coffee table... so far.

Got home from work today, changed into old clothes and headed for the shop. I am working on a coffee table and matching end tables for the "new" room. I have to get that done before i can move on to the wall unit thing. It is taking a lot of time because I am using recycled oak flooring that I got off of Craig's list. The good part is that I am recycling *weee* some wood and I think it will really be beautiful when it is done. The bad part is that it takes a lot more time to sand and glue up each panel, and you have to think up ways around problems caused by the flutes cut out of the bottom of each board. I got the bottom shelf glue-up done and dry fit it today. That worked out really well. Here it is, now leave me alone. I have work to do. (click on image to expandify it)
EDIT: just to be clear, this is a dry fit, not finished, and, yes, the ends of the top will be trimmed.

Jay Leno is too cool.

Okay, this machine is too cool, and he has one. I have seen 3D printers before, but watch near the end when they scan a Crescent wrench and it duplicates it FULLY ASSEMBLED. Yea, if I were Jay, I would own one too. It is worth clicking on to get a better video, the quality is very good.

Saturday

Worked on the coffee table all day and got all of the pieces made. Tomorrow I will cut the mortise and tennons and it should be ready to glue up. Weeee.
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This is a bit of fun..

Thursday

Below you can see that I made a font using my handwriting. It was really slick and took about five minutes using this free website.

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You know... as I spend time in the workshop cutting wood and trying to figure out how things can be done better I often think of 2 people that got me interested in such things. My dad and Jim Gumbol. I am not sure my dad knows how much he influenced me. I did not until the last few years. Every time I hook a wire onto a nut I can hear him telling me to thread it so that the screw pulls the wire in instead of pushing it out. There are so many things like that. And the things that he did not tell me, I figured out myself because he instilled that curiosity that has made me always wonder why things work. It might also be the reason that I have to count the lugnuts on every car and truck I see. Thanks for that, Dad. The other person was Jim Gumbel, our shop teacher at Keota High School. I had "JG" as a teacher for woodworking and metals. When I was a senior, he had 2 classes going on at the same time that I had independent shop where we could make whatever we wanted using any of the tools. He told me that if I would teach his drafting class for him, he would give me an "A". So I did. I did not mention that I had skipped over drafting class and went right into woods. He just assumed I had taken it and I just assumed I could do it. I did and it was kind of fun. A lot of times when I am working on wood, usually around the table saw, I think that it would be kind of nice to tell him that I still have a lot of interest in the things that he taught me. Then today Richard Ellis came through where I work and mentioned that he had passed away. He was one of the 3 teachers at KHS that I really respected. JG, Kuhlman, and naturally Hultman. I liked some of the other teachers, but did not respect them that much. There were some that I did not like or respect. Donny "one eye" Phillips did not deserve respect and he got none from anybody. I did not like Kuhlman, but I respected him because he was able to teach me Algebra and Geometry when I thought I was too stupid to learn it. That was based on my previous experience trying to learn it with "Shifty" Shaffer, who was probably one of the worst teachers ever. But JG and Hultman I really liked and respected. If you can get a kid to do both of those things, you can get them to do anything.
So RIP, JG. I wish that I had gotten to tell ya'....

face doner

THIS is just kind of weird. Don't go here if you don't like spiders. Poke him with your mouse our grab a leg and drag him around. Well done. Pointless.. but well done.

fence done

I just got the router table fence done. I used the laminate flooring that I had left over from the project here at home and made the face of the fence with it. That stuff is slick and tough so I thought it would be ideal. I made a opening in the top that sucks air through channel in the fence away from the bit. I was not sure if that would work or not, but it turned out really well. I don't really know why I put Lexan on the top part, but it was kind of cool to watch the chips go flying into the channel. I ran a bunch of oak through it and there was absolutely no dust escaping. I was kind of nervous about cutting the hole, but it worked out great. I have had ideas before that I thought were great and wondered why nobody ever did it that way before... only to find out there was a reason that nobody did it that way. I have to build doors for the front of the cabinet, but that will have to wait. I have too many other irons in the fire right now.

Sunday

Working on a coffee table today. Had to sand down a bunch of planks and then rip them at 45 degrees to make the end posts. That was a lot of work and noise.
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Here is everything you could want to know about Barbie.
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You thought it was expensive to fill up your car? STORY