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naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Notes -
Kids are pretty great.
My daughter just turned 3. Also I've been learning/practicing some wood working. So naturally my daughter thinks every crooked, marked up box or tray I give her is the most amazing thing ever she can't wait to use.
So I got a routing table finally. Trying to cut rabbets or dados with my table saw was just too time consuming, and difficult for me to get accurate consistently. Especially if I had to reconfigure the tool for another purpose, and then I had to dial it back in. Once I dialed it in on a router however, it was a piece of cake.
I made a small tray for my daughter's cluttered toy shelf, just to feel out how the router fits into the workflow. About 9"x11", poplar sides, a birch plywood bottom. Miter joined the sides, cut rabbets for the bottom, played around with rounding over the top lip. No nails or screws, just some extremely basic joinery and wood glue. Then some danish oil to give it a little bit of a finished look.
It's getting cold out though in my workshop, so I had to bring a space heater out to the workshop's office and do the danish oil in there. I've already brought all the liquids and batteries inside for the winter, so at least the can was room temperature when I brought it out. Been sticking with the wet on wet method I read about, where you just keep applying danish oil every 20 minutes for an hour, then wipe off the excess and let it dry for a day. So I finished all 3 applications, wiped off the excess, then brought it into the house to dry after another hour. I think it went well. Looks great, even on the poplar which I'd read doesn't take stains well. But I guess the danish oil isn't really a stain.
A couple things I learned during the process. The fence on my routing table was slightly misaligned. The left half of the fence was back maybe 1/64th of an inch further than the right side, resulting in a bit of snipe on the piece being routed as it came off the right half of the fence. Pretty sure I fixed that with a straight edge and fiddling with bolts. Second, I waited just a bit too long to get everything lined up after I glued it, and one of the corners was ever so slightly screwy. Came out mostly when I sanded, but I'll have to keep an eye on that. I think what slowed me down was the box clamp I was using was already too tight when I started assembly. Third, I seriously need a dust management system in that workshop. Even the smallest project results in every surface being plastered in fine sawdust. I have a small shopvac that works ok I guess, at least with the router. But it's utterly inadequate for the tablesaw.
And won't be anywhere close for the planer I want to get. Been eyeballing a simple "portable" dust collector, but I might go bigger with a chip separator, dust collector, and dust filter. Alternately I've seen people who just direct the output of the dust collector outside their shop instead of into a bag, which is appealing.
I think coming up soon I want to make a small bookshelf for the game manuals the accompany my retro pc game collection. Right now they just sit in a battered cardboard box, and it's impossible to fish any one manual out. I've got the perfect space for it, on top of my filing cabinet. I was tempted to buy a shelf for the purpose, but I couldn't find anything that quite fit my needs. But hey, now I can just make my own, exactly how I want to make it! Hurrah for that.
That's awesome! I loved helping my dad with his woodworking (really just being fobbed off sanding duty) but still love finish work. I've been using walnut oil more (it's another natural drying oil like tung or flaxseed/linseed). It's got a nice color and sheen.
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