Wood Box for Veritas Shelf Pin Drilling Jig

05 Saturday Jul 2014

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A few years back, I purchased a Veritas Shelf Pin Drilling Jig from Lee Valley Tools.  The tool came in a cardboard box and consisted of 33 separate parts.

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I knew that the cardboard box would eventually degrade and this would eventually result in losing parts for the tool. I needed to do something to ensure that nothing was lost.

When I was a young boy, I remember that my father had a carpenter’s tool box that held all of his tools.  I was always fascinated by this box because when I opened it I found all his tools in perfect order.  There were slots for saws, bit brace drill handles, drill bits, hammers, screwdrivers, chisels, and so on.  Everything had a place in his box, and they were never just thrown into the bottom.

I decided that I would build a custom wooden box from red oak as a home for this tool.  After experimenting with different organizations of the parts, I arrived at the following solution:

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And when all the parts are inserted into the box, it looks like this:

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The little blocks of wood in the lid help hold all the parts in place so they do not rattle around loose inside. Later on, after the purchase of a drill press, I added the following:

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When closed, the end result looks like this:

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The end result was finished with an amber colored shellac (not shown).

 

 

Custom Entertainment Center

30 Monday Jun 2014

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This is the project that got me started in woodworking…

In 2007, we were looking to have a custom built-in entertainment system built for our home in Plano, Texas.  We drew up a sketch, and asked for bids from a few custom cabinet makers in the area.  The bids came back between $7000 and $8000.  Way out of our budget.

My father was a carpenter by trade, and also a woodworker, so I had seen him build many things.  As I thought about the bids, and the actual work required, I came to realize I could purchase the lumber and all the required tools for less than half of these bids.  But I needed some validation before embarking on this path.  So, I drew up a set of plans using Google SketchUp, and took them to my local Woodcraft store for review.  We iterated on this a few times until I was comfortable with the plan.

With a good plan, and support from my wife, I purchased the tools and lumber I would need to build this project. This included:

  • Powermatic PM2000 table saw — I did not want to skimp on the centerpiece of my woodshop.  Never been disappointed in this purchase.
  • Kreg Pocket Hole System
  • PorterCable Biscuit Joiner — The name of this blog is derived from the first two joinery systems I purchased — and which I use all the time,
  • RIgid Electric Hand Drill
  • And a few other odds and ends
  • I purchased the lumber at the local Home Depot — before finding a better wood supplier

Before starting this project, the wall where we wanted to place the built-in entertainment center looked like this:

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Real classy set up there with the TV on top of the bass woofer and all the components sitting on the floor.

After the project was completed it looked like this:

The finished product!

Which included plenty of media storage in the three drawers under the television:

Three full extension drawers for media storage.

A really big improvement over the original and personally satisfying.  We watched way too much TV after finishing this project.

Unfortunately, I did not keep accurate records of my expenses for this project.  But if memory serves, the tools were about $3000 ($2500 for the PM2000), and the lumber and other hardware was about $500.  It took me about 4 months to complete — mostly due to learning as I went.  Along the way I purchased a paint sprayer which gave a professional paint finish.  I took my time and the end result was perfect.

After the completion of the project I had all the tools necessary to tackle other projects in the home. I built custom cabinetry in our storeroom, custom closets, and customc cabinetry in the laundry room.  In 2012, I accepted a new job in Utah at Family Search.  We put the house on the market, and it sold in 7 days.  This and other cabinetry I had built in the home was the prime reason. The tools were not part of the sale and are now in my new woodshop in my home in Utah.

So, my message to the first-time woodworket is “You can do it!”.  I had never built a cabinet before in my life, but with a little googling, and with the support of my Woodcraft store, I was able to build what I had planned.  I asked lots of questions, made a lot of new woodworking friends, learned a lot of new skills, and in the end found a hobby that I dearly love.

Custom Table Saw Outfeed Table

29 Sunday Jun 2014

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A few years back I decided it was time to upgrade my table saw with a new outfeed table.  I’d been limping around with the original outfeed table I had made shortly after purchasing the saw.  At that time my setup looked like this:

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This was functional, but kludgy.  There were a couple of key problems I needed to solve:

  • The Powermatic PM2000 table saw comes with wheels that can be extended to move the saw around the shop which could not be done without detaching the outfeed table
  • There were no miter slots in the outfeed table, so anytime I wanted to use my miter fence, I had to remove the outfeed table.
  • The outfeed table was too large.

So, I started googling around for inspiration and found the following sites to be very interesting:

These had all solved the portability issue by making the table an integral part of the saw.  In addition they all provided miter extension slots.  The only thing I wanted to avoid was the use of a 5′ piece of aluminum angle as a support — it just did not look all that solid.  So, after thinking about this a while I came to the conclusion that since the base of the table saw was the most stable part of the saw, if I could arrange to transfer all the weight of the outfeed table to the base of the saw it would be very stable.  After playing around in Google’s SketchUp for a while I arrived at the following:

outfeed-table-002

This design is composed of three parts

  • The outfeed table
  • A metal frame to allow leveling of the table with the saw
  • A support extending up from base of saw to metal frame to provide support.

The resulting design resolved all my issues.  Being an integral part of the saw, it would move with the saw without any problems.  It was also smaller, but large enough to provide support when cutting plywood.  And finally, I could add miter extension slots to the outfeed table.

I purchased hard white maple for the outfeed table top, and cut all the pieces to the same width and approximate length.  Since the table was about 2 feet wide, I was going to have to glue up the table pieces in sections.  To ensure that each section was straight I constructed a jig to use as the backing to hold the boards straight.  I also used a foam roller to apply the glue to speed up the glue up.  Here is an example of how each section was glued:

outfeed-table-003

After gluing, I ran each section through the planer to remove excess glue and to ensure a uniform thickness:

Here is the result after planing the first section to a uniform thickness.

Then I glued two sections together to form a larger section:

outfeed-table-007

The larger sections were then run through the planer again before gluing the two large sections together to form the table:

Gluing the last two sections together.

The resulting table was too large for my planer (15″ capacity) so I used the orbital sander to cleanup the excess glue.  Then after cutting the table to size I ended up with the following (including all waste):

The end result

With the table ready it was time to build the frame.  I used 1/2″ metal stock which was then painted Powermatic Gold.  I’ll spare you the details of the frame build and just show you the result:

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The frame was designed allow the outfeed table height to be adjustable so that it could be perfectly aligned with the top of the table saw:

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I opted for a more open look for the frame support — also made out of hard white maple:

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Note that the frame is held in place by two pieces of angle iron.  One at the base of the table saw and another on the frame:

The brace is cut carefully to fit into the angle iron.outfeed-table-021

After cutting the miter slots, mounting the leveling brackets to the bottom of the outfeed table, and attaching to the frame, here is the result:

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In this picture I’m in the process of leveling the table, and shimming the miter slots (using sheets of paper) to match up perfectly with the table saw slots.  After cutting off the excess length from the miter slot bars, and filing the edges to match the rounded edges of the outfeed table, here is the end result ready for use:

The finished product.

And for anyone interested, here is a shot of the underside of the table showing how the table is mounted to the frame and the leveling bolts:

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This has been a great addition to my shop!  After using this for about three years there are a few things about the design I would like to point out:

  • The outfeed table is very stable.  Transferring all the weight of the table to the base proved to be the right call.
  • There support does not interfere with any activities going on around the base of the saw.  It’s very easy to cleanup around the base of the saw.
  • The saw was recently moved from Texas to Utah and after the move everything was still perfectly aligned.
  • I purposely left space between the frame and the edges of the outfeed table so I could use it as a workspace.  I’m always clamping things down on the table to work on.

At one time I was considering adding a fold-down extension to this table for really long cuts.  I’ve found that I’ve never made a cut that needed any more extension space.