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. 

TV cabinet, planning

Our old TV died a few months ago and we recently upgraded to flat screen. We had been talking about building a TV cabinet/bookcase previously and now that our TV wasn't a heavy 30 tube TV we could proceed with the plan.

I have started designing the TV cabinet, it will have book cases on both sides of the main section. I am looking forward to this project. It will be built from oak to match the stair rail and the kitchen cabinets.

EDIT:
Here is a quick 3D sketch.

Planer test and Knife Block project

I had to resist the urge to put every piece of wood in the shop through the new planer. The surface it leave is amazing. I planed down some spalted maple I had cut from a piece of firewood into 1/4" boards for a small box I plan on building. Over the weekend I took some of the walnut that my grandma had given me a started building a knife block from it. I got the plans for the knife block from Popular Woodworking.  Then plans called for 1/2" thick stock so I used the planer and planed down the walnut to 1/2" thick before cutting the parts to size.

I also did some "wood working" building a new well cap from composite deck boards. The hand pump is functional.

 A upcoming project is going to be building a chip separator to work with my shop vac. The planer creates a lot of chips and dust. The picture below is how much was created by planing the two  32"x7.5"x 3/4" pieces of walnut to a final thickness of 1/2".

A new toy and an update

Last night I bought a surface planer (DeWalt 734). I can't wait to try it out tonight.

I think getting it is what I need to pull me back to the shop. Life has been busy, but with my new philosophy I posted about yesterday I am going to make it an effort to still do some wood working no mater how busy other parts of my life get.

Now for the update on the last month and a half.
Back at the end of April I mentioned having to replace a blown head gasket on my lawn mower.  That project went well and the mower is back into service. Since then I've had to replace a fuel pump on my car also. We were late getting our garden out, it didn't get planted until Memorial Day.  I think it has only rained twice since then. I put the same fence I built last year up for the kids area in the garden but this year we (my wife and daughter helped) built a small arbor for the kids garden.  We planted pole beans next to the arbor so they will climb it.

I should be posting again soon after I get to run some boards through my new planer.

A new outlook

I kow it has been a long time since I posted anything, and even longer since I've worked on a project.  I will address that soon, but while reading a blog this morning I read something that caused me to think.

Paul Sellers posted about a walk in the woods to get sanity back,

"Don’t forget; take a walk in the woods and rest from your own work for a while. Find sanity and peace and then go back to your second job changed. I wrote a post some time back telling people to see there day job as their part time job and their evening woodworking as their true vocational calling. Puts life into perspective."

 I like this idea of thinking of your day job as a part time job, and what you enjoy doing as your "true vocation."  Being a dad and husband has to come before I can spend more time on my true vocations.

Sawdust Engineer

Not had any shop time lately so I haven't had anything to post. Today in the mail I got a shirt and window sticker my wife had made for me.

Here is the shirt, I guess I am now a "Sawdust Engineer"

 And here is the sticker I am going to place on the shop door.