Thanks Chaz! Gonna get started on the fret leveling today, but may also start finishing the neck... Hopefully it looks good and I don't poison myself.
I made a wedge!
Long, boring story, but tl;dr if you're jointing boards that are right at the max capacity for your jointer, don't push the fence as far back as it'll go, because if there's a gap between the end of the knives and the fence, it makes your board thinner on one edge than the other. This board is still salvageable, but not for the project it was intended for. I'm learning!
Sorry about the camera angle, but the carts are done and i measured correctly so that the side carts match up with the height of the saws surface. I just need to bolt the saw down and put plywood on the bottom frames for shelf space. Eventually I want to add a drawer on them.
Nice! Any plans to add extension fences to the side tables? If/when I finally get around to designing and building a miter saw cart, I want to have fences with measuring gauges and t-track on the extension wings. Longer registration surfaces with built in measuring, work holding, and stop blocks? Yes please.
Now I just need the price of plywood to come down to build it. Yesterday, I compared the prices of an order I got this time last year to current prices. The worst offender was 1/2" pressure treated ply. Last year, a full sheet was $30. Right now, it's $78. Good lord.
No plans unless i can figure out easily removable ones as the 2 side carts will connect together to have a mobile work bench as well. Also, if I ever get a thickness planer, I can build a cart for it, and swap it into the middle. The tables also work as outfeed tables for my table saw.
For the tops of those, I paid $16 for 2'x4'x1/2" plywood and bought extra for the bottom shelves.
If you wanted to do a fence, you could put some dowels in the bottom, then drill some matching holes in the table, and put the fence on/off as needed.
I really need to figure out an outfeed table for my table saw. I could modify my workbench to be the right height, but that's literally my only work surface right now. Might need to be something collapsible, because floor space is starting to be a problem.
Nice rains! How are you attaching the side tables? I use a system of strong magnets recessed to hold them together. It works well, but is sometimes a little frustrating.
Nice rains! How are you attaching the side tables? I use a system of strong magnets recessed to hold them together. It works well, but is sometimes a little frustrating.
Hook and eye 
They are set up so the two side tables will connect to each other as well.
I got a few things done recently!
My wife got a super ultrawide monitor last month. It's too heavy for her monitor arm, and the stand wouldn't get it high enough for her, so I built a riser. This was my first time doing box joints, and I decided to make it difficult on myself by making them angled. It worked out pretty okay, but I built my jig with too much slop, so there were more gaps than I wanted. I also didn't have a flush trim saw or chisel to trim the fingers flush, so I had to use a sander, which took FOREVER. Wood filler mostly took care of the gaps. I used Danish Oil finish for the first time, and it was super easy, but it's taking longer than expected to stop smelling like oil. Wife's happy though.
My mother in law wanted a puzzle board to do puzzles with the kids, so I put this together. This is the first time I've managed to do miter joints that are gap-free, so that was exciting. It's also a prototype for a more elaborate puzzle board I'll be making for my wife.
My kids have a fort builder set that's about 25 poles and connector balls. It came in a cardboard box, which has been destroyed, so we needed something to put them in. Knocked this together yesterday. Made some mistakes, but generally happy with it.
Great stuff, Chaz. When I saw the pic of the monitor stand and the angled joint I said to myself “Nope, I’d screw that up royally.”
When I get some other stuff done around the house, I’ll allow a new wood project. Kit loved a quilt rack we saw at the Amish Furniture place so I want to make one for her and I want it to be a nice one. I’ll sell my nephew’s car so I can afford the wood.
-BEP
That's a nice looking monitor stand. The last monitor stand I made was from a 1x12x6 painted pine board. I used butt joints and 90 degree angles. I do like it though.
Thanks Chaz for alerting me to the Weekend Woodworker course! And nice bench! It was just the thing I've been looking for.
I've completed the Basic Mobile Workbench (BMW):
As well as two of the patio tables (only one painted so far):
I'm thoroughly enjoying it, though there's no way I can complete the projects on a weekly basis. But that's one of the nice things about the course. Looking forward to the bench next!
Edit: And combing back through the thread, I just noticed that we appear to have picked the same color for the patio table! Not intentional! The second one of ours will be sage green
Hey, I'm glad you're finding it useful. I'm actually way behind on it. I haven't even thought about starting the project after the bench. I keep finding other projects that are more interesting or higher priority.
Hey, I'm glad you're finding it useful. I'm actually way behind on it. I haven't even thought about starting the project after the bench. I keep finding other projects that are more interesting or higher priority.
I’m looking forward to doing the bench. Though I’m already recognizing a need for better shelving and storage in my garage/workshop. That might be my next detour.
My company's stock price is doing pretty well, so we've got some found money available. My wife's starting to think seriously about doing a small addition to the house, so decided I should get a splurge item. So then this happened...
And there's still two more big boxes coming in. Plus, until I can get an electrician in to run a 240v circuit, I can't even plug it in. This thing is SO HEAVY. The bottom box alone weighs 400lbs. Getting it off the back of the rented pickup truck with just me and my wife was...interesting. But at least I saved $250 in freight charges.
My company's stock price is doing pretty well, so we've got some found money available. My wife's starting to think seriously about doing a small addition to the house, so decided I should get a splurge item. So then this happened...
And there's still two more big boxes coming in. Plus, until I can get an electrician in to run a 240v circuit, I can't even plug it in. This thing is SO HEAVY. The bottom box alone weighs 400lbs. Getting it off the back of the rented pickup truck with just me and my wife was...interesting. But at least I saved $250 in freight charges.
At least you know you'll keep your fingers!
Wood prices are starting to drop again! Time to clean up the garage.
Wood prices are starting to drop again! Time to clean up the garage.
Can confirm. I talked to a contractor that said he was definitely paying less for lumber, including at the big box stores. Prices looked not outlandish when I checked this week since I'm going to need to replace some deck boards that are rotting out soon.
Well, this took a lot of work, and I'm not done yet. But at least it's usable and mostly livable again.
Getting the saw assembled and tuned up took a while. My wife and I also decided that it'd make more sense if we swapped sides of the garage so I'd have more room, which I do, but has also been a bit of a process. It's a good thing too, because I also found a deal on a band saw and drill press.
I also found out that the fancy overarm dust collection blade guard really needs a second ducting line back to the dust collector for it to get adequate suction. I figured I may as well run hard PVC, because flex hose is bad for airflow in large amounts. What's driving me nuts is that the 4" PVC is just enough not-4" that I need adapters to get it to work with 4" dust collection stuff. Of course, those adapters are silly expensive. I bought a few, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to model and 3d print the rest.
I feel like I've spent the last month mostly messing with tools and organization, so I'm looking forward to trying to focus more on actually building stuff. Though there's still plenty of shop chores to do.
I feel like I've spent the last month mostly messing with tools and organization, so I'm looking forward to trying to focus more on actually building stuff. Though there's still plenty of shop chores to do.
Sounds like you may be like me in that you may often end up spending more time buying new tools "to fit the job" and organizing/re-organizing than you do on the project itself.
This weekend's coffee table project, which was from week 4 of the Weekend Woodworker course. The lifting top was a mod from the original design:
Chaz wrote:I feel like I've spent the last month mostly messing with tools and organization, so I'm looking forward to trying to focus more on actually building stuff. Though there's still plenty of shop chores to do.
Sounds like you may be like me in that you may often end up spending more time buying new tools "to fit the job" and organizing/re-organizing than you do on the project itself.
I think it's more that my ADHD brain gets single-tracked on things, and always wants to be engaging in that thing. When I'm working, my brain decides that browsing craigslist and facebook market for used tools is a good way to stay engaged when I can't actually do the thing. That plus my bargain hunter and FOMO instincts means that I do a lot of that browsing, not necessarily looking for "I need this tool for this project", but with more of a general shopping list of things I'd like to find. That's actually not bad, because I've gotten really good deals doing that!
But what it means is that when I find a deal, I jump on it. Then, since it's a used tool, I usually need to do cleanup on it, then get it adjusted right, probably research how to do both those things. Half the time, I wind up prioritizing that stuff, because now that I've got this tool, I want to use it, right?
Organization definitely isn't usually a priority, which is actually part of the problem. I've gotten a bunch of smaller tools and supplies, and haven't taken the time to do more than pile them up or stick them randomly on the storage I have. Then when I'm working in the shop, I spend a lot of time trying to find that thing I know I have, or looking for that thing I was just using, but put down, and now I can't see it in the clutter. So the organizing I want to do now should help with that.
Hubbinsd, that looks really nice. I haven't managed to get to making that one yet, but I've been wanting to. I'll probably modify the legs whenever I do. The design he uses is intentionally pretty simple, but to me, it feels way too heavy.
Hubbinsd, that looks really nice. I haven't managed to get to making that one yet, but I've been wanting to. I'll probably modify the legs whenever I do. The design he uses is intentionally pretty simple, but to me, it feels way too heavy.
Yeah the legs are kinda chunky, but since they are just laminated boards that are cut down, you could really just make them any size/shape you want. My biggest issue was the amount of wood you use to build those legs and then cut half of it away. I decided to do the legs in pine for cost and most of the other visible faces in maple.
My first table saw sled with the caliper I used to square it to 90 degrees.
I was ripping the walnut for these coasters when I learned about table saw kickback the hard way. The walnut stair cladding that I’d found in the off cut shed at our local lumber yard had weird notch and some ridges that needed to be removed via table saw before having a square workpiece. The weird edge meant it didn’t rest comfortably against the fence as I was ripping it. The piece shot back into my groin like … well, a 1x3x20 slab of walnut that just got shot from a rifle. I’m black & blue but luckily ok. Lessons learned about where not to stand. I can see the appeal of hand tools now 
Oof, glad you're okay. Were you using a riving knife or splitter?
Now that I've got a saw with a 3hp motor, I'm extra careful to take kickback precautions. I really don't want to be in front of whatever that thing manages to fire at me.
Oof, glad you're okay. Were you using a riving knife or splitter?
Now that I've got a saw with a 3hp motor, I'm extra careful to take kickback precautions. I really don't want to be in front of whatever that thing manages to fire at me.
Yeah there was a riving knife. But even a riving knife won’t fix carelessness!
I've been quiet lately because I spent the last few months working on a commission that's taken waaaay longer than I expected. After I posted the monitor riser I made for my wife, someone contacted me asking if I'd make him one. After talking a bit, we landed on a plan to make a monitor riser, laptop stand, and keyboard wrist rest. The goal was contrasting wood colors, with visible joinery to accentuate the contrast. I went into Sketchup, and came up with this as a first draft.
After we looked at it a bit, I decided to try it with rounded over corners, and it looked much nicer. Plus, I'd just snagged a benchtop belt/disc sander, so making those roundovers would be much easier. I also added some cutouts at the bottom of the legs, but I can't find a screenshot of that.
Since I'd already tackled this build before, I started with the riser. We decided on walnut and ash as the two wood species. I built a better box joint jig than the first time, but it still wasn't as good as I wanted, and the joints took a bunch of fiddling to get them right. I think I'm going to try making a regular 90 degree box joint soon, to see if I'm just doing something wrong, or if the angle is throwing a wrench into it. I didn't take any in-progress shots, but this is where the riser landed before final shaping and smoothing.
Then it was time to do the laptop stand. I was pretty sure the design would work, but I wanted to see how stable it was, so I did a prototype with pine. Mistakes were made, but that's why we do prototypes. For example, I got reminded how difficult it is to drill perfectly straight holes in the exact same positions on two sides so that the dowels lined up when you only have a hand drill. I moved up the priority on finding a drill press from "at some point" to "let's get one now". Amazingly, right around then, I found a deal on a drill press and band saw, so next time would be easier.
The prototype proved that the design was structurally sound, and also that the dowels looked bad, so it was back to the design. After some back and forth, we settled on something like this.
With that nailed down, I got into it. I went with bridle joints for the big joints. They're very strong, and with the stretchers extending through them, would be rock solid, and also show off the contrasting woods. They're also pretty straightforward to make, since you basically just need a modified tenoning jig.
The complication was that part of why it's a pretty straightforward joint is that you cut the tenon (the thinner part that goes inside the mortise) by cutting one side, flipping it over, and cutting the other side. That way, the tenon is dead center, and should line up perfectly with your mortise. For the bottom joint, I could do just that! But I needed the top joint to be at an angle. Which meant that I couldn't flip the one piece over to cut the second side. So cutting it took another bunch of messing around. I eventually got it dialed in though, so that was great.
I also got to use my new band saw to cut the arms that the laptop sits on. I grabbed some french curve (or whatever they are) templates from my wife's stash, and fiddled around on some 1/4" ply until I had something I liked. Then I cut that out on the band saw, and I had a template! Then I taped the blanks for the two arms together so I could cut them both at the same time, stuck the template on top, and went to town with the band saw and spindle sander. Doing it with them taped together meant that they were identical. Then, I had this.
Then it was time to cut the mortises for the stretchers. I hadn't actually cut mortises before, and unsurprisingly, it took longer than I wanted. The first challenge was that I needed them to be 3/8"x1/4". I have a 3/8" chisel, but I don't have a 1/4" (I thought I did, but I was wrong). I laid everything out, really wishing I had a marking gauge, and used the drill press to clear out most of the waste. Then I chiseled out the rest. It would've been much easier with a 1/4" chisel, but oh well. Eventually I got everything done, and cut the tenons of the stretcher to match. Then I rigged up a quick taper jig for the table saw, and cut the tapers on the bottom feet, and did the final dry assembly.
After verifying everything was looked good, I decided that it made the most sense to add the roundovers to everything before assembly, so I wouldn't have to worry about getting into corners. After that, I got everything glued together. I'd intentionally left the joints long, so when it was dry, I used a flush trim saw to trim everything...flush. Then it was back to the sander to put the roundover on the upper corners. After that, it was just sanding, sanding, sanding.
The last thing I did was find a nicely figured piece of walnut, cut out the wrist rest, profile, and sand. Finally, I finished with Rubio Monocoat. This stuff goes on ridiculously easy, and can be used after 24 hours. Even though you get full protection after one coat, I decided to add a second coat, which ups the gloss a bit, and makes it feel even smoother. At the end, this is what we wound up with.
Now that I'm finished with that, it's on to a big storage cabinet my wife's been waiting on, and a bunch of smaller holiday gifts. I'm going to wind up with an assembly line for cutting boards and phone stands.
Gorgeous work, dude.
Awesome!
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