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This is a small “prototype” of a larger serving tray I want to make — of course the serving tray will have some sort of handle. I was basically practicing how well the dado/groove to hold the bottom piece of plywood into place would work, and also practicing if I can actually get tight miters. It turns out that my Delta compound miter saw is very nicely accurate and I’m able to measure and cut within 1/64th of an inch, go me!

Actually attaching the pieces was a bit more of a traumatic experience. I quickly cut a scrap piece of MDF into an L shape, so I could attempt to clamp the miters together. I was basically replicating this somewhat pricey system that Rockler sells. It worked fairly well, except I only made one, and while attempting to join the last piece my finger grip was much tighter than the cheapo plastic clamp I was using. I ended up with a loose miter joint where the clamp was. Since the joint was so terrible I was able to snap it apart without damaging the wood side pieces. If the joint was successfully glued the wood would have splintered/broken instead of the glue just coming apart.

I took this photo before I glued that particular joint back together, so you’ll see in one corner a small gap, I did fix that though. ;)

I just completed project one of the effort to make back (that is… prove to myself by “saving money”) the money I spent on all of the power tools.

When I bought the Stolmen system from Ikea and put all of my non-hanging clothing into the drawers I noticed how absolutely huge they were. I then decided to spend a tiny fortune to buy these plastic-ish little divider boxes, but never quite got around to doing it.

The other night while in the lounge with Matthew the idea of actually just making some dividers popped into mind. We’d discussed using hardboard and wrapping them in fabric or felt, or something equally “soft” but I couldn’t quite get my mind around just how I’d do that without making a horrible mess of it all. The lengths required didn’t work for using that great stuff known as presto felt… and I worried some sort of spray or otherwise applied adhesive would squish through the fabric.

The idea is extremely simple — sometimes doing something the simple way is the best way (though, remember, I generally favor utter complication to simplicity, lol) — planks of wood with mating grooves so they interlock. As simple as it seems, it was quite the test of accuracy. If they grooves were off, even by a small margin, the boards would appear warped.

I set off to Lowes, bought a $20 sheet of oak veneered quarter inch (hah, yeah… it’s supposed to be 1/4″ but it’s quite a bit smaller, the fuckers). I had it cut into quarters (the wrong way I discovered, as I was almost always cross cutting and having the veneer splinter) and was able to make three drawer dividers out of half the sheet. I’d have just bought quarter sheets, but the cost of two of those exceeds just buying the whole damn 4×8′ sheet. Actually, I supposed you could say it was technically cut into quarters, but the saw blade Lowe’s has on the sheet cutter pretty much just mashed the wood apart… it must have a whopping two teeth or something. It’s probably more dull than a David Attenboro nature documentary.

Right now my table saw has a 25 tooth blade on it, not exactly desirable for cutting plywood, but it did do a decent job. I’ll probably be ‘upgrading’ it to a nice 50 tooth Freud thin kerf combo blade soon… expensive, but worth it.

Anyway… the whole point of this is to show this project, right? The entire thing was basically a functional experiment; I cut this drawer divider different from the other two, finished this one with some leftover polycrylic — ugh! I simply used the saw blade to ‘kerf’ the notches, whereas on the second two dividers I used the router to make nicely neat notches. I also lacquered the second and third divider sets. I much prefer the lacquer, brushed on, even if I did make a mess of it (as usual). This one has fifteen sections, whereas the other two have only six — different needs of course. All of them received one application of Olympic ‘Golden Pecan’ stain, just to highlight the nice grain that you can probably only barely see.

It fit almost too well, lol… I really should have shaved off that 1/16″ of an inch from the shorter pieces, but at least it fit!

Look, it’s my underwear! Hah….

This is basically just a quick update for all those just dying to know about my powertool adventures.

I did actually purchase the Skil Xshop. It put a hefty dent in the checking account, wouldn’t quite fit into the car (had to take it out of the box… yikes — there was a reason I was asking the guy at Lowe’s what size the box was, afterall… he didn’t know, heh).

Putting it together was an adventure of its own. Out of the billions of pieces, one is to put together the cabinet first. The instructions were wrong! The bottom (floor) of the cabinet is supposed to be inserted into cabinet after the “shell” of the cabinet is put together. Slight problem with that — the instructions show the bottom as being more of a “plus” (+) shape, but the bottom is actually rectangular, there is absolutely no way to wedge that in after the sides are together! I believe they must have redesigned the bottom and forgot to update the instructions, so after taking it apart (so many little bolts!) I managed to squeeze the bottom into the right place and put it all back together again.

I suppose it was actually Tuesday that I bought the thing, instead of the two hours as indicated in the book it took me a few days to actually fully assemble it, haha. Now, granted, I wasn’t working on it full time, but ehh… It’d take a good long while either way I think.

I finally had it all put together Thursday morning/afternoon. I still hadn’t even cut the little ziptie that held the power cord in the “off” position until this morning. I’ve been reading tons of information about table saw safety — I definitely don’t need to lose hands or fingers! …and it has me fairly deathly afraid of using it now.

I did; however, actually use it this morning. Nothing like the sound of a 15 amp table saw jumping to life to wake up the neighborhood at 9am, right? So far I’ve started it up three times, every single time I jump out of my skin. It’s so incredibly loud and… terrifying. Wouldn’t you know, despite everything I read, when I actually did cut a scrap piece of MDF this morning I used the table saw “unsafely” …oops. It just seems so logical to me to put a piece of whatever up against the rip fence and then guide it through with the miter gauge. It’s a very dangerous thing to do, and the little piece of MDF I’d just cut off sort of “wobbling” on the table was terrifying… it is nice that the power can be shut off by basically slamming your hand into the front of the cabinet though, lol. Lesson… little pieces are supposed to be cut off to the LEFT of the blade, so they don’t get stuck between the blade and rip fence! Yes, lesson learned with no personal injury involved, thankfully. I think I’m going to have to make a little sign to remind myself to not do the “logical” thing when it comes to cutting smallish pieces off a larger object.

I also finally figured out how to mount and setup the router in the router table insert. Oh, yes, I ran out to Lowe’s on Wednesday morning to get that little tool. You see, I have this project in mind, and I need a router, table saw, and miter saw to do it. This is total false economy of course, as usual, being that what I want to make can be purchased for $100 or so, and the tools required to make it cost me $550 or so… but whatever. I can now easily make the bar cabinet thing I’ve been wanting, but couldn’t find anywhere, as well as pretty much anything. I still need sheet goods (plywood/mdf) cut down small enough that they’ll fit into the car, but all the “precise” cutting can be done in my “shop” now, yay!

I do still need a “good” circular saw, the ancient (and I mean more than 30 years old) Craftsman just… well, apart from being terrifying (I really do have a fear of giant metal circles with sharp teeth spinning at 6000 RPM — I think we all should!) it’s doesn’t quite work right anymore anyway. I want a new one with a laser, wheee, lasers! I didn’t get the laser-equipped compound miter saw, basically because that can be so easily added after the fact with the little thing that fits onto the saw blade (which is how all the ones I was looking at were done anyway).

It turns out that the corded drill I have won’t work with the drill press attachment of the xshop. At first I thought it wouldn’t work because it didn’t have the “handle attachment” area/thing. When I went to check for that though (which I was certain it didn’t have) I discovered it infact did have that, but then I noticed it was a 3/8″ drill, and the attachment works with 1/2″ drills. D’oh! It might still work, I really don’t know, but a corded drill isn’t all that expensive, I think.

So, right, back to the router. I bought the Skil 2.25 HP “combo” pack, it seemed having both a fixed base and a plunge base was the right way to go. Granted, I spent “only” $100 on this, whereas the “big brands” were twice that. I think I’ll be fine, at least I didn’t get a Black and Decker! Not that I see a problem with that, my 1/4 sheet finishing sander works wonderfully, and even if it didn’t burn out or whatever, I’d be able to buy several of them before even getting close to the cost of the DeWalt or whatever “better” brand. Skil is the lowend Bosch, and Delta (my CM Saw) is the lowend Porter Cable, so… again, whatever. It isn’t like I’m using these things all the time. It’d been about a year since I’d last used my finishing sander until two weeks ago.

I do think I want to get a belt sander now though, and it’s not just the whole having a table insert for it. It’d be really useful for smoothing out the end grain on my smaller projects, and making sure I didn’t “round it” — which I have a tendency to do with the finishing sander. Plus, if I do build my table/desk as planned, my lumber will probably be “rough” and in need of some heavy duty sanding — unless of course I have the mill do it for me. If they plane it though, and it has any tearouts I’ll be relatively screwed. I don’t know, it’s really a toss up/confusing issue for me. I don’t even know if I’ll really be capable of doing such an elaborate glueup anyway… we’re talking about 15 board feet of lumber being edge-glued together. I’ll definitely need some bigass clamps! A planer and jointer are definitely out of the budget, hah. I think making sure the wood is “straightlined” at least, then doing the glueup, then belt sanding the hell out of the top… I think that’ll work, emphasis on think. If it doesn’t, it’ll be one expensive “experience” in the bad sort of way.

Anyway, I’m a bigtime wannabe woodworker now… hopefully as time passes the “wannabe” part can be safely removed. :)

I never imagined turning this hideous blue desk into something more appealing would be so incredibly difficult. Paint gets into every little nook and cranny available, but getting it back out — even with chemicals — is pretty much impossible.

I started this project on the 12th, I have four days of work left to do. Tomorrow will be the second application of the Merlot stain, the next three days will be varnishing (Formby’s Tung Oil) and buffing it out with 4/0 steel wool.

I did the drawers last week, they look spectacular.

Oh, and totally unrelated to the desk — except for perhaps being a reward to myself (one of many!) — I bought a 10″ compound miter saw.

I’ll also be buying a router and the super neat Skil Xshop… even if it isn’t spectacular, it’ll certainly do the job. With a workshop well equiped with tools I’ll be able to build just about anything — first up will be a lovely hardwood serving tray (since I can’t find one that I like anywhere that doesn’t cost as much as buying all the tools to make it) and a cabinet/bar to replace the chest of doors currently doing that job. The beauty of building that myself (it will be MDF) is that I’ll be able to build it deep enough to fully enclose my little bar fridge; nothing I’ve found anywhere can do that, even for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Mine will cost less than $100. ;)

This is why I wanted to do the blue desk before my own. I had been planning on staining my desk with the Deep Ebony from Olympic. Turns out the blue desk is also Mahogany and I used the Merlot stain on that, and wow, it’s beautiful. The brown hue of the Mahogany toned down the red of the Merlot stain and it looks quite ‘accurate’ for the wood. I used the Tung Oil for the finish, basically a wiping varnish, and I really like the look of that too.

So, I think after all this with testing the Ebony and the Lacquer, I’m going to go back to using the Merlot and Tung Oil for my desk too.

I love lacquer, but there are certain drawbacks that I’m not going to be able to overcome. While I may be able to apply all of the lacquer coats in one day, versus three to four applications of Tung Oil over the course of three to four days, I won’t be able to actually use the desk for about a week — I need to give the lacquer enough time to harden otherwise I’ll dent it.

I gave the brushing lacquer a try yesterday afternoon. The idea of brushing lacquer on is quite the joke. While I could wait until it hardens to smooth it out — and I was using decent quality brushes — it’s just not anywhere near ideal. My options are to either buy an ultra expensive natural hair brush or buy a cheap turbine hvlp sprayer… or buy six or more cans of lacquer in aerosol form. Either way, it’ll be very expensive to go with the lacquer approach. The $7 can of Tung Oil is a much more economical approach, plus it’s much less prone to collecting dust because it’s wiped on and soaks into the wood.

I’ve also been seriously researching the idea of building my dining table. Actually doing it is fairly easy, but finding the wood is less than easy. Actually, it’s downright impossible to find the sort of wood I want to make the legs out of, and if I were to go with existing options building the table would very well cost more than just buying one. I’d want it all to be solid wood, I don’t see much point in using MDF and veneering it — because afterall that’s what all of the tables I’d been considering buying are made of. Fact of the matter is that I just don’t have the tools necessary to really do it right anyway.

In regards to the lacquering of the lounge furniture; it turns out the Krylon ‘Interior – Exterior’ “paint” is indeed lacquer. While it does not have a fan spray, the material is much more ‘firmly packed’ into the spray can, and one can of Krylon will cover twice the material as the Duplicolor that exploded all over the place. It also dries a tad slower than the Rustoleum and thus doesn’t leave a dried powder everywhere.

I think I just got a little ahead of myself. I took the Duplicolor back to the auto parts store and explained what happened. The manager was a bit …hmmm, well, I’m certain he thought I was trying to screw them out of more paint. I don’t feel bad about it though, because, as I explained to him, most of the paint dripped/spurted out on the floor and the majority of it that actually went onto the table was sanded off. He only had one can of the Duplicolor left and also mentioned off hand that it was ‘old stock’ …perhaps that explains the problem, but I’m more likely to believe that the Duplicolor product just sucks. He gave me two cans of the Krylon, after I made a fairly educated guess that it was probably lacquer. I also found a website about painting model airplanes that said it was lacquer — not that one random person on the web is enough to really base as fact.

I’m confirming his statement, Krylon Interior – Exterior is lacquer. Spraying the clear lacquer topcoat would have caused such freshly sprayed “paint” to bubble, wrinkle, or otherwise lift — the lacquer solvents would have started to dissolve a chemical cured (oxidized) finish, whereas lacquer solvents do not dissolve finishes that dry by evaporation — i.e. other lacquers.

Yes, believe it, this entry is not about furniture or lacquer!

While watering my orchids and other plants in the office I discovered that my Phal has gone into spike! This is major news, very exciting — even if only to other orchid growers.

A while back my Phal started growing a new leaf, for quite a long time it had five instead of the usual four. A week or two ago the very small underleaf dropped off. This left the very, very large top leaf to become the underleaf, and the newly grown leaf then becomes to the top leaf.

This basically causes the entire plant to double in size.

The new psuedobulb of my Dend is still growing, even though some of the leaflets have dried up. I’m not sure if this is normal, it seems like it would be, or there’s some kind of problem. In either case, I think it’s doing okay now.

I really wish I had more room, it’d be great to have some more orchids. I’ve kept these two alive (though one died — not my fault — it had rotted roots when I bought it — which was my fault for not checking, but I didn’t know to check, lol) for over a year now, so apparently I’m doing alright. ;)

As it stands, I barely have enough room for all of my plants anyway. The two Pothos plants I have are growing at such an incredible rate I’m still not quite sure what exactly to do with them, lol.

Anyway, the spike. When a Phal orchid goes into ‘spike’ that means it has started to grow the ‘stick’ that the flowers will then grow from. Getting an orchid to rebloom is probably the most difficult part of growing them — at least in such lacking environmental conditions as my office, or a home in general; anything other than a humidity and temperature controlled greenhouse.