Corona Virus Projects

[Great-Kazoo]

Much appreciated!

Next comes the part of any project I hate most. Finish sanding. Anyways, all the boxes need some work, and some of the joints look pretty gnarly:


The answer comes via a cup of sawdust and a bottle of superglue.


I pack the larger gaps, and surface sand until the smaller ones are full of dust, then hit it with a few drops of CA glue to lock the filler in place.


Once the glue dries, I use sanding blocks with 100, 150, and 220 grit and hand-sand everything flush. I have 80 grit in my rotary sander which I use to take down the most proud of the dovetail fingers, but I use it very sparingly, because it has a tendency to round over sharp corners. The 100 grit on the sanding block actually takes down the end-grain cherry pretty quickly. It probably only took me 10-15 minutes of sanding per box.


Hit the outside of the box with some Watco Danish. Box joints cleaned up quite nicely, all things considered.




Same process for the smaller boxes. Nibbled away at them over a couple of nights.

Nice job, as always.

Now, tell us about the L box

[BladesNBarrels]

Thank you for the filling technique. I have been using wood filler and am not really happy with the end result.

[BladesNBarrels]

My summer project was building an adjustable height stand-up desk.
With everything becoming virtual meetings, I bought a web camera, then needed an updated computer from the 10-year old desktop HP I was running.
So, I did a lot of Google searching and reading.
I ended up with a PowerSpec by Micro Center Gaming Computer (for the Nvidia Graphics Card) they pre-built and offered on sale.
Watching the astronauts and their ground control, I saw that it was 3 monitors that were the norm.
I am waiting for cataract surgery (along with 1500 other Kaiser members) so I needed bigger monitors - 27" seemed about right.
But, when I started putting all of my new toys together, I realized my desk was not big enough.
So, internet searches showed no one made a 3' x 6' desk that was adjustable height.
More searches and I bought a butcher block top from New York - sent by freight at over 125 lbs. I had to get help to move it down into my basement shop.
Then, I had the problem of tearing apart a 8' x 4' pallet made from the junkiest scrap wood I have seen. Cut it up small enough to fit into the trash tub required by my HOA.
The butcher block itself was finished to about 80 grit on one side and unfinished, really rough with gaps, on the bottom.
Lots of sanding to 220 grit, filling with wood filler, and then 2 weeks of finishing, sanding to 400 grit, finishing, buffing on both sides to prevent cupping.
The frame and lifting mechanism came from Portland in multiple UPS packages. Lots more weight in the steel frame, but no pallets required.
Then locating and fastening accessory hangers on the bottom of the desktop.
Finally, yesterday, I got help to turn the table over and set it up with my new computer system.
There is a control panel for the motorized lifting (2 motors for all that weight) that allows 4 preset heights, so I can adjust to stand up, or sit down, as the day progresses.
The computer and the UPS power supply are mounted to the bottom of the desktop so I don't need to worry about the wires as I adjust the height.
And yes, my basement stays around 65 degrees year round, so that really is a space heater under the table.

[Irving]

That's awesome. My wife has space heaters at every desk she's ever worked at.

[JohnnyEgo]

That is a sharp looking desk, man! Nice work.

Nice job, as always.

Now, tell us about the L box

11 out of 12 isn't bad. I'm vaguely amazed I didn't make that mistake more than once. But I made others...

I tried to make an object lesson out of it for my son, by telling him that we overcome our mistakes and do the best we can, and are proud of our work not in spite of them, but because of them; the imperfections show the soul of the thing in a way perfect mass production does not.

He immediately asked me to point out all the mistakes so he could decide if they were acceptable or not.

[JohnnyEgo]

I ordered some drawer pulls from China off of Amazon back in March. I'm not sure if they came preloaded with Coronavirus or not, but I am still alive. I was pleasantly surprised that they are well made and the finish layer is pretty thick, especially since they were inexpensive.

At the same time I bought the drawer pulls, I bought a cheap Chinese positioning jig that is a $20 knock-off of a $200 alignment system. And you can tell. Hard to get it to hold a measure, and I've already stripped out one of the locking pins.


But I managed to get it locked up tight enough for using a pin punch to mark the screw holes consistently across all the boxes.


For these fiddly little bits that need to be drilled with some precision, I love my 1930s egg beater Yankee drill I bought for $20 off a guy who finds them at yard sales and rehabs them. Love this thing.


I also rubbed the screw threads in wax to ease them in with a Phillips screwdriver.


Not bad at all.


The pile of unfinished work.

[encorehunter]

Thank you. I just ordered one of the drawer pulls jigs. That will save me a lot more than $20 in time.
I built one of the two barn doors today. I have to go get more rough 2x6s to build the other door.

[JohnnyEgo]

Very nice looking door! My son keeps asking me when I am going to build a picnic table, and my answer is when PT lumber pricing returns to sanity.

[JohnnyEgo]

Getting there:


Time to rebuild my two f-up boxes. Box L needs two replacement sides, because I routed the template upside down. Box A has a giant gouge on the face where the dado stack hit a small knot and tore out a chunk while cutting the box joint fingers.

I spent about six hours over two days to recreate these three parts, the vast majority of that time in machine setup and take-down. I probably could have built 12 more of these boxes in very little additional time.

Saturday: Wood Prep
Unfortunately, while I have a pile of cherry scraps in assorted sizes and thickness, I didn't have anything with sufficient length, width, and thickness to cut the sides. So that meant cutting into another cherry plank.


Then on to the jointer to be made straight and square along one face and edge.


Tablesaw squares up the opposite side.


Through the planer to clean up the remaining face.


Split it into three 1/2 inch planks on the bandsaw.


Let it sit stickered overnight to allow for release of any tension and equalize moisture content.

[JohnnyEgo]

Sunday: Wood Work

Marked out a couple of spaces that were at least reasonably close in terms of grain match to the A face piece. I am glad I marked out more than one, for reasons to follow.


I had very little warp from these, which was a really pleasant surprise. They started out at 1/2 an inch, and the jointer really only took a few hundredths off the highs and lows. Planer then made both sides flat and parallel to one another, down to 3/8 (.3750)


Trimmed up the excess and got all the pieces very close to the dimensions of the parts they were replacing.


The first set of box joints I cut was a disaster. The jig I originally used had sat in my shop since March, and while it hadn't been dropped or adjusted, wood movement had shifted position of the key. As a result, the spacing was off after the first two fingers were cut, and got progressively worse further down until the gaps were just too big to fill. Fortunately, I had marked a couple of potential grain matches, so I had some spares. In the intervening months, I had also built my new table saw sled junior, specifically for use with my dado blade. It let me clamp and easily adjust a sub-fence that I was able to dial right in with the part I was replacing.


The result was joints that actually fit better than most of the ones I made previously. I was very proud of myself, until I considered the fact that when you've done this same set of operations 15 previous times, you ought to get better just through repetition.