In other news

I'm building a new rifle. I will be getting the rest of the parts over the next week or so and I will post pics when it's done.

It's been a while....

I really need to be more vigilant on updating this thing. This will be a very short post with some pics, so here goes.

I recently finished a couple of loft beds for a friend's daughters. Upon delivery and setup, I learned a valuable lesson on not believing everything you read on the internet. I got the twin mattress dimensions there and the mattresses had to really be stuffed into the frames. I have another project to work right now and then I will be building a couple of desks for each girl, and then I will take the beds back and fix them so the mattresses fit better. Anyway, here are a few pics of the beds as they sit right now.







I really need to be more vigilant on updating this thing. This will be a very short post with some pics, so here goes.

I recently finished a couple of loft beds for a friend's daughters. Upon delivery and setup, I learned a valuable lesson on not believing everything you read on the internet. I got the twin mattress dimensions there and the mattresses had to really be stuffed into the frames. I have another project to work right now and then I will be building a couple of desks for each girl, and then I will take the beds back and fix them so the mattresses fit better. Anyway, here are a few pics of the beds as they sit right now.

Paddle Making

So, the guy who bought my canoe bought "custom" wooden paddles from some dude on the internet. A guy who makes at least a good part of his living making canoe paddles. My buddy paid $160 ea. for two paddles. I was looking at one the other day and was somewhat less than impressed.

I told my friend that I really couldn't talk since I had not made a canoe paddle but the quality and craftsmanship were somewhat lacking. My buddy agreed that he wasn't happy with the craftsmanship considering what he paid. This was exactly the motivation I needed to get busy making a paddle though and the fruits of my labor are in the pics below. This is my first paddle, and I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

I used left over strips from the canoe for the blade and a strip of scrap white oak for the spine. Then I laminated some mahogany that I have for the remainder of the shaft. Finally, having decided on a "T" style grip instead of a palm grip, I used some more white oak to mortise and tenon (with a through tenon) to attach that. I also wedged the through tenon. The grip looks a little clunky for a "T" grip, but it feels like a palm grip.

I glassed the blade with some extra glass cloth that I had lying around. It is 6 oz. but I think if I started to make paddles, I would get my hands on some 4 oz instead.

I finished it today and I will be taking it on a canoe trip next weekend with the boyscouts. I will pass it around to all the adults to get their feedback on what they like and, more importantly, what they don't like, and I will incorporate the changes into #2.

Gluing the mahogany spine/shaft.

Epoxy is messy!

Just signed with a sharpie before glassing. This paddle will be worth a fortune some day!

The finished product!

Bathroom Cabinet Done!

I finished the bathroom cabinet pretty quickly. Once again, I deviated from the plans and didn't put the door on. This is mainly because the cabinet is only 6" deep, take away nearly 3/4" for the back and another 5/8" for the door, and you wind up with a pretty shallow cavity for anything useful, so it made more sense to make it an open shelf instead.Corner detail. The bathroom is too narrow to allow a shot of the dovetails.

The whole thing.

Cherry Bathroom Cabinet

This drawing is about the most in depth drawing I ever do. Most of my plans are in my head. This is actually (for me) a very detailed working drawing. For the most part, whenever I build anything, I work from a VERY rough sketch with dimensions penciled in. Rarely do I stay with the actual design. This can be discouraging to my wife. I promised her a coffee table in white oak; very country looking. This evolved to a more contemporary design in cherry and walnut. She wound up with a pine blanket chest for a coffee table instead. I know it can be confusing for some, but to me it made perfect sense and turned out exactly as I thought (eventually).

This is a rough drawing of the cabinet I am building for my half-bath to hang above the toilet. This drawing has the door with two panels (I'm using bookmatched spalted maple with the cherry) but I decided to do a single bookmatched panel instead.

Glued up and out of clamps. The shelf is just set in place for now and will be glued in after the back is installed.

Here's a little bit of a perspective view.

And from the other side. The dovetails are hand cut. Partly because I'm too cheap to buy a dovetail setup for my router, and mostly because I want to be able to do them by hand. This is actually the third set I have ever cut. I do have some improvements to make to my technique (mainly patience) but each set gets better.

And here is the book matched panel for the door I will be assembling soon. Am I the only one that sees the eagle bottom center?

New Tablesaw

Well, now that I had turned over the Prospector to the rightful owner (and gotten paid) it was time to look for new tools. I was going to buy a new table saw to replace my old Craftsman contractor model. I was thinking of the new Rigid with the granite tops. Then, as I thought about it, I convinced myself that that is not exactly an upgrade and as such, not worth spending any money on. Not that I don't think the Rigid would be an improvement over the one I have, just not better enough to justify the expense.

Aside from that, I wasn't prepared to spend the money on a cabinet saw, because they are really expensive and I really didn't want to pay for one. So I had convinced myself that I didn't need a new saw anyway and the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Then I started poking around on Craigslist. That's where I found this baby.

A Delta unisaw 52" unifence "Grand Edition" Model 36-816. I noticed that the guy had it marked down to $950 from $1000. A bargain at either price. The saw is about ten years old, and that is all time in a hobby workshop, so I know it wasn't subject to running 6-8 hours a day 5 days a week (which means low hours). This saw could handle that type of running though and still be worth the money I paid for it.

Needless to say, I couldn't pass on this deal because I would never see one like it again. I borrowed a trailer from a friend, hooked it up to my Danger Ranger (with 259,000 miles) and took off to pick it up. The guy I got it from had already sold the other tools he had that I would have been interested in, but he gave me a boatload of lumber. All cherry, walnut, mahogany and curly maple. I tried to pay him for the lumber as it was worth about $800, but he wouldn't take anything for it.

I didn't travel 2.5 hours to fight with someone to take my money, so I loaded my truck and took off.

Now I have to wire my shop. My new saw needs 220v service (I have none in there). Not to mention that I really need more outlets. I originally had 2 pairs of outlets on the same circuit, and couldn't run my shop vac with any other tools without throwing a breaker. I added two circuits at 110v and one at 220v, all at 20A, so they should be able to take any load I place on them with my small shop tools. Here are some pics of the conduit and outlets I ran.

You can see some of the lumber I got from the table saw guy.

I know the shop is a mess, but as I get the wiring done, it will get straightened up.

Note that I also ran conduit and boxes for a third circuit should it become necessary. I probably should have run the stuff for an additional 220v circuit for a future dust collector, but I will hold on that until I locate one.

Now I can get on some other projects that are pending and need to get done.

Photos of the Complete Prospector 16.

Well, here is the finished product. Pay attention to the size difference between the Prospector and my Bob's Special. I will have another post soon with the photos of the toilet cabinet I am building now.