Woodworking Weekend

Note from the ShopKeeper:  I’ve been on hiatus for a while, but I’m back and better than ever now that I’m currently un-employed.  As luck would have it, I’ve learned to manage to get by and now have a bit more time to spend in the shop and behind the computer!    I’ve built quite an assortment of items since my last post, and opened a small e-shop on Etsy.

Here is a gallery of some of my latest projects.

Here is a hidden compartment box I made by accident.  I built a drawer for a friend who had an antique sewing machine that was missing one of it’s drawers.  With the left over matierial I had on hand for that I put this little box together.

This is the first time I’ve used UHMW plastic for building anything, but I really like it.  The hardest part is finishing it.   It sands down smooth really easy but getting it to take a stain or sealer was tricky.  I tried two or three different things, stain, poly, spar urethane, none of which worked.  It seemed as if the plastic was just sucking them up after a while, so I just sanded them off and tried again.  Finally, I tried boiled linseed oil and it gave me the rich black color I was looking for without any fading.  If it does, just add some more.

Here are two examples of sturdy table or cabinet style stands.   I say cabinet style because it’s very easy to enclose these stands and either install drawers, doors, or both.

These are the first two jigs I built.  I built them both with free plans readily available online.  I would build one of them again, and may rebuild it just to make a better one.  You can either browse the images below or go to the flash gallery here.

I built both jigs, one after the other and tried to build both as sqare as possible.  The Tenon Jig, which I favor of the two, had less than perfectly straight red oak runners.  They both seemed to have a bow in them so I positioned them so tha tthe bow would be in the same direction at least and ensure that I have no play when I cinch them down.  I actually played around with putting knobs on the adjusters but the wingnuts work better and they are cheaper so I wouldn’t bother with knobs and you can build this for under $5.00 the main cost item being the four 2 1/2″ x 1/4″ #20 threaded screws.

I know I haven’t posted anything since ordering my new router table, that’s mainly because I’ve been busy in the shop building things and testing my new equipment. Here are quite a few shots of the Sliding Fence I built for the new table. It works great for cutting box joints, but could also be used to cut dovetails, tenons, through or stopped dados and groves in stock less than 14″ wide if you provided proper support for the outfeed side and probably quite a few other uses I haven’t thought of yet.

I ended up using select pine to build it since that’s what I had laying around.  I would recommend hard wood or straight 3/4″ ply should work as well.  Another reason I used the select pine was that was all I had ripped to the dimensions I needed as I was minus a table saw at the time of putting this together and cut everything on the mitre saw.  Yes,  the Skil tablesaw has been replaced with the Bosch 4000-09 which is awesome.   More about it later, but if you click on the above image gallery you can see a few shots of it put together.  The saw rocks!  It’s so smooth compared to the Skil.  I can actually start the saw with my work piece aligned and it does not budge.  

As for the sled plan measured drawing if anyone wants to build it, it’s pretty straight forward.  If you’re like me you could look at the images and make your own based of the dimensions of your table.  The biggest thing is making sure it’s square to the table.
You can use clamps to hold it together for adjustability and I recommend this before you decide to screw or glue it all together, especially the fence portion.  You may want to change things around a bit depending on how you work and what you’re routing.

I set mine up to cut box joints and after routing a few test pieces I decided that I would need to reinforce the fence with some scrap pieces of 2×4’s I had laying around.  I glued the reinforcing block to the flat board in back and then pre-drilled countersunk pilot holes on the face and secured the fence to the block after the glue had set for a day.  You can see the clamp up was a little precarious but totally achievable.

After using the jig for a bit I decided to go ahead and route some slots so I could adjust the fence and use other sacrificial fences instead of building another sliding apparatus for each jig.  I also made the stop block adjustable as well.  Here is a shot before I put everything together but you can get the general idea.

Having started routing last year with the inexpensive  Skil 1810 fixed base.  The easy to operate router taught me that I enjoyed routing as a method of cutting to the point of needing another router along with a better table.

Fixed Base - One Wrench Bit Change - 1 3/4 Horsepower

Once reaching the capacity of the Skil router I felt limited in what I could safely route.  Partly due to the small router table and fence accompanying it and my desire to cut mortises, which in order to do correctly and safely would require a plunge base. As for the fence, almost every time I attempted to run a board along the fence on the Skil Table I experienced failure on part of the fence or guard. With the guard removed the fence is improved, but I didn’t like the idea of exposing the bit. I obtained more use out of the table with a straight board with a notch cut out for the bit or a straight edge level clamped to the table if my mark was far enough from the bit than with the damnable fence Skil provided with their free ass table. Don’t get me wrong here…I checked in Lowe’s and it seems Skil has upped the ante in their latest versions with a usable fence. Surprise, surprise…I got the crappy one.

Also since getting the Bosch 1617EVS 2 1/4 HP Router a few months back it was not entirely disappointing to find it will not mount in the Skil table I have thus freeing me to justify the expense of a suitable router table.

Having received a $150 Lowe’s card for Christmas a new router table was first on my list since it has become apparent I’m not going to build a full table as I had originally planned, mainly because it seems that I need a decent router table or a joiner to build a good one.