy lately, so shop time has been a little scarce. The good news is I will have a week off the first part of July. I work for a great company and one of the benefits we have, is the company shuts down for a week around July 4! We also shutdown for a week around Christmas! My wife and I don’t have a lot plans for that week, so I should have a lot of shop time coming up! I have some new tools I really want to try out and post about. I also want to finish the small hall table I started around the end of last year. I also have some new books and DVDs I want to share. I hope this extra time off will give the time catch up on some posts.

Port Townsend School of Woodworking

Jun 1

Posted by TheInquisitiveWoodworker in Education | 2 Comments

Earlier last week my wife and I took a short vacation over to Port Ludlow, Wa. Not too far from Port Ludlow is Port Townsend, which is another place we love to visit. Port Townsend has great food and shopping. They also have a nice Jazz Festival every July. For the woodworkers out there, there is also the Port Townsend School of Woodworking. The school hasn’t been operating that long, and was founded by Jim Tolpin, John Marckworth and Tim Lawson.

Previously I had said I was going to be taking some classes at the school and since we were going to be in the area, I thought I would see if I could stop by and have a look around. I sent of an email to the school and received a quick response from Tim, saying he would love to show me around.

After arriving in Port Townsend, we set up a time with Tim to meet at the school. We were a little early getting there and as we pulled up, Jim Tolpin was outside unloading some wood. He welcomed us to the school and started showing us around. The school has a very nice set up. The bench room is equipped with some nice Sjöbergs workbenches. Some of the classes I have taken at other schools have had some pretty rickety benches. It was nice to see some stout benches for a change! Then Tim arrived and Jim had to excuse himself, we was preparing some hand planes for an upcoming class he was teaching.

We then spent the next hour or so talking wood with Tim. I have to say, I have one of the best wives there is! She might not had been as excited as I was, but she enjoyed the time there. She found the conversations interesting and may have asked as many questions as I did.!

Tim talked about the future of the school, and asked questions about what kind of classes I like to take, and which instructors I would like to see come to the school. He said they are still a somewhat new school and are trying to figure out which classes are going to work. One of their goals is to pull in the new woodworkers, and really give them a taste of the craft. To make things a little easier on the beginner woodworker, the school has quality hand planes and other tools the students can use. Having some of these tools is primarily due to a very generous gift form Lee Valley (Veritas). Tim said they have basic hand planes for each bench, so the students dont have tos share during the classes. Also, they had many of the “specialty” planes Veritas makes, including the new Small Scraper Plane that just came out.

Tim knew I was signed up for some Greene and Greene classes with Darrell Peart. He told me that the Hall brothers, who worked with the Greene’s had done some work in Port Townsend. After the tour of the school, we fold Tim as he took us to one of the houses the Hall brother’s had built.

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The house is still a private residence, so we were only able to view it form the outside. I believe they worked on this house before starting their collaboration with the Greene’s. Tim also told us about an amazing wooden boat builder that we should visit, but our time was short that day. We will have to add it to our list for our next visit.

Even though our visit was relatively short to the school, it was the highlight of the trip for me. My wife had just as much fun on the trip, visiting 3 Scrapbooking stores!

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