Wood US idea: part

Showing posts with label part. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Its Wanderful Part 7

When everything was sanded flat, I checked the bottoms on my tablesaw and joined them as necessary in order to eliminate wobble. Then it was time to sand. All four (4) wand stands were hand sanded from 80 grit to 220 grit.

As I wasn’t concerned with the walnut blotching, and shellac is a resonable blotch control in it’s own rite, I skipped the blotch control and went right to shellacing the bases.

The wands, mid-finishing.

2 coats of ½ lb and 4 coats of 1 lb clear shellac were applied, using rags. Once the shellac was dry, I buffed it with synthetic steel wool.

I had originally intended to add glue on plastic feet to the bottom of the want stands. As I played with the stands in my hands, I couldn’t bring myself to add plastic feet. Instead I decided I should make my own feet, out of brass.

Ripping the brass by hand.

I started with a ⅛” x 1½” brass bar from work. Then I used a hack saw to rip and cut it to pieces about ¾” x 2” (I say about, because I used relative dimensioning and my eye to make them, I never actually measured them). Once the were cut, I used a bastard file against the edge of my workbench to square the edges and clean the faces.

Two (2) sets of finished feet.

Then I tried to polish them using buffing wheels on a 6” bench grinder. This didn’t go so well, and after the first 3 or 4 feet I left them as the filed faces.

Ready to mix the epoxy.

I cut out for the feet using one (1) of the full blades from my dado set for an ⅛” wide, flat bottomed cerf. Unfortunately, all of the filing left the feet less then ⅛” thick. The gap was barely visible, but the fit was also less than snug. In order to secure the feet I used a two part epoxy paste. So far, it’s doing a fine job at holding the feet in. Hopefully it continues to.

The finished wand stands.

Now that the wand project is finally done, it’s finally time to again return to the shop renovation. Thankfully, I not only created four (4) nice and appreciated wand and wand stands, I also learned a bunch of new techniques and expanded my woodworking horizons along the way.

A finished want stand, armed with my wifes wand.

What have you done to push the boundaries of how you work?

Book Nook Part 2

So, last time I left off I had routed the dados to receive the shelves. My next order of business as to mill up the trip pieces that will also provide support for the shelves and provide the front lip on the shelf to keep the books from slipping off. Also, I had to drill holes to receive the cross braces that will keep the books from falling forward.

So, I milled up some 3/4"x2" pieces, routed a profile on them and also put a 3/8"x3/4" dado in the back of the trim pieces so that they will slip into the front of the shelves.

From Book Nook

This is a shot that gives you an idea of the profile and the lip the trim puts on the shelf (my photography isnt too good)

From Book Nook

Once that was done, I had to drill the holes to receive the dowels for the cross braces. To do this, I used the same process where I lay the sides back-to-back so that when I lay out the places for the holes they will be perfectly aligned.

From Book Nook

From Book Nook

Ok, once that was all done, I had to take some time and put a profile into the sides of the book nook so that they werent just square and boring. So, after about 12 tries, here is what I came up with.

From Book Nook

Im pretty pleased with that look and I think once it is done will give it a nice profile/look.

Ok, once that was all done, I did a quick dry fit and then it was time to glue it up! Big milestone...

Let me just first say, this was the most frustrating glue up I have EVER done. Oh man, did I ever need an extra set of hands to do this. Anyways, I got it done and below are a couple shots of the sides, shelves and braces all glued up. NOTE: notices the top back piece is also in; I had to do this because I had to put dados into the back to receive the back; you can see that dado in the pictures above.

From Book Nook

From Book Nook

Now, I just have to let that set for a while to dry up and then I will come back and glue all the trim pieces on. Once that is done, it is the pains taking task of removing any glue squeeze out and final sanding and then it is "off to the finishing room". I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Be Safe!