Project Updates

I've been getting a fair amount of shop time in, but haven't felt like I have much to write about. I think its because I simply doing things I've already written about.

I am working on the larger section of bowling alley counter top. I have it colored and have started to poly it. his peice gets a hole cut for the sink. I cut the hole for the sink this week and still need to some trimming to make the sink fit right. Cutting a big hole like that into something I've spent so much time on really rattled my nerves, but it is done now. Once the sink fits the counter will get 3 or 4 more coats of poly.

The top after the first coat of poly

That is a big hole

The sink is really dirty from being stored outside. It is a old cast iron sink.

I've turned a few pens lately and tried some new style.

This bolt action 30 caliber bullet pen is my new favorite

A purple heart pen I made for my wife (no stain or dye used, that is the color of the wood)

Another bolt action pen in gun metal

My wife bought a dresser with plans of me refinishing it for her. I started by stripping the old finish off, and then sanding it back to bare wood. So far I've applied two coats of Dark walnut Danish oil. I am going try and darken it with some gel stain before finishing it with shellac.

Here is the before picture

After removing the old finishes and sanding

After two coats of dark walnut danish oil

I would like to wrap up the dresser and the counter tops this weekend so I can move onto some new projects.

Bowling Alley Counter Tops

My in laws have been remodeling their kitchen and ask me to help by taking care of the counter tops. They found a section of bowling alley for sale and we decided that would make a neat counter top. My father in law cut the pieces to the size needed so my job was to prep and refinish them.

each section was originally 42" wide and 2.5" thick and VERY heavy

It turns out the pieces aren't glued together but held together with a lot of nails. Figuring out how would be best to keep it together added a lot of time to this project. I ended up using some 10" screws offset and counter sunk to try and hold it all together.

The first step was to get as much of the old finish off as possible. I thought using a card scraper would be a good choice for this and it did work good, but when I started sanding it still acted like there was finish there.

 Since that didn't work as good as I had hoped I tried hand planing the top. The pine planed very nicely and this quickly got to unfinished wood.

 The maple edge board had some damage/holes where it had been bolted down, so I patched those spots.

 Ready for finish.

 I've never had a good experience staining pine, even using pre-stain products, so I tired some Medium walnut Danish Oil on a scrap and was pleased with the color. I put two coats on the Danish Oil as per the directions on the can. The color wasn't as dark as the sample so I had my in-laws come out to see it in person before I went any further. They were happy with the color so I will be top coating this piece of counter top in the next few day.

This is the smaller counter top and there is another one I still have to start on. I am going to be disassembling it and putting it all back together with glue. The sink will be in the next section and it will be the main food prep area also. I am more worried about cracks opening on that section. Hopefully in the next post about the counter tops the smaller one will be finished and installed and the larger one will be well on its way to being done.