Sunday, January 31, 2016

2015 Woodworking in Review

I think this is the 4th one I've done.  This year, got a tremendous amount done, lots having to do with stuff around the house.

Started with the stairs, what an absolute pain.  The pain started with the previous installers gluing the MDF trim before nailing it.  It made it nearly impossible to remove and lost of chisel work to scrape off.  Someone deserves a donkey punch.


Then, I did a ton of nagging things around the shop.  After an especially painful house project, I always pick 1-2 projects in the shop to help organize it or make things more efficient.  Here are some:



What I call the "roubo assembly bench."  Made from salvaged cedar posts that I saved from the deck railing.  Not the right wood, but I need to be able to move this around and since it's salvaged, I don't care of it I cut into it with the track saw.


Took lots of scrap plywood and made dividers for all the garage drawers.  Can actually find stuff now


A shooting board with the veritas shoot board plane and track.  Thing works awesome


Just a simple charging station installed with a french cleat.

Then on to a stack of hardwood floors for the living room and dining room.  That was basically the month of february.

My "take a break shop project" this time was what I call the "roubo sharpening station"  Made from offcuts lets from the oak stair project.  Many of the pieces were crazy curly, but were on the butt end of the tree which had some bad checking.  Thought it would be cool to book match the drawer front, but now that I look at it, not too fond of it.


Then it was on to the family room hardwood floors.  That was the month of april.  Notice we tore down the corner entertainment center to the right of the fireplace.

Then there was my sabbatical, worked on my brother Tom's 4 drawer chest, and Sister and Brother-inlaws pair of end tables.  I can't see to find any pictures of them.

Towards the end of my sabbatical, was the deck railing project.  Here is a picture of a lot of the ipe that was purchased for it.














The ipe 4x4 were 10' long and about $100 each.  That was some seriously heavy and expensive lumber.



Built something like 6 different jigs in order to cut all the joinery in the railing and posts.  Here it shows all the dados in the posts

'
With the steel cabling installed.


Pictures don't do it justice how much work this was.  Replaced all the lame connections the previous installers used (like hundreds of 2" brad nails), with stuff actually up to code.  Also wired, the low voltage led lights.  Can kinda see the outdoor kitchen off to the right, built that right after the deck, but again, forgot to take pics.  Top cap is a ipe 2x4 with a ipe 1x6 on top.  The 2x4 has a groove in order to house the low voltage wiring for the lights.  The 2x4 is connected to the 4x4 posts with stainless, heavy duty pocket screws in a dado.


And some planter boxes to boot with the leftover ipe.  I don't remember why we ended up with so much extra...

Back to my break projects after those beasts were done:

A nail cabinet inspired by Roy Underhill.  Mine is pained with real milk paint.  Drawers made from left over scraps, including lots of resawn laminated hardwood offcuts.


Next to my dutch tool chest.  Blue tape is for the labels.



And finally, a new William Ng inspired sharpening pond on top of the Roubo sharpening bench.  The old one was just too high and wasn't enough surface area for all my stones.  Also, the old one leaked because I used a cheap storage bin, this one is made with a small bus tray.  All the wood were scraps, including hardwood floor offcuts, legs were made out of soft curly maple I salvaged from the cord of firewood we bought.  I decided against a pump and faucet, it was just easy enough for me to dunk the stone in the pond and the faucet just seems like it would get in the way.

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