Until the person receives this, I really cant say what it is yet. My blog is linked to Facebook and twittter and they or someone they know could see this. Anyway I made some further progress on it tonight. What I can say is that the project will compose of at least 2 panels using mortise and haunched tenon joinery. After milling the boards for the 2 panels, I ran a groove in the edges to accept the panel and the haunch of the tenons. I did two passes on the table saw flipping face against the fence so that groove will be perfectly centered. From there I started working on the mortises. Since I didn’t have a long enough router bit, I decided that the best way to do these was with the drill press, a forstner bit, and a few chisels. It took several hours to complete, but this evening I was able to complete 8 mortises. The next step will be to start working on the tenons. I don’t currently have a tenoning jig, so I will likely putting one together that runs over the fence to accomplish this. I will update my blog once I have one made.
Category: Projects
Breadbox Project
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As mentioned in my previous post, I am working on a breadbox for my wife. I will make more updates as it nears completion. Today I finished the sanding, and decided to go ahead and start putting the finish on the box even though I haven’t started the door yet. The wood is maple that has some ambrosia figure to it. I got a pretty good deal on it from crlumber.com as he was trying to close out his remaining stock, and the figure was a bit limited. I am seriously thinking about making a trip back to get a little bit of walnut, as I am think the contrast in wood will really make the whole project pop out. I will post more pictures directly to the blog at some point. However, I am posting progress pictures via twitter. I have setup a twitpic event gallery just for the bread box. Click here to check it out!!
A bright turning – A Table Lamp
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The lamp is yet another turning as my lathe addiction grows. 🙂 This was a challenging, but fun project. There are actually three turnings total for this project. The first is the main body, the next one is the base, and finally a small turning that is used to attach the electrical components. All components were made from maple that has some (but not much) ambrosia figure in it. The finish is boiled linseed oil and a furniture paste wax.
The lamp’s main body was made for four 3/4″ boards laminated together. The two middle boards had a groove routed down the middle of them stopping an inch from each end. The idea being that after turning the main body, that I could drill a hole from either end that would allow the wire to run through, and attach the electrical components. The BIG mistake I made was I didn’t mark on the boards where the grooves were so that I could see where they were. I just assumed they would stay center enough for this. However, after glueing up the four boards, then jointing the edges, as well as trimming the ends, some how those groves became off center. Not enough to ruin the final turning, but just enough that they weren’t useable. Luckily I was able to find a drill bit that I already had that was long enough to meet in the middle, and was able to finish the drilling on the drill press.
The base of the lamp was turned from a rough 4/4 piece of maple. I flattened it on one face with the jointer, then straightened one edge. I wasn’t concern about squaring up the piece, just so I had a good edge to cut it to length on the miter saw and attach to the face plate. I roughed out the round pattern on the bandsaw. Once on the lathe, it was no problem getting the piece perfectly round and getting the face opposite to the faceplate parallel. Since this was a flat piece, with grain running perpendicular to the lathe, using spindle gouges was out of the question. The only turning tool I was able to use for this was my scraper. The main body had a large tenon, so I drilled mortise into the the base to accept the main body. Then I drilled a hole through the side of the base to allow for the electrical wire.
The hole at the top (and bottom for that matter) of the lamp body was 5/8″ in diameter. I needed a reducer peg so that I could put a threaded nipple into it. So I turned one to 5/8″ then drilled a hole just over a 3/8″ in diameter. The 5/8″ main hole was big enough to allow the nut and washer to fit, so it made attaching the threaded nipple a breeze. Before I glued in the reducer peg I attached the nipple to it. I SHOULD have ran the electrical wire through it first, as it would have been much easier to get pushed through. I didn’t but after a bit of rigging, I was able to get the wire pulled through.
The electrical components were for the most part were taken from an old lamp that was falling apart, though I had to buy a couple pieces from Lowes. The lampshade was bought from Target.
My wife is delighted to have it now. The room we have it was always a dark room because of the large brick wall for the fireplace. Having the additional light in the room makes a big difference for the overall lighting in the room.
Snowman – A Christmas Turning
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So the latest in my tool addiction is my lathe. As an update, when I went to the woodworking in America show, I got a really good deal on the Delta lathe I had been looking at. Since then I have been turning like mad. My first project was a set of screwdrivers, which will be the subject of a future post. The latest turning I have completed is this snowman. Actually this is the second attempt actually, the first one turned out okay, but it took a little bit of imagination to see it as a snowman. So I started out again. First thing is I wanted some actual features (buttons, eyes, nose, mouth, etc.) on this one. So the first thing I did was took some scrap Brazilian cherry and started turning it into pegs. Several 1/4″ round and a bunch 3/8″ round. In the maple blank, I laid out each segment of the snowman, including the tenons which will loosely fit into the next section. I then laid out the position for each eye, mouth dot, and button, and drilled them out on the drill press. From there I glued in the pegs, and let them sit so that they were good and dry. From there, I cut each section of the blank free, and then knocked the corners off with the band saw.
The turning of each section was the same. First mounted the top of the blank to the faceplate, and the rough rounded the blank. I then drilled out about 1/2″ deep hole that I proceeded to further hollow out to size and shape, to both accept the tenon from the lower segment, and to fit on the jaws of my Nova chuck. From there, I rounded the piece again to make sure the piece was balanced, form the tenon, then form the shape of the segment. I used my skew chisels to make the segment as rounded as possible. I hollowed out each section with 1.5″ inch forstner bit. Since I don’t have any hollowing tools yet, that is the furthest I went with it, but there is still some room for some small pieces of candy or other small items. Finally each segment was sanded smooth.
The finish on the main body is simply shellac. I wanted to keep the wood as light as possible (its supposed to resemble snow after all!) so I didn’t put any oil on it. The hat I stained. I wish I hadn’t. If I make one of these again, I will get a dark wood for the hat that I can use oil and shellac to finish.
While the stain was drying, I decided to have some more fun. I turned the pipe from two pieces. This was a fairly challenging piece to turn since it was so small. The pipe was finished with boiled linseed oil and shellac. Finally I turned the carrot nose. The finish on this was orange marker. 🙂 After very carefully drilling the holes in the head segment for these, they were glued in place.
Overall, this was a fun and a challenging project that I have about 8-10 hours put into. Some how I have a feeling this won’t be the last snowman I turn on the lathe.
Turning #6 – My Second Mallet
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I decided that after attempting to use the first mallet, I needed one that had a little bit of heft to it. When looking at the prices on some of the mallets on the market that were comparable to what I was wanting to make, I decided it was worth it to use an exotic blank that was heavy. In this case the mallet is made from a South African species known as Mopane. This stuff was DENSE and HARD. The blank was 3″x3″x12″, and easily weighed 3 pounds. I bought two other blanks of the same size at the same time that were maple and cherry. The mopane blank was heavier then those two combine!
For a newbie turner, the wood choice made this a challenging turn. It forced me to get real good real quick at sharpening chisels as this wood was not at all forgiving with a dull chisel, and would rip out if the chisel needed sharpening. My one regret is that I wish I had taken more time to try to smooth the head of the mallet and do a better job sanding. There are some scratches on the head portion that didn’t become visible until I applied the finish. Since this is a shop project, and the head is going to get abused anyway, I didn’t worry about it, and moved on. The finish on it is, again, boiled linseed oil, with many coats of shellac sanded to 800 grit. Overall, I am really happy with the piece, and have had two family members try to talk me out of using it for its intended purpose. The final weigh-in for this mallet was just shy of 20 oz!