This thing sucks....

As I have been busier in the shop I have been creating a lot more saw dust and wood chips. My old shop vac is no match for the amount of chips and dust the planer makes, and the 1" dust port on the back of the table saw is joke. It was time for a real solution. Over the weekend I bought a 2hp dust collector. 

 Wow is this an improvement over the shop vac.  I also bought the required adapters and fittings to be able to hook the collector to the table saw and will be enclosing the open stand on the jointer to add dust collection to it. I plan to build a chip separator soon so I don't have to empty the plastic bag on the collector.

The first cutting board project is about done. I have put 2 coats of mineral oil on it and will give it 2 more coats for now. Wood cutting boards need new coats of oil applied with use as they start to dry out. Before I applied the oil and after sanding I used the new router table to round the edges of the cutting board.  I am very happy with how the router table worked.

BBQ from the wood shop

What does BBQ have to to with a wood shop? Well when Cherry wood makes for a very pleasing smoke. My wife had been wanting ribs for a few months, and she saw some on sale last week. That gave me a reason to fire up a smoker and make some BBQ. I even had some cherry scraps after my latest cutting board project. I cooked some spare ribs and a pork loin for about 5.5 to 6 hours and here are some of the results. The ribs were not as dark as they look here. 

First Cutting Board Glued Up

Last night we got the kids to bed on the earlier side of the average bed time. So that meant there was a chance for a little more than normal shop time.  It was hot in the shop, but I didn't open the doors and invite a bunch of bugs in to feast on me. Even though it was hot it was an enjoyable time in the shop.  I took time to practice some techniques I will be using on an up coming project and I worked on a cutting board.

The cutting board is made from cherry and walnut. Some of the walnut in this project came from a tree the power company cut down at our previous house.
Here are the pieces ready to glue up.

 Here they are glued up and in the clamps.

Tonight I will be trimming the ends up, running the whole panel through the surface planer and then I will cut across the width and turn the pieces up exposing the end grain. I will glue the pieces back together again but I will flip every other piece creating a checker board pattern.

Router Table Top and Fence are finished

I finished building the router table top by wrapping the edges of the ply wood with ash.  This will protect the edge of the plywood.  I also built a fence for the router table using some veneered MDF I had given to me. The fence is adjustable due to slots cut through the table top. It also has dust collection right at the router bit which appears to collect a majority of the dust and chips created by the router. Eventually I want to build a cabinet to go with the top with storage for router bits and other accessories, but for now saw horses will have to do.

 Here you can see the slots in the top that the fence moves along. I will be adding knobs to replace the acorn nuts that are currently holding the fence on.

 I also started going through my scraps and have selected a few pieces I am going to use to make a small end grain cutting board.

Tom's Workbench Give Away!

Back on July 9th Tom over at Tom's Workbench post that he had recently cross the 950 post count and that he was arranging a give away for his 1000th post. He has a lot of great prizes lined up, for info on the give away check out this post. Tom has been posting like a mad man since the announcement and he told me today he has hit 965.  Tom was the creator of "Get Wood Working" week.

Completed Knife block

Over the weekend I applied 3 coats of garnet shellac to the knife block and then a coat of wax. Once the shellac and wax were dry I began cutting the skewers, I bundled 100 skewers together at a time and cut them with a hand saw. I am very happy with the way the knife block turned out. Here are a few more pictures.

Mid Week Update: July 12th

Last night I got in about an hour of shop time after the kids went to bed. I applied a coat of boiled linseed oil to the knife block. The oil really brings the wood to life.

I am going to let the oil dry for a few days and then I will start applying shellac. After the shellac all that is left to do is cut the bamboo skewers to length and start using it.

I also had time to mount the router to the router table insert. Next I need to make the fence for the router table.

Cross Cut Sled and knife block update

Over the weekend I had a chance to finish building a cross cut sled to use with my table saw. I My last post I mentioned that I had the base cut and had laminated the fences. The first thing I did was true up the edges of the fences, and cut them to length.  I cut them 2" narrower than the base.  I used some oak strips as runners for the sled.  The runners slide in the miter slots on the saw top. After attaching the front fence and the runners to the base I cut through the base most the way to the back fence.  I then used a large square to square the fence to the saw kerf. After the initial squaring I used a 5 cut method to test the accuracy of the sled. I had to do the test twice, but I was able to get the fence dialed in. I also built a blade guard to keep the blade covered as it comes out the back fence.

I wanted to build the cross cut sled before I tried to cut the finger joints on the knife block, in the pictures above I had already used the sled to work on the knife block. I got the joints cut with the table saw and then cleaned them up by hand with chisels. Every wood worker knows you can't have to many clamps, and I need more.

I have already glued a bottom in place and sanded all the surfaces. Next it will get a coat or two of boiled linseed oil and then 3 coats of shellac.

Router Table Top

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July. I got to spend most of the day in the shop.

I spent most of my time building a router table top. For now I am going to just use the top supported by some saw horse until I can build a cabinet to attach the top to.  I started by gluing and screwing 2 pieces of 3/4" birch plywood to make a rigid top. Then I routed out a recess for the router insert plate to sit in.

After one pass around with my 3/4" flush trim bit I removed the frame and then used the jig saw to remove the center leaving a 1/2" ledge for the router  insert plate to sit on.

I have a little more fine tuning to make the insert to sit completely flush. I will be building a fence from some MDF I have on hand and apply some solid wood edging to the top. The top is 24" deep and 36" wide. The insert is offset from the center of the table 1.5" back from the center.

I also got the base cut for a cross-cut sled for the table saw and got the fences laminated for it.  I plan on finishing the cross-cut sled this weekend so I can get back to the knife block project.

Shop clean up and Lumber rack

I managed to get a good amount of shop time in this past weekend mainly because it was too hot to do anything else. I built a simple rack to hold 8' pieces of wood, I already had shelving unit that will hold anything smaller than 6'.  

Getting those 8' boards off the floor and getting rid of some scrap really increase the amount of open floor space.  I still need to work on some storage solution for the non-wood working/ non-shop related items I have to store in the shop. 

I have a few extra days off this week due to the 4th of July holiday and I plan on getting a few more things built for the workshop. A cross cut sled and a router table top are on the top of my list. I am also making a trip to a hardwood dealer to look around a maybe bring back some new stock.