Christmas Misson Accomplished

It might have helped that there was $20.00 in the drawer....

Vanity Finished and What did YOU get for Christmas?

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even in the workshop, cause the Vanity was finally done.

As it turns out our Christmas with the neighbors (and the little girl who is getting this piece) has been postponed a little bit (maybe tonight).  We are very happy with the end result, just hope she is.

So for Christmas I had a cool list of stuff I thought Santa might like to bring me, and Santa did very well indeed:

I got an Incra Mitre Gage for my Table Saw

I got the Porter Cable Dove Tail Jig that I asked for.

I got a Dust Deputy mini Cyclone for my Shop Vac.

And in my Quest to own everything that Kreg makes I got a couple extra mounting plates for one of my clamps and the Material Support attachement for the Jig.

I cleaned the shop last night (got to use the Dust Deputy) set up the Incra and mounted the DoveTail Jig to a piece of ply.

Maybe I can finish the rolling work stand on Thursday, and then get back to drawer front for the built in.

It begins to take shape, 2 days until delivery...

Thanks to The Wood Whisperer and his advice on finishing, the base of the vanity is all put together and I think it looks great!

The mirror support got a final coat of varnish just this morning, and I set the actual mirror:

I had to set the mirror this morning so we can perhaps join the mirror to the base tonight!  There is still the matter of trim around the mirror (we are planning to use sea-grass from my wifes baskets making stuff), and if you notice in the picture of the mirror, we might be using two of the old legs we didn't like as accents on both sides of the mirror.

Two and a half days till it must be delivered...

The vanity is coming along.  This has been a real collaberation between me and my wife and we have both worked on every piece of this unit.

I went out this morning and took a photo of the vanity as it sits with its first coat of varnish on it.

We used a dark walnut stain, which is a real departure for the look we both normally like, but is starting to look really nice.

Tonight I hope to hit this with some 000 steel wool and then wipe on a final coat of Varnish.  The I want to give a quick waxing.

We did find some new legs for the unit and also found a use for couple of the old legs.

We new we wanted to include a mirror on this vanity (18"x22" oval mirror with a beveled edge....  $35.00).  But the trick was to find a way to mount in onto the vanity itself.  This is what we finally decided on.:

So close, but still so far away.  Tomorrow is Wednesday, and MAYBE Wednesday night I can mate the mirror to the top of the vanity.

We were going to make a matching stool, but I don't see how we are going to have the time before Christmas eve....

From Concept to Funiture....Almost

Our neighbor mentioned to my wife that her 9 year old daughter really needed a little vanity to start putting her girlie stuff, and seeing as its Christmas, and seeing as how I have this niftly wood shop, wouldn't it be nice if we could build something for her.

I went out to the shop Saturday late afternoon and put the top together (birch ply with poplar edging), and Saturday night my wife and sat down and sketched up some ideas:

We spent most of the day Sunday out in the shop with the woodstove going, and at the end of the day we ended up here:

The legs we bought a Lowes, and we are not happy with how they are working out, so we need to find or build something else.  Christmas is fash approaching!

Long time ... no post

Well, cancer treatment followed by vacation / recupration has caused a big gap in posts, but I'm back home now and slowly starting to get back in the shop.

I did get my new router base from Woodcraft, and found that it was too big for the dadomax jig (I'll explain in a later video), but I figured out a way to solve this problem and ordered some nylon set screws from smallparts.com.

Everything is together and I made a test cut with the dadomax and it works good (once I fine tune it according to instuctions it will work great).

On vacation we went camping and the wheels on my camper have been in desperate need of some attention for a few seasons now.  Here are the left side tires when we go to the campground:

So I got out a wire brush, scrubbed them down, and painted them with some white rustoleum:

Then I walked around for two days saying "Boy don't those tires look nice!"

Before I left for vacation I did make it into the shop to do some work on the drawer fronts for the built in.  So here is a new editions of "The Nicked Finger":

New Tool Snafu

Well, my new DadoMax jig did show up on Monday, but I'm nearly through a 2 week long preparation for my next cancer treatment and my energy is low.  I did look at the stuff on Monday and thought: "Hey, there really ought to be some instructions in here..."

It was too late to call Woodline, so I had to wait till Tuesday morning.  On Tuesday, I called and talked to Wayne Suttor (Now I think I'm spelling it right) and he immediately knew I was calling looking for instructions (that he told me how to download off of their web page).

After looking the instructions over I went out to try to use my nice new tool and discovered I was missing a piece to my router base plate!  I've had to order another one (from woodcraft) and it will be in proably early next week.

Another New Tool

Recently I saw a video shot by Woodworker's Journal at the 2009 AWFS Fair showing Wayne Suitor (I'm probably spelling his name wrong) from Woodline USA giving a sneak peak at their new DadoMax Router Jig.

Here it is:




Well, the DadoMax was not yet available, but I called woodline and actually spoke to Wayne and he put my name a list of people who inquired about it (I was #3 of what turned out to be about 200).  Well he called me TODAY and the DadoMax is now here.  Maybe mine will show up in the mail by the weekend!!!

Good bye, good luck, and thanks for all the fish...

I would bet that nearly all high school students, who are sucessful (in both school and life), can look back and pick out at least one teacher who "made a difference" for them.  For me that teacher was Mr. Horne.  I had Mr. Horne EVERY YEAR from 7th Grade through 12th Grade.

7th Grade Math
8th Grade Math
Algebra I
Algebra II
Geometry
Advance Math (or Pre-Calc)

I'm good at math, but I wonder if I was good at math and was in his class, or because I was in his class I'm good at math.  Truthfully other students who took his class weren't so good at math....

Mr. Horne was a lot like me (or am I a lot like him, because of my 6 years sitting in the 2nd row?).  He had a dry sense of humor, he was quirky, he liked computers....

I do understand that what I am today it NOT totally due to his infullence, but I understand I would not be what I am today if I had Mr. Frazier for math (he taught the "normal" math classes).

I did go back to my highschool once, probably about 5 or 6 years after I graduated to do some computer work for the school (Apple II computers at that time) and went and found his classroom.  I was crushed when he didn't remember me right off....  oh well, human is human.

In retrospect, I would bet Mr. Horne was gay, but at the time he came across more as just being asexual.

Mr. Horne passed away on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.  He was 72 years old (which means he was 42 when I had him for my first class - gods I'm older than that now!  How did that happen?)

Now all I can say is thank you, job well done, and good luck on whereever you next journey takes you.

Warmest Regards Mr. Horne
Kerry (rember me ... one of the kids you used to take the UNH and we would steal computer time from their main frame....)

Drawer Fronts and Flat Wood

Last Thursday I cut my drawer fronts all to Length (25 3/8") and drilled pocket holes in 8 of the pieces in preparation for putting 16 of the pieces togehter in pairs to make 8 panels I could cut to size for the bottom 8 drawers (my stock is wide enough for the top drawers).

Last night (Tuesday) I went in to glue up the panels and found that over the long weekend the pieces I had cut had all cupped, so none of them were flat.  Luckly, I now have a 10" Jointer / Planer and I spend the evening flattening one face and one edge of all the pieces.  Tonight I hope to run them all through the planer and get them truely flat, then I can finally glue them up.

I only hope jointing and planeing them will not make them so thin the pocket holes I drilled for 3/4" stock will still work.

I love a new tool!

About the only thing missing from my shop was a thickness planer and decent jointer.  I saw a video review of the RIKON 12" Combo Jointer / Planer and thought it would be a great idea for my shop (and its rapidly vanishing floor space) to get a combo set-up.  That way I would get rid of the old (nearly broken) 4" jointer I have and replace it with a combo.

Now the RIKON is supposed to be about $1600.00 and that was a lot of money for me drop on any tool (combination or not).  I did some web surfing and found another video review of the JET 10" combo Jointer / Planer -- and the good news is that it was on $399.00 at Woodcraft.

Well - long story short - it turned out to be cheaper by about $30.00 for me to buy it at Amazon.com and pay $419.00 for it - free shipping.

Yesterday was the big day, and the box was dropped of by ABF.  I moved back into the shop and put the beasty together.


And here it is:

Hand Cut Dovetails - Why?

I have started attempting to cut some dovetails by hand.  No one has shown me how, though I've watched it being done on The Rough Cut Show.  My wife wanted to know why I was doing dovetails... what for?

Well I guess, in my mind, being able to do hand cut dovetails is a milestone skill for woodworking.  It would make me feel good knowing I can do it.

Here are some pictures that show I really can't do it ... yet.

This end pin is actually pretty good:

This one is OK.

This one is not so good (and neither is the picture).

And this is just aweful.  I don't know what happened here, but hey, that's why you practice.