Necessity -- The Mother of Invention

Wow! Two blog posts in one day! That's pretty much a record. Should I go for three? Naw....that would necessarily require that more work get done in that cold, cold, shop. Just getting this far made my nose run and my fingers get numb, and it ain't even that cold outside! It's windy, though, and that makes for a pretty cold shop interior.

Anyway, after I got done routing the recess into the second lamp stand, it became pretty clear an idea I had for a shop jig just HAD to get worked on.

So, the photos I took of the lamp stand blank with recess routed out will just get posted my Facebook page.

The shop jig idea came about because I get really skittish when it comes to work pieces that aren't held down tightly while I'm sculpting, cutting, and grinding on them to get the shapes that'll make them the unique pieces they are.

So, here's the deal....the last stand I did was hard to do because it kept wanting to twist and turn. I finally clamped it into the long throat vise shown in the last blog post, and that kinda sorta worked pretty well. That's the thing, though --- pretty well just isn't good enough.

The issue was that the blank had to be loosened up and turned, loosened up and turned, loosened up and turned....well, you get the picture. Every time I was done with one groove or area, it required time....more time than I was willing to devote especially this time of year when it's so damn cold in that shop. Did I mention how cold it is in there? DAMN cold!

Time to come up with a better idea.

The hole through each piece is 1 1/4" in diameter. There's a whole bunch of leftover 1" pipe from other shop jig ideas I've had just waiting to be put to use for something else (multi-use, don'tcha know) and I have several sets of 1" pipe clamps that fit them.

The first idea I had was to try using both ends of the clamp to hold the piece steady, but that was very quickly discarded. That wouldn't allow for vertical work.

The next idea? Well, take a look at the photo below. All I need to do is to screw the flange down to the workbench, slip the piece over the end, and voila....instant whatever I decide to call this in the end!

Not so fast, Dude! You really don't want to screw down into the workbench, do you? Nope. Too restrictive. What if, Heaven forbid, I decide to change my mind, and to move it somewhere else to work on it? Mount it to a piece of 3/4" wood or plywood, and it's good to go.

Let's see how this works. So far, so good. The flange actually snugs up inside the hole and helps hold it more steady, but it still isn't steady enough to be as safe for grinding and shaping as it should be. Darn it!

But wait! Just one end of the pipe clamp, the end with the screw down, might just work. Okay, put it on, screw it down, a little more. Yup! This is definitely going to work!

Now, all I need to do is turn the base on the workbench instead of screwing things down into it, and we're off to the races....or should I say the floodgates are about to be opened? Well, maybe tomorrow....hands and fingers are too cold, and the nose is still dripping.

Ready to Sculpt ---- Releasing the Floodgates!!!

A few days ago, I shared a post on Facebook cuz I was stoked.....STOKED, I tell ya! Our neighbor helped get a drill press our daughter had given me from their place over to my shop. The process was long and difficult, it required 4 wheel drive and snow chains to get the neighbor's pickup to the shop, but, in the end, it was mission accomplished!

This is what I've been waiting for in order to drill deeper holes in some of the projects too long for the radial drill press which is a table model.

While this drill press does need a new belt, the only other thing it was in need of (some would call it a dire need, but not me) was some lubrication to get those old, old pieces and parts moving again the way they were intended to move.

The biggest worry, though, was whether it would even work when plugged in. Not to worry, though. It fired right up and purred like a kitten. Those old electric motors are, quite simply, amazing!

Long story short....well, kinda short....the length of a piece was no longer an issue to be able to drill at least a pilot hole with a forstner bit to get things started.

Heck, I even used the forstner bit extender to get the deepest pilot hole I possibly could, and that worked like a charm.

The depth of the bit and extender allowed for a 5 1/2" pilot hole. Now I just needed to figure out how to get all the way through rest of this piece.

Not to worry on that front, either. Some call 'em spade bits. Some call 'em paddle bits. I'll go with spade bits. This one is 1 1/4". Even with a little extra length, I had to use a bit extender to be able to get all the way through. I'm beginning to think I might just need to invest in a longer shank spade bit. Oh, well.

The issue with lengthening the bit is the drill press had a lot more torque being placed on it than it could handle. So, I pulled out the old handy dandy Black and Decker industrial drill, loaded the bit, and went to work.

To hold the piece secure, and to make sure it didn't twist and buck while drilling the hole, the piece got secured into that handy dandy long throat Black and Decker vise I've featured in other blog posts. Have I said before how much I like this vise for this kind of work? Just in case I haven't said it before, I'm saying it now whether it's a repeat or not....I really, really like this vise for this kind of work!

That drill is a BEAST! The spade bit is getting a little dull, but the drill powered it right through!

Next step is to route out the recess for the lamp base followed by sculpting and shaping with the angle grinder and long neck die grinder using those specialty carving accessories that go along with them.

Later, Dudes and Dudettes!

Ready to sculpt.....Hold on There, Pilgrim!!!!!

That passive-aggressive attitude? It's just gotta go! I'm sometimes left wondering why it seems so hard to get going, to just slog through some of the reluctance to get my ass up into that cold, cold shop and DO SOMETHING!!! Might the cold, cold atmosphere in that cold, cold shop have even a modicum of something to do with that reluctance?

Today, I resolved to do that, to just slog through that reluctance and see how far I'd get. This blog post is the result. I thought the next step would be to actually get to a point to be able to start sculpting. It started out that way, but, in the jargon of the previous blog post, "The best laid plans......", or would it be more appropriate to go with today's blog title, "Hold on There, Pilgrim!!!!!"?

A few days ago, the project involved just getting the tops and bottoms of the two pieces that will eventually go up for sale parallel to each other.

If any good came out of any of that day's work, other than the job at hand was accomplished before it got too cold, it was that I discovered the rails for the router sled were sagging under the combined weight of the router and the sled it runs in. That ain't good, and it'll need to be addressed before any larger projects loom large on the horizon.

It doesn't really look like the one on the right in the photo below fits the description of "top and bottom being parallel", but I'd like to point out once again that I simply despise my photographer! This is really an optical illusion. Please! Ya gotta believe me! I was there! I know this to be true!

OK, those previous photos were from days past. The rest are from today.

The plan for today was to get the recesses routed out before it got too cold, once again, to continue.

Mission was kind of accomplished....sort of.

Setting up the handy dandy jig to route out the recess was easy. That little Black and Decker expandable vise works really well for this kind of work. The single drawback to this whole setup is the jig had to be secured by drilling two screws down into the top of the piece to hold it in place while routing out the recess. That'd be all fine and good if it weren't for the fact there's gonna be two screw holes left behind after the jig is removed. To solve this problem, the jig got positioned so the screw holes are located where sculpting will cut them out. Dang, but I am one smart cookie!

The finished recess with the jig still attached:

The finished recess with the jig removed (you can also see the two screw holes if you look really hard - don't worry....this isn't a test to see if something can be found.....like Waldo, or a panda, or a cat, or whatever. They're there, and you really don't need to strain your eyes to find them (no photoshop skills on my part to help you out, either).

On to the next piece. Step one....attach the router jig. Check! Step two....see if the router bit fits into the pre-drilled cord hole. Should have known better. The hole is one size too small, and I don't want to set up the plunge function on the router because it's starting to get too cold and my fingers are starting to get numb.

That floor model drill press really needs to be over in the shop!

Well, that's it. Two rock salt lamp stands in progress, and too cold to go any further today. Guess you're just going to have to wait awhile longer to see where this all ends up.

Even the Best Laid Plans.......

The plan was sound. The implementation of the plan? Not so much.

The thinking here was to cut two similar logs that were originally intended for bench pedestals basically in half, and to take those halves and make more rock salt lamps out of the 4 log slices.

Good idea, right? I thought so.

Problem: how to cut them so the tops and bottoms are parallel to each other.

Using some of that inborn ingenuity as a planner and wannabe engineer, and searching through the rummage sale in waiting that may be in store for some of the stuff I have a tendency to hoard, I thought of the plastic sawbucks that came with those plastic sawhorses that broke the very first time they were used, and which those plastic sawbucks never got thrown away.

The reason? Well, those logs were already finished, and, in my infinite wisdom (or lack thereof), the thought was to make one cut which would save having to refinish the whole thing. So, the log got elevated above the workbench to allow the cut to go all the way through without having to turn the log to do so. The last time I tried this, the log had to be turned to get all the way through which resulted in an uneven cut that had to be planed down using the router planer. Not a big deal, but, hey, if one step can be eliminated, what the heck......

The first step here was to try and stabilize those sawbucks. Clamps and shims oughta do it. Marked what I thought were equidistant measurements from the end of the log, and began the cut using a handsaw. Yeah, I know; a chainsaw would have been a lot faster and less work, but I'm never sure how uniform my cuts are gonna be doing it this way. A handsaw, as long as the cut is eyeballed very carefully, can be smooth and accurate. That's just not something I'm very good at with a chainsaw.

Here's where the plan went South. The deeper the cut with the handsaw, the more wobbly the entire apparatus got. Even with a tie-down holding it, the sawbucks wanted to shimmy as the cut was being made.

Plan B: elevate one end, leave the other end in the middle groove of the workbench (which was designed this way for just this purpose....Sheesh! It shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure this one out), tie it down, and get to the cutting!

This kind of cutting does take a LOT longer than using a chainsaw! It's a lot harder work, too!

Whew! All the way through! Finally! Wait a sec! That isn't even close to being parallel to the other end! Geez! The best laid plans....

Oh, well! Now the plan is to make a choice to either leave the slant (character, right?), or to plane it parallel to the other end. It'd be a lot easier in the long run to plane it down (routing that recess would be a piece of cake on a parallel plane compared to a slanted plane).

Gotta cogitate on this for a bit, plus it's lunchtime and my arms are aching, and my neck is sore, and my wrist hurts, and........

Later folks!

"Gothic Geometry"?

In an ongoing effort to try new things, I decided to veer off a bit from my usual works into an unknown area I'll just call "experimentation". 

I've always wanted to try and sculpt something....just not with a chainsaw. All the tools are present to carve stuff (rough finish), but, as it was with even getting started in what I've done previously, this new genre requires some personal kicking in the rear end to get going.

With that.....

Finding the right pieces:

Raw materials are plentiful. They're just buried under about a foot to two feet of snow (no photos of me digging them out - you really don't want to see me doing that. No, you REALLY don't want to see me doing that, or maybe I should say "hear" me doing that). Most of them are about 6 to 8 feet in length, too:

The best way to get them to length with a reasonably level bottom on both pieces was to use the chopsaw. Still an "iffy" proposition because there's really no way to secure the pieces to the saw to prevent kickback, and, yes, there were a couple of passes that scared the living bejeesuz out of me.

Setting them up to lean against each other was easy. Scribing them to make the cut was also pretty easy because of the pre-planning I did to get relatively level bottoms on each piece (pre-planning is one of my strongest fortes', don'tcha know).

But, dang it! That chopsaw ain't gonna work at cutting an angle like I need. Guess the old fashioned way with a handsaw is the only way to get this done right! Reckon that pre-planning forte' isn't so durn burn good after all!

Decisions, decisions. Small ripsaw? Japanese pullsaw? What to do? What to do? Love that Japanese pullsaw, but the kerf is so small and narrow, the saw keeps binding up on me. That means.....you guessed it....small ripsaw (my Dad's old one at that....a little bit of my Dad is going into this piece, too).

After a whole lot of back and forth, back and forth, the shoulder muscles are beginning to ache, the hand knuckles are already aching, and I'm about ready to call it quits. But, before I do, the end fell off! Just like it was supposed to. Now, for the other one.....

Thinking I might just be done for today. This is going to take some more of that pre-planning forte' I spoke of earlier -- how, exactly, to glue this up without having either of the two pieces slip and slide out of place before the glue sets. Any ideas? Can't clamp them (odd shapes). Can't screw them together (chances of them being "flush" after being screwed freehand are about nil). Can't dowel them together (see problem with screwing them together). Can't get them under the drill press clamped together. Can't get them into a vise clamped together.

What to do? What to do?

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!