Bird House - Tea Pot

 Having written 1128 posts over nearly a decade I have never really broken into the "Big Time". I am not surprised, I chose not to get involved in Video Blogging six or seven years ago when that was the coming thing, and I know that I am not so skilled a craftsman that the internet hangs on my every word.

  Today's blog is a clear example of why I am still here, but not a big noise on the net.

   A coupe of weeks ago I picked up an armful of discarded cedar deck boards. Cedar is nice to work with, especially with hand tools. I used some of the boards to knock out a planter for our back deck and now I am making a bird house.

  This bird house has been put together with glue and finishing nails and soaked with 1/1/1 finish.($). I enjoyed making this bird house which I will have my grand daughter paint when she is here for Christmas holidays. Why was the such an enjoyable project? I only used hand tools.  Cedar is wonderful to cut and plane. While making this project my shop smelled of cedar and the floor was covered with sweet smelling shavings. My shop looked like something from a children's story where a white haired Grampa is making something for someone special. Well....I am a white haired Grampa (Opa) and I was making it for my oldest grand daughter. 

  I have a shop filled with tools, some good, others excellent, both modern and traditional. With my full 'power tools' shop I could have knocked dozens of bird houses out in time it took to make this one.  All the saw dust would be collected in my shop vac system from my table saw and random orbital sanders and the product would be excellent. It would be efficient and praise worthy,  every yard has room for another bird house.

  Instead the process became the goal, not the product.  As long as a bird house emerged from the time in the shop, how fast it happened did not matter.

  So, I began rough cutting out the wood to length with a hand saw from my Grandfather's work shop, I'm 63 and I'm sure the saw is 25 years older than I am.  That saw built houses and boats, boxes and furniture when my Father was a little boy.  Once I got the boards roughed to length I used my Jack Plane to flatten then.  I created mounds of feather-like shavings and filled my shop with the aroma of  dry cedar. After I got the wood splinter free I cut everything to size. I have a rip saw from my Father's shop that is a joy to use and in dry soft wood, quite effortless.

I drilled some holes, drove some nails and used a nail set to sink the heads.  And voila a bird house is born.

  When you make a bird house don't just drill a random hole, find out what birds are in your area and drill an appropriate opening.  

 ***Also don't put a peg below the hole.  The birds that live there fly in and so don't need a peg, that don't climb into their homes. All the peg does is provide a place for a predator bird to perch while attacking eggs or baby birds.***

 The other thing I did was put a good, useful handle onto my lovely new tea pot.

  I have a copper wire core surrounded by small branches from our Mulberry bush wrapped in hemp cord. I'm not 100% convinced that this the the best look, I think the handle is too heavy for a delicate little pot but...it will do from now.

  The more I work in my shop lately the more and am moving away from noise and dust. It don't know if this is a fad or evolution.

cheers ianw

($) 1-1-1 finish is one part varnish,one part linseed oil and one part turpentine. It dries slowly but soaks in really well.

I'm Still Here!

 I am still standing, honest. What I haven't been doing is anything interesting enough to share.  Most days I spend some time in the shop, now nearly always on a maintenance/repair task.  

  For example, extension cords.  I have half a dozen cords of various length from 5 to 50 feet.  Over the course of their lives the cords have been nicked, or cut or the ends have begun to work loose.  I have been splicing out the biggest cuts and strengthening the end's connection. A tip, use hot glue to fill the gap between the cord covering and the ends, it flows and fills the gaps.

 What else? I have one dust collector , this model from 15 years ago, connected to a cyclone garbage can top.

  And four wet/dry shop vacs of various sizes, two connected to smaller cyclone systems. About once a year I vacuum all the cracks and crevices I can reach and them take all the dust collection systems completely apart and clean them out including washing the various filters, both foam and cloth. A blog about drying paint would be more interesting for readers that stories about dust in my eyes and up my nose.

  At least one morning was spent culling wood from my off cut and found wood piles.  It is easy to collect that stuff and stash it in a corner.  Well,  at some point a critical eye needs to assess whether this is working material or fire starter.  Found wood after close inspection is often fire starter, and allowing it to gather because the space is available is a bad habit, that I need to fight against. 

   I spent some time making lids for boxes that have been laying around.  To make the work worthwhile I have been using these small projects to practice veneering.  I have got pretty good at small pieces, and nice veneer can sure change a plywood box.

 

  Gardening, and yard stuff.  I have made some more peony stakes.  A quick, low skill,  band saw project. 

with a support these flowers fall to the ground. 

 I have made shelving for BBQ tools for my brother's outdoor space as well. A bit of two x four and few screws and hooks, not blog worthy.

  Yesterday I carved another spoon.  One of the things I found while doing my wood inventory/clear out was several bits of wood that will make nice spoons. Yesterday I sat in the shade out side and whittled a spoon. I find making spoons satisfying. 

  This recent spoon was rough  shaped with my hatchet, then refined with knives and the bowl was made using a hook knife.  I have a bit more sanding with 220 and 400 paper then I will finish the spoon in food safe oil.  My spoons are working tools not ornaments.  My previous spoon was a request for a long strong spoon for mixing sour dough bread dough in its jar. I also made a long handled spreading knife for reaching into the bottom corners of the peanut butter jar a while ago. Choosing to make spoons enables me to make custom kitchen cooking and baking tools.

    This is some of the spoons I've carved for our kitchen. The long spreader knife is in the middle beside the the super spoon. I made the super spoon for Eva to be able to stir fruit for jam in our biggest pot.  The dark wooden spreader is a copy of the ever present Smor Kniv, from Sweden. (butter knife)  At least as many spoons, and spreaders have be given away to friends and family, here and abroad. All these projects are made from off cuts or fire wood, a great value and use of time, IMHO.

cheers ianw

Single Use Plastic in the Workshop and Beyond

 Many folks are making an effort to reduce the amount of single use products in their lives, plastic straws being one of the things with a high media profile.  Single use items don't play a large role in wood working and a smaller than average role in my shop.  For example, I know many woodworkers that use disposable foam brushes rather than wash out a bristle brush, I'm cheap I wash brushes out.  Glue brushes are another throw away item I re-use over and over again.  Sand paper is disposable, but a crepe block extents sand paper's useful life several times over. Not to mention that I use planes, files and cabinet scrapers when ever possible, partly because I am thrifty and partly because I want to avoid fine dust.   

  If I am thirsty I drink water out the the tap and if I need to take it with me I put it in a reusable bottle.  I carried vacuum bottles ( thermos in Canada) of coffee to work long  after there came to be a "Tim Horton's on every corner, party cheapness and partly hatred of adding to the world's accumulation of trash.

  I think Dunkin Donuts is the American Version of Tim Hortons.

  On the topic of dust and dust collection I installed vortex dust collection systems years ago to reduce the number of filter and other bags that had to be bought and thrown out.  Money I believe to have been well invested.

   Connected with the single use theme, today I am going to drift up the stairs and out of the workshop.  

  Forty plus years ago I began to shave my face and very quickly my father made it clear he was not interested in sharing his razor.  You may remember razors from the 1970's they were generally heavy brass, or steel and used a single blade.  However, around that time multi blade razors made mostly from single use plastic came on the scene. The new razors proved conclusively how primitive and backward was my father, who never made the move to the modern era and so only owned one razor in his adult life.

single use, unnecessary 

  For about forty years I used razors like the one in the photo.  I usually wear a fairly full beard and so seldom shave why entire face, nor do I shave more than three times per week.  If I shave every day my face and neck quickly resemble ground beef, raw, regardless of what shaving products, razors, soaps, balms or aftershaves used. I even tried a couple of costly electric razors which not only abraded my skin but cooked it at the same time. ( it is only fair to say that my face is covered with closely packed heavy black (now grey) wire pretending to be hair. )

  Recently I began to think about the single use plastic thing.  I don't use a straw with drinking and usually carry a knife and spoon with me for road side eating.  I hated plastic utensils long before they became an environmental issue.  So what was a further unnecessary throw away plastic thing....razors.  Over the course of forty plus years I have thrown more than two thousands into the trash. 

 What to do? Consider what my Father did.  The old man was smarter than I gave him credit. 

  I now have a razor which I expect to last me as long as I shave myself and it came with a selection of blades all of which seem to do an equally effective job.  One make is in a paper box and so will be what I order in the future.  (Astra)  I have found that there are a couple of weeks shaving in each razor blade thus far.

  

  After all the hype my single blade razor does a well as any of the three, four, five blade super duper plastic wonders I have used for the last forty years.  Eventually the single razor blades with be recycled or at least biodegrade in time as will the steel razor.

  As my Grand children grow and fill my life with joy and light I want their lives to be long and happy too.

 cheers ianw 

Why Sweep - an expert's reasons

    My wood shop is in the basement of our house, not the best arrangement in the world, but the one with which we live.  When I am in good form I spent 2 or 3 full days each week in the shop and so make a tonne of shavings, chips and saw dust.  With dust collection and some care most of the mess stays down stairs, not all but most.  Dust collection systems though flawed are vital to my shop and I suspect all modern shops.  

   I have a mid sized dust collection system connected to my table saw, planer and jointer.  I bought it four or five years ago and it has collected many many bags of saw dust for me.

   I also have two big shop vaccum cleaners that are used in other situations.  My Fein vac is attached to my orbital sanders, and by monster "shop-vac" is collected to the router table.  The shop vac is noisy and to keep the cost of bags down I bought a Oneida Dust Duputy, but it is still an important tool in the battle for breathable air.

    Another important tool is the lowly, low tech, broom.  I bow to a more expert and eloquent writer, as he discusses:

To Sweep; To Sweep; Perchance to Clean

     I especially agree that sometimes a good sweep is good for the soul, it helps clear the head as well as the shop.

Mitre Saw Dust Control

  Last March I wrote a blog about mitre saws of various types, I really like my saw and use it all the time.  If you click this link you will see a very good system to reduce the saw dust and blow by dust that you get when working with your saw.




I strongly encourage you to check out the link and watch the video.

Battling the DUST MONSTERS

Beware the DUST MONSTER 

     Having done battle with the dust monsters  in my shop for several years I now  have a workable though not perfect system in place. I don't pretend to be an expert, this just my experiences shared for what you think they are worth. The air quality as has improved so that I don't track dust all over our house and, more importantly, don't  sneeze tissues full of saw dust at the end of a working day. 

   I began my system five years ago with several shop vacuum cleaners attached to separate bench tools.  I had a large shop vac dedicated to my contractor's table saw and three other small vacuums that moved between my pocket hole jig, sanders, etc.

 The system began to fail as soon as I acquired more and larger shop tools.  I got a planer first.  Most of the time I just ran it with the door open and the dust blew into the back yard.  The weakness of that system is coldly obvious.


   Once I got a joiner and  so really serious about milling my own lumber the mess just rapidly got out of hand.  No longer was it a few rip cuts on the table saw and then some sanding. Now it begins with rough lumber to be dimensioned , milled and machined.
  

         Let me lay out the full system as it is currently.

  First stop Joiner, sadly I count on gravity to draw the chips down a chute and into a box.  Not really a dust collection system,  I console myself by saying it is mostly chips and not much fine dust. (we will tell ourselves, anything).

   Sometimes, but not often, it is the circular saw that comes first.  Dust is not controlled, but I try to avoid the power saw, I even use hand saws sometimes. 
                                                          

     Second stop;  either planer or table saw.  These two tools are set up close together and share my Delta 15amp dust collector. (the reviews is of a recent model but mine is pretty much the same) The amount of chips that this unit collects is impressive, but it is a real pain to empty the bag.  Something I learned was to take the top bag off too and then I can reach down from the inside while putting the bottom bag on.  Since the bag was filling too quickly I bought a cyclone top to go on a garbage can.  The cyclone I bought was fairly cheap and so only moderately effective.  I think it captures about half of the saw dust so it takes twice as long to fill the bottom bag. Anything that allows me to wrestle with the bag half as often is a good thing.


Third, the mitre saw.  I have it attached to a shop vac, but as you know mitre saws are very dirty.  


Band saws and sanders all  are attached to a Oneida Dust Deputy driven by that big old shop vac.  As far as I can tell the Dust Deputy does everything it claims.  I haven't changed a bag in the vac in over a year and have emptied the Dust Deputy bin dozens of times. 

    One thing I did some years ago was buy extra vac hose and solidly tape it to my sander's dust ports.  Now all my sanders plug into my Dust Deputy or Fein Vac easily and quickly, so they get plugged in, even for  short little jobs. 


   The only real stumbling blocks are the mitre saw and the joiner, and I have the pieces for the joiner I just need to re-arrange my floor plan to get the joiner close to the Delta dust collection.  So it is not stumbling, really it is just procrastination. In the near future there will be a dedicated mitre saw station with an umbrella like system to catch free flying chips.  Beyond that or buying a Festool saw I don't know what to do.


Errors in judgement. 


     I bought a small down draft table with a small single bag dust collection vac.  I do not use it.  I haven't got the space to leave it out to work on and the small single bag vac just screams.  The sound makes working beside the down draft table vac wildly unpleasant even with ear plugs.   


   One of my sanders has a square dust port, it was such a pain to make an adapter for so that it would fit easily on the vac hose.  From now on all dust making tools have to have round, standard dust ports. 


Tragedies:
     My old belt sanders don't even have dust ports.  They are indestructible, I'll have them forever and they can really only be used in emergencies  or outside. But man oh man will they remove material in a hurry.   I have a great old Makita finish sander, again it predates dust collection ports on tools.  Sometimes I drag out the down draft table and use the Makita, it is good, but I hate the down draft table so much the Makita doesn't get used much.


    A cool thing I've learned, hand planes and cabinet scrappers are great  and can really reduce noise and dust.  Cabinet scrappers are easy to sharpen and impossible to wreck.  Using planes is not just a back to nature coolness, also they work great, those old dudes did know a few things.


DEATH TO THE DUST MONSTERS !!!!!