Where did it go?

Where did it go?  What is "it"? It might be summer, time in general, or the tool you just had, but I end up asking myself "where did it go?" a lot.

I can't believe it's been about 2 weeks since my last post and the last time that I spent much time in the shop. I made an effort last night to get some shop time in. I have some time sensitive projects (gifts) that I need to get done before next weekend.

One of those projects is a box I am building for my Grandma's birthday. It will built from the walnut that she gave me and is being built to hold one of my Grandpa's Bibles. I had previously milled the boards two a thickness of 1/2". Last night I cut the pieces to the rough dimensions.

 The first cutting board I built ended up being a failure, it looked nice but I used the wrong type of glue and when it got wet on the counter some glue seeped out. I found I used the wrong glue part way through construction, but I went a head and finished it. It has now came back to the shop. I sanded all the areas that felt rough, then gave it a coat of boiled linseed oil, and have started to apply shellac. I think it will be come my cherry and walnut paper weight.

I have already started a new cutting board to replace the failed one. It just needs sanded and finished applied. This one is 9"x9" and is 1.25" thick.

Last night I started another cutting board this time made from Hard Maple and Cherry,

I finally got the cypress that I bought for my brother planned and delivered last weekend. I really liked the looks of it and want to build with some cypress in the future.

Walnut lap desk: milling parts-part 2

I have all the wood for the lap desk planed to the correct thickness now, and will be starting to cut pieces to size soon. 

This week I made another trip to the hardwood dealer and picked up 40 board feet of Maple for a Butcher's Block style island I am making. I am lookingforward to this project, there will be a lot of glue ups that will have to be done, so it should be interesting.

Buying glue by the gallon means things are getting serious.

here is the Maple.

Over the weekend my shop helper was wanting to make something so we dug through the box of small piece of hardwood (it's not scrap if it can still be used) and we found some pieces that would make a nice wooden mallet for her. It is made from oak and cherry and should hold up to what she can throw at it for now. Its not perfect, but she is happy with it. 

Walnut lap desk: milling parts

I've made mention in some recent blogs about a walnut lap desk I am building for my wife. The plans for it came from issue 202 of Woodsmith magazine. In the magazine they build it out of mahogany, I am going to build Jenny's from walnut so it will match the entertainment center I am planning to build. That is so the lap desk will look nice while sitting on a shelf in the entertainment center. Here are a few pictures from the magazine of what the desk will look like.

Last night I got the pieces that I re-sawed to 1/4" thick glued back up. I still have a to resaw a few more piece of 4/4 into two 3/8" pieces. I am hoping to start cutting parts to size this weekend.  I plan using a box joint instead of dove tails on the case construction.

Finished the Re-finish

Back in April I posted Quilt rack: clean up to finish I've been working on it between other things but I finally finished it. I found a stain that on pine matched the oak cabinets in my mom's kitchen according to sample display at lowes.  I did a few test on the back side and found that using a prestain conditioner match the oak cabinets.

Here is the before and after pictures. I will get a picture of it in use once my parents get the quilt rack hung up.

Overall the color looks alright but I am still not a fan of staining pine. There were areas where the stain hardly took at all. I gave it a coat of the garnet shellac I used on the knife block with hopes of darkening it up some. Then I gave it 3 more coats of clear shellac.  Mom was pleased with how it looks so that is what important.

I have also been working on the walnut lap desk.  So far I have the panel glued up for the top and bottom. I resawed the 4/4 board into 3/8" thick boards and have book matched the center section. I used a 1/8" spline along the edge glued boards. Here is the glue up, this is the top and bottom.

Cutting board is done

Here is the finished cherry and walnut cutting board.

The cutting board was a fun project, I will probably be making a lot more of them. 

Last night I started to mill the boards for my next project, a lap desk for my wife, built out of walnut. I bought a 4/4 (1") thick board and am trying to resaw it into two 3/8" thick boards.  My bandsaw doesn't have the clearance to cut a 7.5" wide board, and it is not up the job of resawing anyway. I made and attempt to resaw on the table saw by making a pass through each side, but that left a approximately 2" wide piece in the middle uncut. I am not Roy Underhill so my hand tool skills and collection left me looking for a better option to resaw these boards. My plan for now is to rip the boards in half then resaw them and then glue them back together. I have successfully resawn a board on the table saw by leaving a 1/4" strip between the two side and then hand sawing them apart. 

Dust collector update:

I am very happy with how well the dust collector works with the planer, before using the shop vac sometimes chips would come flying out the front because there were more chips than it could handle. With the dust collector this is now longer a problem. I am less than happy right now with hos it works with the table saw, but that is not the collectors fault. The table saw has large gaps between the table top and the saw body, by filling those gaps I should see an improvement in dust collection.