One down.......three more to go

This is what I'm up against. The slab shown below is way off. That's the result of my sucky chainsaw cutting skills. The scribe line shows where the slab needs to be in order for it to work for the tabletop. The challenge is trying to get it down to a manageable thickness using available tools (did I mention, I sure could use a sawmill right about now).

Well, guess I better get started. First step is getting rid of stock down to the approximate scribe line using the angle grinder chainsaw wheel attachment. Man, my wrists and forearms are taking a real beating on this!

It's really a slow go all things being said. It's also generating an awful lot of sawdust in the shop. That much stock removal leaves enough sawdust for someone with horses to use it for bedding in their horse stalls!

Step by step. Take it down to the scribe line every 6 inches, or so, before moving on and doing it all over again.

The last mountain to climb! Whew! Glad this is almost over!

Now THIS is manageable for the router planer.

Instead of using the 15' rails for planing this one, I decided it might be easier and less strain on the back if I were to set up the smaller planer using a door to slide the slab back and forth under the sled. We'll see.

Checking level. Yep - good to go!

This is much better than the long rails. So much easier to slide the sled!

After I don't know how many passes, it looks like it's getting down to where I want it to be.

Oops! A little thinner than I anticipated, but still very workable and functional at 2 3/8" thick.

Now all I need to do is run the circular saw on the edges followed up by a pass or two with the router on the edges, and this one should be ready for jointing to another slab.

Gotta say, this took a long time to do. Who knew the Laguna 22" bandsaw I had awhile back would be so missed! The sawmill jig I had set up for it would have made very short work of these slabs. Oh, well......

 The other slabs no doubt will take just as long for each one. That's the reality when using what's available. And that's just one more reason why handcrafted functional art such as this piece will ultimately become a treasure for someone.

Until next time.......

Did I Mention..........SAWMILL?

Yep, gotta go with the old standby - cottonwood. The thing is I have lots of cottonwood slabs, but cut them all too thick in order to leave some "wiggle room" when working with them. To top that off, widths also vary, so they needed to be trimmed in order for four of them glued up to make a nice 3' wide by 4' long tabletop. Easier said than done.

Cutting with the chainsaw was problematic because no matter how hard I tried, my accuracy just flat out sucked! The next best thing is, of course, is the router planer even though it is very labor and time intensive. I need to keep telling myself the results are usually worth the effort, but it takes an awful lot of convincing just to get started..

First step: Set the slab on its side to try to plane it down for jointing. There's about 2 1/2" to 3" of excess that needs to come off on one end. The rest kind of tapers off almost to nil. Shouldn't be too hard or take too long, should it?

Well, yes, it will (both be too hard - at least on the router - and take too long). That's really way too much for the router to handle. I mean, it can be done, but it's really hard on both the router and me. Next best thing (I hope) is to use the angle grinder with a grinding disc (Harbor Freight) to try to get a rough "plane" down to a line drawn on the side of the slab.

That actually worked pretty well as can be seen in the photo below. All that's left is to "smooth" plane with the router.

Finished one edge. In order to keep the slab steady, a prop had to be butted up against it on one side. A 6" x 6" landscaping timber cut to length and clamped to the table worked really well.

Now it's a simple matter of flipping the slab, securing it and doing the same planing on the other side.

Getting the thickness down to a manageable level for the router planer is another story. This slab was around 7" thick to begin with. Not only would that take forever with the planer, but it would be awfully hard on my already aching back (just thinking about it).

Again, the angle grinder came to mind. Scribing a thickness line along one of the finished edges gave me a depth to shoot for when grinding. Doing this involves simply eye-balling the edge and the surface to be planed to determine which edge would be best for stock removal. Once that's done, it's easy to put a long straight edge on the side and use a magic marker to draw the line.

Grinding it down is really not that hard to do - it just takes quite awhile to do it. This time I used a little chainsaw wheel called Lancelot (can be purchased at Harbor Freight and is actually made in the USA) on the angle grinder. This wheel can really mess you up if you don't take proper safety precautions. I remember on Extreme Home Makeover when the guy from Britain (can't remember his name) was using one of these to cup out the seat in a chair he was working on. Problem was he had taken the guard off the grinder, it kicked and pretty much took half his hand off in the process. Leave the damn guard ON! Wear proper eye, hand, dust, and ear protection. And, above all else, keep the work area clear of obstructions. Nuff said on safety.

This thing does take awhile to learn how to use. I found it can be used much like a grinding wheel can be used. Or, it can be used like a saw combined with a cupping motion for really great stock removal (and it stays sharp a really, really long time, too).

I am wearing a protective apron in the photos and video below which some might consider to be a hazard of sorts. I agree it can be a hazard if left too loosely tied. I tried to make sure it fit snug around my rather larger than I'd like it to be waist. That pretty much took care of keeping it away from the spinning tool.

A short video to give a little perspective on how the grinding works for those who might be interested.

That's it for now. See you next time.

Well......DAMN - now I'm getting frustrated

Since my last post the ants really got to me. I was making really good progress on planing down the logs for slabs, grinding out those "punky" voids and thinking this is really going to be nice when it's done. The ants had been flung out of their nests by the router whenever it made a pass, and......wait a minute. Dang it! More ANTS. Seemed like every single time I hit a dry rot spot (I'm a poet and don't even know it), more ANTS!

Time to make that all important decision whether or not to continue down that road and deal with the ANTS or scrap the wood and start over with something else. About 10 hours invested already and not a thing to show for it except the knowledge this is part and parcel of doing this type of woodworking.

With that many ANTS already exposed, the very real possibility exists that sometime down the road other ANTS inside the wood might just eat their way out and ruin the table then. So, scrap it! Give it to Bobby for his firewood project. I know he can put it to good use!

And, with that, these slabs were relegated to becoming someone's firewood. Hope they like roasted ANTS! In some places ANTS are a delicacy - at least that's what I've heard.

Now I can only hope I got all those ANTS that survived the router spinning them out of their nests into the piles upon piles of sawdust on the shop floor. Oh, yeah! That's right - I need to sweep every once in awhile. Hope that gets em'!

After thinking about it for awhile, a decision was made to try and work with two slabs of walnut that had the potential to be joined together to make a table about the size I was looking for. Did I mention the size actually diminished from the original down to a 4' x 3' tabletop? Well, it did. So, there ya go.

These two slabs were actually bookends cut from the same log. Both had large voids where the branches used to be. Thinking that crotchwood would be beautiful when finished, I enthusiastically cut into and began leveling them even though I was a little concerned with the punkiness of some of the areas right around the crotches. My hope was that solid wood would eventually show up and that the dry rot hadn't gone deep enough to affect my plans.

Wrong!

Can't take them down any further in order to maintain the 3" thickness I was shooting for, and the dry rot is still a problem. Grinding it out would leave voids that are way too large to maintain any structural integrity at all - too many cracks all along both the pieces mean they could just fall apart at some time in the future. Not even installing butterflies could help keep them sound.

These two slabs won't end up in the firewood pile. No, siree. They're good for something - I just don't know yet what.

Back to the drawing board once again. Thinking my old standby, cottonwood, might be just the ticket!

DAMN...Still Wishing

Yep - I'm still wishing I had a sawmill. As much as I love my router planer, it's still not as quick and efficient as a sawmill would be in planing down logs for use as tabletops.

From the last blog post, you can see there are two log slabs that need to be planed down to a 4" thickness to start (ultimately, the finished thickness will be 3"). In order to do that, the router planer has to be "modified" to accommodate their very large size (they're still 10' long overall).

If the planer were wider, it might be possible to do both log slabs at once, but not only is it not wide enough, but it would also be a killer on my back having to reach across both logs to plane off about 1/4" each pass. So, the decision was made to do one at a time (see photo below), and to take it a little easier on my poor, old achin' back in the process.

The rails on this setup are 15' long and consist of square steel 4"x 4". When the sled is set up on the rails, there is a lot of drag, so it isn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but a little beeswax on the upper surface of the rails does help.

I originally cut the logs to 10' lengths in order to have a little wiggle room to play with since the final length is going to be 8'.

In looking at the log slabs, it became pretty obvious taking another 6" off on each end would not only save a little bit on lengthwise passes to be made, but would also decrease the weight of the slab and make it just a tad easier to manhandle.

The 4" inch thickness was marked using a felt tip magic marker to give me a stopping point on the first side to be planed.

The next step was to get the sled set up for "running". In order to do that, a spacer was placed between the rails and then pipe clamps were used to tighten it down. Not only does this provide an even length of run the entire length of the planer, but it also helps reduce "racking" of the sled itself since width of the rails is uniform.

Adjusting the height of the planer is relatively simple. I used 2"x 6" scraps and keep 3/4" x 6" scraps in reserve to use for increments as height needs to be reduced to accommodate the depth of router cuts.

The weight of the planer, itself, keeps it stable. I'd ratchet tie it down if there were any slippage at all, but there isn't, so on to the next step.

Adjusting the width of the sled is critical to the entire operation. Enclosed bearings allow the sled to "run" the outside edges of the rails also helping to reduce racking to almost non-existent motion. I'm thinking of maybe doing the same type of ball bearings on the underside of the sled in order to make it easier to slide when making cuts - haven't quite figured out how to do that, yet, though.

Setting the depth of cut for the router is also pretty simple. All I did was push the sled up against the thickest end of the slab and adjusted for an approximate 1/4" depth of cut - ready to rock n' roll!

After four passes, this is how the top of the slab looked. A long process, but getting there slowly.

Checking how close I am to being done with this side. Dang it! Still have a ways to go to get it down to 4"!

Oh, and the red grill you see in the photo below? That's the air filters that keep the airborne sawdust in the shop while I'm planing to a minimum. I used an old furnace motor to pull air through the filters and blow clean air out the other side. I was skeptical at first, but this thing works great!

Now we're talkin'! I'm done for the day! Even though the planing didn't quite take it down through the entire mark, this is close enough for now. DAMN! Am I ever tired! And SORE! Oh, my achin' back!

I guess more got taken off overall than I thought. That's a really nice flat edge to work with.

To start the other side, all I need to do is flip this one over. It won't even require any shims (did I forget to mention I had to shim the slab before starting in order to prevent it from wobbling during planing? Didn't think so, but shimming is required on the first cut almost every single time).

The deeper I got into the wood, the more the grain popped. There was even some spalting going on that you can't see in these two photos.

The last "to do" item for today is to flip this bugger over and take a looksee at what's in store for tomorrow.

Well, the sapwood is kind of punky in spots, but shouldn't be too much of a problem to grind off to get a nice natural edge. The heartwood is another matter entirely.

This is a Douglas Fir tree. In leaving it up by our barn in the sunshine to help it dry, ants got into it. You can see the vein where they attacked. It goes almost all the way through this slab. I guess it will need to be ground out and filled with something to finish it, but I ain't giving up on it! No way, no how!

You can also see how I "missed" the mark with my rip cut using the chainsaw. I just gotta get better at doing this - this is just frustrating, not because it affects the end result of the planing, but because I'm kind of anal when it comes to how things should be done.

The ants were driving me crazy the next day! Every time I made a pass with the sled, the router bit would uncover more of them. They'd climb out very slowly (this is winter time after all), and I'd have to smash them as they did (didn't want them to get into any of the other wood I have in the shop).

This kept going on and on, so I decided to grind out the heartwood with my electric long necked die grinder and cup rasp. Now I know what I'm facing when it comes time to fill this chasm - it is deep, that's for sure!

On a final note for this post, the stump I hope to use for pedestals for this table was just sitting there waiting for itself to get cut in half before the snow set in. My son, Bobby, has been after me to teach him how to use the chainsaw, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do just that. He's almost 18 and I've been putting it off long enough now (Mom and Dad concerned for his safety, don'tcha know).

The stump is an old root system taken from our property. Most of these stumps are chock full of resin, so they are very dense and the sawdust that comes out is very sticky.

After Bobby got all the appropriate safety gear on, and he'd been prepped in how to tighten the chain, check everything for safety (you know - like clearing an area around the stump, making sure he was working on a pretty level surface area, etc.), he was ready to go.

First cut - looking good!

Tip it upright to take a gander at it.

 Tip it back over on its side, and finish the cut all the way through.

And there you have it! He really did a nice job on this, especially for his first try at chainsawing.

Well, that's it for now. Next step is to finish planing the other side of the first slab. Once that's done, it's twin will be next. Until then......