Back in the Saddle Again

After months (seems like years) of no projects being worked on (still trying to convert the old barn over to my new/old shop), it felt really good to finally get working again on a bona fide project....a bigger bona fide project, that is.

As usual, the ease is in the perception....at least to begin with.

Katherine saw something online she thought might be a good seller. I took a look at it and agreed. My thoughts went immediately to the degree of difficulty (my usual mode). Hers went to how easy this should be, especially given the fact I already had two pedestals done and ready to go:

Curious yet as to what these are going to wind up being? Too bad! Not ready to let the cat out of the bag just yet!

Each one of these needs a top. The top needs to be a diameter of no less than 25 inches assuming the top will be kind of "roundish".

There were three cottonwood crosscut slabs on top of my scrap pile I thought might fit the bill. No such luck, and that's when the ease of perception decided to take a hike in a southward direction BIG time!

None of them were over 22 inches in diameter. So, all three of them got set aside, and off to the portable garage I went for one of the big boys:

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' bout! This big boy definitely fits the bill. Over 36 inches in diameter. Yeah, baby!

Wait a minute....there's a really big crack in this crosscut slab. Gotta get rid of that in order to make this work. Will it leave the requisite 25 inch diameter? Whew! Just barely. Now, the only thing to worry about (constant worrier, don'tcha know) is whether or not that crack will extend any further.

This is the fun part, at least for me it is, the shaping....

Tried chiseling off small portions....got really tired of doing that really fast.

Tried pounding in a wrecking/pry bar....got really tired of doing that really fast, too.

Looked for my splitting wedge....couldn't find it.

Puzzled over this for awhile, and then had one of those legendary senior moments (brain farts for some)....splitting maul! Yep! That's the ticket!

A few (a relative term, to be sure) less than well placed swings (well, maybe not to some of you younger whippersnappers out there), and the deed was done. Just a little bit of the crack left over which leaves just enough extra to work with when doing more shaping in that area.

All of this was done with the slab on the floor. Next step is to grind it down to about a 4 inch thickness. But it has to be lifted onto two sawhorses to get it up to a height I can work with.

DANG, but that's still heavy! Good thing it's been drying out for, what, 4 years now? Leverage is a beautiful thing....especially when you know how to use it.

All set up and ready to go, except the thickness that has to come off this slab is way more than I anticipated it would be. This thing's about 7 inches thick, and it needs to be about 3 inches for a finished slab. Well, that means about 3 inches off the top and another inch off the bottom.

At one point in my woodworking life, I would have used my router planer to take down the extra stock. After burning out two routers in the process, it's become readily apparent there has to be another way.

Enter the handy-dandy angle grinder with chainsaw grinding wheel:

Sharpened that chain, and away we go!!!

After grinding down about half the stock on this side that needs to be removed, it was time to quit for the day. Neck, shoulders, elbows, hands, and fingers are all so stiff and sore, I'm hoping they'll calm down at least a little bit for tomorrow's work.

The picture above really doesn't show the amount of stock taken off, but, trust me, it felt like it was way more than it actually turned out to be.

Hopefully, the photo below will at least give some idea of how much still has to be taken off before flipping it over to work on the other side:

After the rest of the stock has been removed on this side, it's flip the durn burn thing over, and grind down another inch on the other side. Then, and only then, will I take the router planer after this thing and smooth both sides flat!

Have you guessed yet what it's gonna be?

Pipe Bowl Display Stands

It's feeling pretty good to kinda be back in the saddle once again and working on an actual project. Only this time, the work being done is in my "new/old" shop.

After moving everything....and I do mean EVERYthing....over, I was finally at a point in putting things away and organizing to actually have the room to make something once again.

Shawn, our Son, asked if I'd be able to make some kind of display stand for some novelty pipe bowls, and that's what this post is all about....the process used to do just that.

I'd made a rough piece for e-cigarettes to show him, and he thought it would also be nice to have a rack for his pipe bowls in the display case sort of like this, but with multiple holes for multiple bowls (I'm a poet and I don't even know it):

First thing to do was to agree on a size since space in his display case was limited. We agreed to do a tiered (only two tiers for this "experiment") piece with holes to accommodate as many as would fit in 20, or so, inches and 5 inches wide. The top tier would only be two inches wide.

Next, what kind of wood? I have lots and lots of scraps in my wood pile, but this had to look nice. It had to "fit" with the overall tenor of his shop, and it had to kind of set a tone for similar pieces to be made in the future for those buying customers of his.

We chose mahogany. It just so happened I had quite a lot of tongue and groove pieces of mahogany 3/4" flooring sitting right there in my shop - a gift from a good friend of mine.

The tongues and the grooves had to go through the "ripping" process on the tablesaw in order to remove them from all edges, and the smaller tier had to be ripped from an intact piece.

Once that was done, the real work could begin.

Next step? Cutting both pieces, on the chopsaw, to identical lengths:

Mind you, these pieces had been sitting around for quite awhile in different kinds of temperature and moisture conditions, so quite a few were warped and bowed. Hunting through the stack to find just the right pieces was a pretty good challenge because they're all kind of "buried" in the end stall of the new/old shop under all the stuff that has yet to be gone through and organized.

So, when I found these two pieces that "fit" together kind of seamlessly, I was pretty durn burn happy:

They both needed a little sanding....not much....but a little:

Have I ever mentioned how much I like my radial drill press? I really, really do....like my radial drill press, that is.

This thing is so versatile, it not only allows me to drill holes at an angle without angling the "table" the piece sits on, but it also allows me to move the drill head back and forth to accommodate the length of the piece being drilled into....up to 24, or so, inches.

The only thing is, I needed to clamp everything, and I mean everything, to the table in order to make sure nothing flew back in my face as I was doing any drilling. That....that right there....took more time than anything else to set up.

Did I mention before that I really like my radial drill press? Oh, yeah....I did. But I really, really do like this thing. And here's another reason why:

In the photo above, the mark for the very last drill hole is farther out than the drill head was originally set for. It was a simple matter to adjust the drill head a little farther out to accommodate this dilemma. Problem solved.

Well, after stressing and straining over all the holes that needed to be drilled, this is the result....a two tiered display rack for those novelty pipe bowls (Darth Vader here, but many others to be displayed in like fashion):

Now, the two tiers need to be glued together and a finish applied. Gettin' there is half the fun!

Jessi's coffee table: finishing - 3 coats of lacquer

Today was a big day! Three coats of lacquer and the job could, I say "could", be done, but it isn't.

Unfortunately, a spray setup isn't something available to do this job at this point, so brushing it is going to have to do.

It's actually kind of amazing how quickly this stuff dries, and how the brush marks seem to get a whole lot smaller as the lacquer dries. The photos below really don't show the gloss of the third and final coat, but believe me, it shines!

The wood grain really pops, too.

And the tiles? I was really worried about how well they'd show through all of this, especially after sanding the epoxy multiple times and the finish then looking very cloudy. Again, the photo doesn't really show it, but the lacquer finish is almost as shiny as the epoxy would have been had it not been sanded at all!

Bottom line? This process, so far, is something I'm going to make a regular part of my finishing regimen.

Final steps? There are still some dust nibs that must be taken down which requires some finish sanding which will then require polishing to get the sheen back to the gloss finish I want.

Went to the Internet once again and found some advice from the experts on how to rub out lacquer. They recommend a waiting period of at least 7 days before starting the final phase of finishing including the rub out in order to let the lacquer cure to its best hardness. DAMN! Was hoping to get this done tomorrow. Not going to happen. A week is what it is, then! In the meantime, I'll bring the table down to the house to let it cure in a more heated and dust free environment.

Have also been consulting with a friend on FB who's been doing refinishing with lacquer for a very, very long time (thanks, Paul Horn). His advice has been invaluable (spray is the best - hope to maybe do that next time).

The rub out process in the last phase will be shared in the final blog post on this project once it gets going.

Talk to you then.

Jessi's Coffee Table - Finishing: Sealer Coat

After doing a lot of research on finishing, a command decision was made, by me of course, to try something new (to me) on this coffee table top - lacquer.

As far as I'm concerned, the best finish will be durable, but also yield a high gloss finish similar, if possible, to what I'd get with an epoxy/resin pour. Some of the videos I've watched make this process look very promising. In fact, one of them showed the finished process looking pretty much like a mirror or sheet of glass looks. Impressive.

If a lacquer finish works, I'll be using the process on every "flat" piece I do from now on. Sides, nooks and crannies, and voids are another story altogether. Those will continue to get the old tried and true hand rubbed polyurethane treatment if, for no other reason, than they are so damn hard to "polish" when all is said and done - something required in the lacquer finishing process as the last step. But flat surfaces? Here's hoping.

One video recommended sealing the top with a half and half mixture of lacquer thinner and 100 % lacquer. It just so happens, I have the right ingredients:

The plastic jug on the end in the photo above served as my mixing bowl.

Once the ingredients were poured into the jug, they were stirred thoroughly to make sure of an even flow when brushed on.

Am I doing this right? Every video I watched said to resist the temptation to keep "painting" the lacquer. The temptation is strong to go against that advice. As the lacquer was applied, I could see brush marks and "pooling" just about every step of the way. Must resist......must resist.......

Maybe I need to use a wider brush? The one I'm using is a good quality, which is also something highly recommended in those videos, but the brush marks left behind seem to be pretty "pronounced". May have to do some "light" sanding to shave off those brush marks before going to the next step if they don't disappear by themselves.

Anyway, this was completed at 9:30 AM. The instructions on the can say to let it dry for 2 hours. Hmmmm.....guess I'll write up a short blog post in the interim on what's going on. Hard to wait until 11:30 to apply the first full coat of lacquer. Must resist......must resist......

DANG, but I hope this works! The lacquer on top of the epoxy really makes the tiles pop! Am a little concerned about that bonding chemical reaction everyone talks about with lacquer. Will it affect the the epoxy? Stay tuned!

Coffee Table for Jessi ---- Redux

Seems like, well, like forever since I started this coffee table for Jessi. Actually, it was started before we went back to CT to help out after Papa Paul's major surgery (he's doing much better now). I've been working on it in fits and starts ever since, and was finally getting to a point where I thought I was almost done. Little did I know:

As you can see in the photo below, on either side of the epoxy inlay, there are strips of what appear to be areas that either aren't accepting the varnish (they accepted the penetrating stain just fine) or there’s something else going on. 

The wood is cottonwood. The stain is dark oak oil based penetrating stain. The varnish I've been using is hand rubbed Minwax. One coat of stain, and what you see in the photo above is actually the third coat of Minwax varnish.

In between coats, I did the requisite fine sanding with synthetic 0000 steel wool (dry). The last time before applying the third coat, I sanded using mineral spirits in the synthetic steel wool, wiped up excess, and let it thoroughly dry before applying another coat of varnish.

Those strips of fuzzy were there before the mineral spirits sanding, but I thought they’d disappear with more coats of varnish——- NOT!

The rest of the table top is coming along better than I expected, but those two strips are really perplexing me.

My thought was to let everything cure overnight, go at it again the next day with the mineral spirits sanding, dry thoroughly, and then apply multiple coats of water based varnish over everything.

In the meantime, I consulted with fellow LumberJocks on that website to get their feedback and learned a whole lot - probably more than I really wanted - and the consensus seemed to be to sand the whole thing down and start over on the top. No one seemed to know what was going on that would cause that dull matte area to appear. One guy on FB who's been doing refinishing work for 37 years said he's never seen anything like it.

Well, leave it to Katherine to come up with the most likely cause of this problem. I'd used water along with 000 synthetic steel wool to sand and buff the epoxy and some of the water wicked into the wood during the sanding process. Cottonwood is notorious for absorbing and holding water, and this simply made sense. That the water in the wood wouldn't allow for absorption of the stain and varnish seemed like a "DOH"!

So, back to the sanding, tedium, patience (something I was beginning to kind of run out of the more I had to do).

Well, for those who’d like to know, I wound up having to strip everything down to bare wood on the top of the table. Started out hand sanding the affected areas with 400 grit:

Not taking it down at all. Switched to 200 grit:

Not taking it down at all. Switched to 60 grit:

That seemed to work pretty well, but the results left the rest of the tabletop in need of similar sanding. So, got out the trusty old belt sander and took the rest of the finish off using that – worked pretty quickly, I might add:

Went back to random orbital sanding to take out the scratches made by the belt sander, and I’m done for the day. Shoulders ache, mind says keep going, but body says NOT!

Seems, too, like when one problem is solved (at least eyeballing it tells me it is), another one rears its ugly head. Now, because the problem area I removed was so deeply embedded in the wood, the epoxy is sitting a little proud of the rest of the top.

The next day, I sanded everything down on the top including the epoxy strip using a 60 grit on my random orbital to begin with. Still wasn't taking the epoxy down to where I needed it, though, so switched to the belt sander knowing the scratches would be significant, but also knowing with a little patience (actually a whole lot of patience - running short, though) I’d be able to get them out. It worked! Epoxy was flat enough.

Next step was to go back to the 60 grit to remove scratches. When that was done, switched to 80 grit, and to 120 grit last. Then it was hand sanding with 150 grit and that was enough.

Here’s the end of the sanding:

Hauled the table upstairs (man, is that thing heavy) for staining, and this is the result (that little lighter square in the photo on the table is just light from a window shining on it):

And, finally, the area that caused the problem to begin with – looks pretty good if I do say so myself. The epoxy is dull from the sanding, but if I do the finishing right, it should really pop when done:

Upon recommendation from a friend on FB who's been doing refinishing work for 37 years, I've decided to go with a lacquer finish, and because I found this in my collection of miscellaneous stuff:

Truth is, I'd never really considered lacquer as a finish - always thought it was a pain in the butt to work with. Once I watched some Youtube videos of the process, it didn't seem so intimidating anymore.

I’ll let ya’ll know how it goes when it's done.

Is it worth it?

Awhile back my daughter, Jessi, found some tools for free on Craigslist. She asked me if I wanted them, and, well, the rest is history.

The first one I'm working on is a very old hobby jointer/planer from Sears Roebuck. I did some initial research on it and found an owner's manual online I've been using to help in the rehab.

The knives on this thing are very questionable - pretty deep nicks. After following the instructions, they aren't too bad but still have a few nicks I'm concerned about, and that's why I titled this post "Is it worth it". Replacement knives are available, but cost upwards of $22 for all three of them. I know that sounds minuscule, but right now it means I'm going to have to keep on working on these knives to see if I can hone out the nicks at least for a trial run eventually.

The table has some really bad stains, too.

I tried steel wool - didn't work very well. I even added some brake cleaner fluid to the mix - that didn't work very well either. Then I tried WD-40 with the steel wool. That seemed to work a little bit. As a last resort, kind of, I decided to try a little 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper with the WD-40 and started making noticeable progress (bottom right corner is the only part left after the first go round).

Fingers started going haywire, shoulders started aching. It's a bitch getting old. But I got most of the rust off in the second go round.

Whether I like it or not, patience will definitely need to be a virtue in getting the top into usable condition.

Is it worth it? You bet, especially since it was free, but even more importantly because it was a gift from Jessi.

Updates to follow.

Coffee Table for Jessi

Well, now I gone and done it! I started on the coffee table for Jessi that I had promised her for her birthday way back in January! This project is gonna be a real trip!

First, the tabletop. The table slab will be two pieces of cottonwood joined together. I've had these two pieces sitting around the shop for quite some time and had already used the router planer to bring them down to a manageable thickness. But I wasn't sure they'd actually work for something like this. In fact, I'm still not totally sure they'll work because I've heard the butt ends of big pieces like this don't generally stay joined together very well. Hopefully, by doweling them I won't have that problem.

The joint has to be pretty doggone smooth in order to appear to be almost seamless. The pieces are too weirdly shaped to be able to use the table saw to cut a straight edge, so the circular saw had to do. Not too bad if I do say so myself!

Not quite perfect, though. So, I got out the router and inserted a Diablo 1/2" straight bit 2" long, measured for a guide since this bit didn't have a top roller bearing, and made the first pass. Nice! Go to the other piece and do the same thing. Still nice.

Because the pieces are approximately 3" thick, another pass from the underside has to be made on both pieces using another Diablo 1/2" straight bit. Only this one has a roller bearing on the bottom. So, it's a simple matter of flipping the pieces over and running the router along the edge. Even nicer results. The edges look almost seamless when aligned.

Now for the fun stuff. This is where being "artsy" comes into play. I like rounded, flowing edges for virtually all my works. For this slab, I used my saber saw to trim off the edges to get that rounded look. Later, I'll be using the angle grinder to further shape the curves, but for now this will do.

Well, the two slabs come together pretty nicely, but one is thicker than the other, and more has to be trimmed off to get it to the 4' length Jessi wants.

I decided to plane both pieces down to the same thickness before glue-up just in case I had a screw up.

Easier than I thought it would be, although time consuming and back breaking are to be expected when working on such a large area with the router planer.

Once the planing and trimming are done, the slabs will be a little over 4' long when joined together. This is the size Jessi wanted, so that's what she's going to get.

Using the dowel jig, four holes were drilled in the edge of each slab, both the edges received a generous helping of glue, and it was time to smush the two together.

Such weird shapes! Clamps aren't holding too well in some spots. Think I'll try a ratchet tie down. Durn thing keeps slipping - not much help.

After a whole lot of moving, re-clamping, adjusting, and frustration, the top of the joint came together nicely. Problem - the bottom has a gap.

Man, I tried everything I could think of including criss-crossing the clamps to draw the underside together. Nothing worked. Guess I'll just have to fill it with a sawdust glue mixture. It's on the underside, so really shouldn't matter all that much. Most of the time my faux pas aren't noticed by anyone but me. That's a good thing cuz I ain't gonna point them out to nobody!

Next up - shaping the edges of the slab.