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.