L/D workshop dining table

[Doug B]

Unable to get out much the last few weeks I’ve been doing things on the workshops to do list one of which was to make a new shooting board.

I’d been bought a Veritas adjustable shooting board fence a couple of months ago for my birthday, this fella here .

Probably not everyone’s cup of tea but something I will find very handy.
As I’ve plenty of moisture resistant MDF it seemed logical to make the new board from this so I started cutting up some board using the track saw & ruler with depth stop to aid with accuracy.

I was going to use the existing Veritas track from my old shooting board so allowed for the width of this on the second board & then glued the two pieces together using Cascamite & cauls

Once dry the next job was to drill a 3/4” hole square to the surface to hold the brass nut which secures the fence to the board & allows it to pivot, for this I drilled a 30mm hole in a an off cut of MDF to suite a 30mm router guide bush & used a 3/4” bit in the router to rout a hole the depth of the nut.

After which it was a case of epoxying the nut in place, drilling a 3/8” hole for a screw in threaded nut for the locking lever & fixing the shooting board plane track.

With that done I was ready to fit the fence, I’d made & fitted a sacrificial fence to aid alignment & with an engineers square offered up the fence assembly & screwed the angle indicator to the board.

Whilst the fence can be set at any angle within its range it also has presets which I checked with a digital angle finder, all seemed to be fine.

The finished board with the sacrificial fence trimmed square.

Whilst I was at it I’d made a second fence which rather than lose I attached to the cleat that goes against the bench with a couple of bolts & wingnuts.
As I like everything orderly I screwed two screws into the top rail of my wood store, cut the heads off them, marked & drilled corresponding holes in the back of the cleat & it now has a place to hang happy in the knowledge it won’t slip off.

 

[Doug B]

Another project I’ve wanted to do for a while is a side extension for the chopsaw with an upstand to clamp a stop block to to allow for repeat cutting to length.

Again made from 12mm moisture resistant MDF I started by clamping a level to the saws bed with the on board clamp & scribing a line with the corner of a chisel held tight to the underside of the level to accurately mark the level of the bed on the back upstand

Then with half a dozen passes of the tracksaw down from the scribed line I formed a rebate into which the top of the side extension would fit.

The top surface was cut to size as were some fillets for the underside of the extension to keep it square & add rigidity, all these components were then glued & clamped.

The front support was next to be cut for this I moved the level to the front of the saw clamping an off cut of MDF to the level so as to get an accurate measurement using a steel rule & ruler stop.

This measurement was then transferred using a small square as a reference & a marking knife.

To get an accurate cut with the tracksaw I place the marking knife in the line I’ve scribed & bring the track upto the knife, once cut the front piece was glued & clamped.

The saw has a V channel into which the commercially available side tables fit so I thought I’d make use of this by planing a piece of oak to fit in this channel.

This was then glued in place on the extension, a slot was cut in the end fillet to allow a piece of oak with a tenon cut on it to act as a lever clamp to hold the extension firmly in place, the tension provided by a machine screw from the top surface connecting into the oak via a screw in threaded nut.

Clamp assembly

The finished side extension fitted

 

[Doug B]

Don’t know why one photo has been duplicated it doesn’t show twice in the edit box so I can’t remove it it also puts the last two pieces of text out of sequence

 

[MikeG.]

Yours is a bit better than mine, Doug. I simply took two bits of 4x1 about a foot long and screwed the edge of one onto the middle of the other, offered the upside-down T section that produced to the saw table, then planed it down to suit. Times 2.

 

[Doug B]

As long as it works Mike, for a few years now I’ve used an off cut of newel post I’d made that just happened to be the same height as the bed of the saw, it worked fine but as I’ve quite a lot of moulding to cut this will easily allow me to easily cut repeat lengths without worrying if the newel block has moved.

 

[Doug B]

This is my take on a donkey’s ear shooting board.
I’m gradually getting through all my MR MDF so no surprise that I started with another glue up of two pieces

Then it was on to the new shooting board to true up a couple of mitres on a piece of 60x52 mm pine

These were cut to length & fixed to the board in line with the fixing holes in the Veritas track.

Next up was the fence which I wanted to be adjustable so using the pillar drill as an over head router with the belt on the fastest pulley speed & the inverter cranked up to max I first cut the slots for the heads of the bolts.

I used the cross vice to move the timber back & forth to cut the slots then changed router bit to cut the through slot.

This front face of the fence is fixed to the back via screw in nuts.

With this then fixed to the base square to the track the shooting board was all but finished save for the addition of a bench stop cleat on the underside

With the cleat installed all that was to do was try it out, happily it worked a treat producing a spot on mitre.

 

[Doug B]

Yesterday’s task was to make a handle for an old hand forged axe head that’s been waiting patiently for years in the workshop, infact its probably done several circuits its been waiting that long.
I found what looked like a suitable piece of ash & cut out a rough blank at the bandsaw.

I then knocked the corners off again with the bandsaw, this not being the sort of work I usually do my next tools of choice were spokeshaves, rasps or a draw knife would no doubt have been quicker but we have to work with what we’ve got.

I beavered away with these until I was happy with the shape & more importantly it felt comfortable in my hand.

My initial intention had been to use metal wedges to secure the head to the handle but the aperture was quite narrow in the centre compared to the top so I opted for ash wedges to fully expand the handle in the head. These I glued in with PU adhesive & have put the metal wedges to one side just in case the Ash shrinks though as the wood has been in the workshop quite a while I imagine the opposite will be the case.

After a rub over with a cabinet scraper & a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil the lovely rippled grain in this Ash really popped out

G

 

[marcros]

that bit of ripple really sets it off Doug. was the shape copied from something?

 

[Doug B]

The shape of the handle is very similar to the handle of another small axe I have Marcros, that one was a gift from a friend & I really liked the shape but for my grip I’d prefer the handle chunkier so I basically copied the design but beefed it up a bit.

 

[Doug B]

Another project that’s been ongoing since the beginning of the lockdown has been making storage solutions, I need something for the Stanley organiser boxes I carry in the van.
I’ve been designing anything I make around the timber I all ready have in the main so I don’t got out but also it makes me use up & so reduce the wood I’ve got.
I based this box holder on previous units I’ve made using a ladder type design so after planing up some pine I started by making shoulder cuts at a 3 degree slope with the trenching facility on the chopsaw with a spacer stop block clamped to the saws fence.

Over to the bandsaw to make the second cut.

These were then cleaned up at the bench, drilled & countersunk & fixed to the uprights

Placing a box across the two ladders you can see the slight back slope the 3 degree shoulder cut gives, at his point I measured for the rails that would run side to side & also a top shelf which was the next thing to make so over to the spindle moulder to run a rebate.

This profile was then cut to length with mitres at each end & dominoed.

Glued & clamped.

Once dry a veneered pine panel was cut to fit the rebate, the rails were planed & cut to length & then these & the shelf fixed in place.

G

 

[Doug B]

For a bit of added protection I gave the unit a couple of coats of Sikkens before installing it.

Before finishing I’d fixed some aluminium L section to the inside edge of the uprights just as a little protection for the timber when moving the boxes in & out, now it was finished I stuck low friction tape to the top of the runners & also added small pieces of the same aluminium section to the back of the runners to locate & keep the boxes in position.

The unit fixed in place

I’d left the uprights long for storage of dust sheets, the racking to the left I’d made last year when I first started reorganising the van, although there looks to be a lot of stuff in there my aim had been to reduce the amount of gear I was carrying but also make it more accessible which the racking has done nicely.





G

 

[Doug B]

I had a request from senior management for a bug hotel last week, strange I thought as she doesn’t particularly like most creepy crawlies but who am I to argue plus it keeps me in the workshop

I had some nice air dried sweet chestnut off cuts from a recent gate I made so as this is supposed to weather quite well & the hotel isn’t going to have any finish applied it seemed a good choice.
As it’s quite a small piece I’ve been using mainly hand tools so after cutting some pieces to size I broke out my old plough plane & cut some rebates on the side pieces.

The top of the side pieces join the roof with a simple mitre & the roof pitch is 45 degrees so again more long mitres all planed up at the shooting board.

Then the first of quite a few glue ups, the two roof pieces were simply held together with masking tape while the PU glue set up the sides & base lap joints were clamped. Whilst clamping I dry fitted the upstairs ceiling to help keep everything square while the clamping pressure was applied.

Once both pieces were set a dry fit allowed me to offer up a piece of timber to measure up for the back panel

The panel was then glued into the bottom section, this is another dry fit prior to glue up

G

 

[Doug B]

A piece of constructional veneer was cut to size to form the rooms a simple slot in the centre would join the two together in a cross

pieces of 9mm thick oak were cut to form the front walls with differing sized apertures cut in them these were glued to the cross

Dry fitting the the internals,

Once glued in the ceiling & then finally the roof were glued in place

A good sand to remove traces of glue & the hotel was loaded up with bamboo in the roof & a small wood pile chopped with my axe for authenticity :lol:

Senior management decided it needed to be situated in a cool dry spot so here it is sheltered with the overhang of the old shed.

G

 

[Doug B]

A mate had sent me over an image of a walnut chopping board he liked & wanted me to make something similar, it wasn’t my cup of tea but as I wanted some Sycamore out of the wood store I figured while I was getting that I may as well dig out some Walnut.

These were the two pieces I fetched out a quick trim with an axe removed the bark, these were both the first planks cut off the logs when I planked them so neither was going to yield a lot of timber, but suitable for what I wanted,the Sycamore felled in 2009 the Walnut in 2015

After cutting off the waney edges a quick moisture reading was taken.

Happy with that I cut the planks to more manageable pieces removing any bits I didn’t want to put through the planer, this is what the Sycamore came out like.

The Walnut had two large crotch pieces in it & threw up some interesting grain.

I chose a piece that best matched the image of the chopping board I’d been sent & came up with this for him.

As I’ve said this style of board is not to my taste but after a couple of coats of oil the crotch section really gives some interest with either side being completely different.

Happily I’ve sent the chap a couple of photos & he’s over the moon, just have to wait now till it’s safe to deliver it.






G

 

[Doug B]

This has been a fairly lengthy project due to the lockdown & also as I’ve had to wait for things to be done at each stage, a few months ago after finishing a job where I altered a kitchen & replaced the oak worktops the customer asked if I could build a unit around the electric meter that would incorporate a bench made from the old oak worktop in a narrow hallway, he drew up a plan of what he wanted so I started by making the bench.

The frame of the unit was built on site from par timber & MR MDF.

Whilst he was filling & decorating I made 2 frames from Tulip wood as there were going to be doors on either side of the bench

These were fitted & architrave fixed to the front upright to act as frames.

At this point the lockdown happened fortunately I’d bought a sheet of oak faced veneer as the doors were to be made to match the internal doors which were oak veneer with grooves routed in, to match this I use a v cutter in the router attached to the tracksaw track.

Having made them about a month ago I finally got chance to fit them when the house was empty as both customers shift patterns meant they would be at work.

The fitting of the handles & finishing will be done by the customer

G

 

[Doug B]

Made a start on a key cupboard, I’ve had a lovely sawn off cut of brown oak knocking around the shop for ages it has some lovely figuring but was only 13 x 9 x3/4 inch thick I’d saved it to use as a panel & thought this would be an idea project.
I figured Ash would give a nice contrast & have plenty of short bits so started by making a little door frame with an internal groove & stub tenons

I planed up the brown oak & gave it a coat of acrylic lacquer after which I assembled & glued the frame around it.

The cupboard is just a simple frame dominoed together

I let the hinges in to the frame prior to assembling using the router, the side piece was held in the vice with a steadying piece of timber clamped behind

I also added a rebate before glue up for the back panel, the top & bottom pieces needed stopped rebates so the ends of these were trimmed square with a chisel after running the rebates at the spindle moulder

Once the cupboard frame was glued together the Ash veneered MDF back panel was fixed in place & a brown oak strip glued to it for the key hooks

Once set both door & cupboard got a couple of coats of acrylic lacquer

 

[MikeG.]

You're as busy as ever, Doug. That has to be the poshest bug hotel north of Watford Gap!

 

[Doug B]

These little projects are keeping me sane Mike giving me something to do of an evening during the lockdown, hopefully in the coming weeks I’ll be able to get planting down the allotment, I went this morning & the recent rain has really bought on the potatoes & onions.

I’ve a load of plants in the cold frame that are ready to go in but typically just as they were ready we’ve had rain, hopefully the weather will pick up again soon.

My next project is going to be a dining room table & chairs so I've spent the afternoon sorting out my woodstore looking for Ash, I already had plenty for the table but these 3 waney edge boards from a tree felled in 2012 should provide enough timber for the chairs as well.

Time to escape to the workshop :lol:

 

[Doug B]

A few photos of the almost finished key cupboard a catch will have to wait till after the lockdown as will changing the hinge screws to slotted

 

[Doug B]

Made a start on an English Ash dining table, the three 1.8m planks that will make up the top had been air drying for around 4 years when I first planed them to a rough size of 380x 44mm that was about 4 years ago & since then have been in stick under my sons bed acclimatising.

The finished table top will be 1.5x0.8m so the 3 planks will enable me to make the 3 section top with enough over to make the rails, so first up I ran the timber through the bandsaw to give me the rough sizes I needed.

I checked the moisture content on this fresh cut face & as the table is going in a well lit warm south facing room I was happy with a reading of 3%

An hour of planer & thicknessing saw all the components planed a few millimetres oversized, I will leave these a couple of days to settle in case there is any movement.
So far senior management is well happy with the planks she chose back in 2012 when the tree was felled & planked, this is the configuration she has currently chosen though that could change when planed to finished size.

With most of the donkey work done the legs, rails & top has produced 2 extractor bags full of shavings :shock: I’ll be mulching the mulch at this rate :lol:

G