While the Glue Dries

  I was waiting for the glue to dry.  I had done a couple of little trim things on the paint box and was waiting for the glue to dry before final sanding and varnish. 

  Sometimes I fill the waiting time with sharpening tools or sweeping or I just give up and go away.  This time I did a bit of shop maintenance that was long long over due.  I while ago, more than a year, maybe more than three years I cut the top of my work table with my circular saw and not long after that a corner broke off.  I have struggled to work around the broken bit of bench ever since. Finally yesterday I was waiting for the glue to dry and decided to do something about the problem. There was also a bit of wood just the right size staring me in the face.

  

  First thing to do was cut the edge square, for that I used my circular saw and the saw guide that I made a few weeks ago.  Once again the saw and guide worked easily and accurately.  My bench top is 1 1/2 inch thick plywood and this time I decided to cap the edge of the plywood with real wood. You can see, I used glue and wood dowels to attach the face board. The entire work table is assembled with dowels, Miller dowels generally.  I chose  to use wooden fasteners so that anytime I saw or drill on this work table I know, for sure, that I won't run into a screw or a nail.  For example, today I added three new dog holes in the work top, which is easy knowing what is hidden.

  I have been working for several projects now without a table saw.  Now I have no plans to replace my table saw , if I won the lottery I might buy a dedicated track saw but I'm not even sure about that.  The saw I could not live without is the sliding mitre saw.   They do half of what a table saw will do, for half the price, but it is the half that makes life in my  small shop much easier.

  All that remains after the varnish for the paint box is a carrying handle. I need to see what is out there in hardware.

cheers ianw

but not the sandwich kind!

  

  

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

On my way home from our church's Christmas Bazaar I saw, sitting on the side of the road an opportunity. 

   This chest of drawers is in rough(ish) shape, on the outside.  There are stains on the front and one side, the feet are broken off the chest and some of the paint has been chipped.

  

  The drawers have solid wood sides with plywood bottoms.  I expect that the wood underneath the paint is veneer on solid wood.

  What do I do now?  My first thought was to break this piece up and use the drawer sides for other projects but...I could repair the bottom and install new legs.  The staining can be washed off and the nicks in the paint can be filled and sanded.  I would never try to return this piece to bare wood but it could be made to look good if carefully painted.  I now have to decide what to do.  We certainly do not need another chest of drawers, I guess we'll have to find out if someone else could use one.

 I've included a small bench build video with today's blog.  It is similar to my bench top bench from last June.   I use the clamping capabilities of my small bench regularly. Especially when I am sawing and shaping smaller pieces of wood by hand. 

  cheers, ianw

p.s. I love fall colours.

Designing and Building a Modern Bench

  Summer time is here.  I hope that you are sitting out on your deck or under a tree enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.  Here in Ontario we are only four months away for cold and grey and damp, so we are all taking advantage of the fine weather.

  I am in the midst of a week's holiday away from the shop.  My wife and I have been riding our bikes and I have had a couple of really great motorcycles rides too.  What that means is that the shop is getting ignored for a while.  With luck I will spend some time on projects next week, but my five year old grand daughter is coming for a week's visit and she can be distracting.

  Anyway, excuses aside I found a video to share.

Making a Modern Bench

   I like that we can see the design process as well as the building process.  It always makes me think when I see a shop with excellent power tools yet see how much hand work still remains to be done to get a quality finished project.

 cheers, ianw

Finished Bench

   I began this bench project over a week ago.  Once I got the old varnish sanded off the bench seat it sat on my work bench, in the way while I figured out what to do about the legs.

  I had several ideas, all of which I rejected after careful consideration. Benches are basic seating, there is no need to be "clever" about the legs, and the bracing underneath the table wasn't actually in the way as much as I imagined. 

  The bench seat is ash and few people can tell the difference I opted for oak for the legs. Only the most trained eye is going to see much difference and since the seat is probably almost 100 years old the patina was not going to be matched very well anyway.

 

  I used KREG pocket holes and one small bracket to hold each leg in place. By the time the pocket hole screws are driven into solid, close grained ash the legs are firmly attached.  

  After I attached the legs I put on three coats of MinWax water based oil modified clear finish.  For this situation the water based product should suit my needs it was easy to apply and easy to clean up. I guess time will tell how the finish stands up to real life.

  Between each coat of finish I rubbed the bench down with 220 sand paper and wiped the dust off with a tack cloth before applying the next coat.  The water based Poly dried very quickly so I was able to apply two complete coats in one afternoon.

  Once the Poly was totally dry I rubbed it down gently  with a plastic pot scrubber and put on a coat of paste wax. The wax smells nice and gives the work a warm glow, as well as a bit more water proofing.

  The last thing was felt feet. Since the bench's oak legs are sitting on our hardwood floor I figured protection was needed or there would be scratches and scuffs in no time.

  Now we have more seating space for those big family times.

Sunny Nook in the front of the house

view facing  north east from the hallway

view facing north west from our galley kitchen

  At the front of our house is an alcove that is famously called a "breakfast nook" on the blue print.  We don't breakfast there but we have made it into a nice little spot that gets a remarkable amount of sun even though it faces north. When I set out to write this blog I was going to talk about how it is more practical sometime to break down and buy from an "Ikea" sort of place and then make adjustments to suit your situation then it is to build from scratch.

   We went out last week and bought the Ikea storage units called Expedit. On Saturday we assembled the pieces and slid them into the nook space.

  I know that Expedit is just boxes and I could have made them in the shop but.... not for anything like the cost that Ikea charged, if my time was worth anything. And while I love wood, the clean and cleanable finish of the melamine is not something that I can do in my shop, so for that reason and the fact that we like the clean lines of the Scandinavian style, Expedit works just fine. We feel that it is furniture that blends in, and is sort of invisible rather than standing out to be seen.

  Having assembled the Expedit and installed the accessory boxes I set about making the unit user friendly.  The boxes are 12 inches deep, great for sweaters and socks, not so great for the random  stuff that collects by the computers at the front door of our house.

  

  I decided that I would make a two smaller boxes to fit inside the cloth accessory box.  That what workshops are for, right?

 

  Then I decided that I didn't what to make a wooden box, it would be heavy, so I recycled the card board in which the Ikea unit was shipped.

   Making the cardboard container was like a shop project.  I had to prepare the material by cutting it to size, just like a wood project.  The layout used my standard shop tools, a large layout square, ruler and pencil, instead of a saw I used my shop knives to cut the cardboard to size.  To make the container more rigid  I made it three layers thick by gluing the layers together with Weldbond glue. I've always thought of Weldbond as the ultimate "white glue".  Needless to say the joints had to be taped since there was not enough smooth bearing surface to glue the edges together like I would with wood.

     The 12 x 13 1/2 x 6 inch box that was glued and taped together sits in the bottom on the cloth box, and on top of it sits another cardboard box. ( 12 x 13 x 4 in)

this is the container in the upper left hand of the third photo. 

  The top box has a handle that I knocked off in the shop from scrap wood  using, a band saw, a wood rasp and two different sanders. Since it have the tools I am like to customize things.  You can see in the top of the photo a three peg rack that holds keys; a bit of scrap wood, three short lengths of dowel and a bit of glue, easy peasy. 

   Now there is a place for all that stuff that hovers around the door, you know keys, note books, shopping bags, wallets, phones etc.  Instead of sitting in a heap on a table by the door it is all safely out of sight in a box/drawer.

   What I discovered as I took the photo to show off the space was something very special:

  In that photo are four things of special significance, two are wood and two are art.

  The art first, deep in the corner is an abstract painting by our daughter-in-law, on the other side of the window are the other two small paintings that compliment the painting behind the palm. Hanging on the wall is an art print of a frog, that I gave Eva for an anniversary gift years ago. The frog is very cool and was created by one of our kid's friends from University so there is a personal connection as well as artistic value.

   The wood; that little brown book case was made for my Mother by her father, at least 60 years ago.  It is a sad little bookcase that was clearly hammered together in a basement workshop with no idea that it would still be around so many years later. The other special piece is the bench that is under the window, my father cut the tree down at our cottage from which the bench is made and shaped and sanded the rough lumber with basic tools to make a bench for my front hallway, about three houses ago. The cottage is gone, as is my Father but the bench will last, like the bookcase to one day be in the hallway of on of my grandchildren's houses.  I love wood.

cheers, ianw