Mr. Bun's Rabbit House

Mr. Bun's House - concept drawing

Today I finished something that has been on the project list since before I started the cold frames—a "playhouse" for Mr. Bun, a friend's rabbit.

Mr. Bun's House - Parts and measurements

The plan, based on the rabbit playhouse that Mr. Bun has outgrown, was fairly easy to build with two exceptions: the circular window and rounded top doorway. These were the perfect opportunity to try a simple circle cutting jig I'd seen in Fine Woodworking, which screws to the center of the circle and uses a guide bushing that rides in holes drilled at the correct distance—1/2 the diameter of the circle or arc.

This worked well, but I did learn a disadvantage to using this simple setup instead of a more complicated jig that incorporates a router base: if you are not careful to keep downward pressure the router can ride up out of the jig and eat a chunk out of the jig and your work piece fairly quickly. Look closely to the right of the door on the photo below and you will see what appears to be a slight ding—this was the result of learning this the hard way. Fortunately the damage is slight and Mr. Bun should never notice.

The other challenge with the routed circles was that the router bit was too short to cut through the entire thickness of the plywood. I hadn't realized this before starting and so planned for clearance above the bench. I used double stick tape to attach two scraps of plywood to the rabbets on the back of the front piece. These scraps screwed to the workbench to hold the piece stationary and above the bench. Since the router didn't cut through from the top, in the end I drilled the guide hole for the jig screw through the plywood and flipped the piece over to cut the rest of the way through from the other side.

Rabbet Joints on the corners

Of course, when building a rabbit playhouse, one must incorporate rabbet joints wherever possible—one on each corner, and one all the way around the top. These appear to have worked well as both a gluing surface and squaring reference.

Mr. Bun's House - completed

Several years ago a graphic designer friend of mine agreed to design a hallmark for me. I've been stamping my work with it and learning how to make the best impression. I'm still experimenting, but the big innovation this time through is the use of a dead-blow mallet, which eliminated the bounce I've been experiencing. I recently started inking the stamp before pounding it, but the ink I'm using is too thin—it looks crisp to start, but starts to seep into the surrounding grain before it dries. I think I need to find a thicker ink, or stop inking the imprints.

Hallmark on the inside of Mr. Bun's roof

French Polish Tutorial at Sauer & Steiner

On Saturday, Konrad Sauer posted a short illustrated tutorial on applying French Polish on his blog. It makes the idea of applying this finish, which I've always heard is tedious, almost approachable.

Radial Arm Saw Fix for a Scary Problem

Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of constructing cold frame lights, my Radial Arm Saw stopped working. This saw is the central machine of my shop: I use it to do just about everything from ripping to chopping to mitering. And though replacing it would be possible, it would hurt—in more ways than one.

Before I turned it off, the saw worked fine through all the cuts I performed, and it did not slow or stop until I turned the switch. There was no smoke or hot smell, and the cuts were not through overlarge or dense material. But when I turned the switch again the saw just buzzed; the blade moved almost imperceptibly in the wrong direction but did not turn at all. After a few tries with the saw still buzzing—turning off, turning on; unplugging, replugging; pressing the reset button, and poking the blade with a stick (probably a dumb idea as I think on it)—there was a little click and the saw no longer reacted to the switch at all.

Perhaps everyone in a situation like wonders if they caused the problem somehow. I wondered, because this once, for the first time, I had turned the switch in the opposite direction from usual. It had to be just coincidence that the two events occurred together. But it was the only thing I could think of that might have caused the saw to stop.

I took out the switch, checked the connections, and reassembled it. Still nothing. My saw is wired with a plug and socket between the switch and the motor so the motor can be easily taken out of the arm and taken elsewhere. I thought "Maybe I can plug in something else and test the switch?" but the plug was on the switch side and the socket on the motor side. So I swapped the two and was ready to test the "broken switch" theory. I plugged in and ran a shop lamp and then the shop vacuum: the switch was definitely OK.

It was in the motor. Again I pressed the red reset button several times and tested the saw with no result. It seemed I was going to have to open the motor to get this fixed, but I'd been in the shop for much of the day and I was frustrated: I decided I wasn't going to get it fixed that day.

Later I had a chance to talk with my friend Sean, who suggested I visit the Old Woodworking Machines forum to look for (or ask for) help. Sure enough, I found a comment string that suggested some possible actions that didn't involve taking apart the motor.

Back in the basement I pressed the reset button harder. There was a promising click. I plugged the saw back it and it was back to buzzing (but still not turning). I was making progress! On to step 2. I rapped on the motor housing—especially near the reset switch—with the handle of a screw driver. Believe it or not, after that the saw worked.

So for the moment, all is well again.

"Making and Mastering Wood Planes" in Print

Short and sweet:

This is an excellent book, not just for learning to make James Krenov style hand planes, but also for understanding how planes work. I found that much of the information on fettling the blades and chipbreakers applies directly to cast planes as well.

http://www.davidfinck.com/newswork.htm

Fettling: Making the Shop More Functional

I think beginning woodworkers (and I still consider myself a beginning woodworker) are challenged by all the setup required for the shop to work well. Many tools are sold looking like they are functional, but with serious flaws. And even those that don't have serious flaws need fettling to perform at their potential. These tasks often seem endless.

The router table pictured above came from an estate, complete with router, for about $25. I knew I needed a router table, and I also knew it would be a while before I make the one I have planned. This seemed like a good solution (still does), but the the stock fence, which was designed to look like would allow straight guided cuts as well as small scale jointing, had challenges.

Ryobi is the manufacturer, and the table and fence are made from aluminum. They look like they were cast and machined to be flat, but the fence itself curves significantly. When I placed a straightedge against it, there was a visible deflection of up to 1/8" at the center. Whether I used it with the plastic guide surfaces or without, the fence caused anything that ran over it to stall when it hit the gap, and the act of correcting this problem would put a wrinkle in the line of the routed groove.

I had to fix the router fence before I could route the slots on the cold frame lights. And to do that I needed to finish setting up the jointer (finally). I spent a night last week setting up the jointer, and about an hour and a half this weekend flattening a fence and setting it up to receive the bolts. Two more fettling tasks done. And the router table performed to the tolerances I required (something it would not have done before adding the new face to the fence).

It turns out that the new surface is not actually flat, and some day I may sink the bolts further in and run it over the jointer while it is attached to the fence. Today is not that day.

Very Small Router Bits Used for Inlay

About a year ago I saw a post by Jameel at Khalaf Oud Luthiery discussing his process for inlay. In it he mentioned very tiny router bits (3/32") which he used to route the most of the mortise. Today I found a site where you can get bits as small as 1/32".

Very cool. I expect this will be useful one day.

Exploded views of the Cold Frame

Exploded Frame

Exploded Light

The exploded views above give a good idea for just how simple the Cold Frame design is. The 2 x 2 strips at the bottom of the frame are sacrificial parts that can be replaced when the rot gets too bad.

The hardest part of this project is making the sloped sides and cutting the notches for the central brace. The notches really should have a sloped bottom to match that of the frame sides. I achieved this on my frame by marking 1 1/2" down on the top side and 1 5/8" down on the bottom side of each support. I cut to the lines with a hand saw (so the bottom of the kerf was sloped) and chiseled out the waste between the two. For some reason, on both frames the slot on the front of the frame was perfect, but the slot on the back of the frame had side-to-side slop. I think I still need practice cutting to a line, especially with a cross-cut saw.

This weekend I will start preparing the parts for the lights. This should be fairly simple: I need to route 1/4 inch slots in the sides, create the stops (the little blocks that hold the glass in), and cut the frame parts to length. If I have time left over, I'll also make the notched sticks that allow propping of the lights.

I chose to make the lights with tempered glass, which should deliver next Friday. It is very expensive: $88.62 per pane of tempered glass. When I priced other materials, I found that either Plexiglas or regular glass was 25% less expensive, and Polycarbonate was 25% more expensive: $101.28 per pane. Wow!

I hope this frame will still be working in 20 years: that might make the investment of time and materials worthwhile. The experience of making it? Priceless.

Compost Bins Completed

At the beginning of the summer I designed two possible compost bins based on designs in the book "Let it Rot". Last weekend I finally finished the one I chose to complete (the model with boars on four sides, which won on the merits of hiding the pile from our neighbors).

This is what we had before:

This is what we have now:

There are a lot of nuts and bolts in this beast:

And especially in the middle posts:

The bins look great and are functional, but given the choice to start over I would definitely go with the other design. All the hardware on this design was very expensive, as was the 1 x 6 lumber. The other design would have been easily as functional and because the floor and three sides are made with 2 x materials and cheaper connectors it would have been much less expensive and easier to construct.

But this design taught me quite a bit: I a built a jig for drilling the holes in the posts an equal distance apart, that worked perfectly except that I measured incorrectly and had the holes about 1/8" further apart than on the slats. It wasn't so much of a problem with the outer sides, where the bolts go through one post and one slat, but it was impossible to get through two posts and one slat. I ended up bolting through one hole and drilling out the second hole for each slat once the sides were mostly assembled. Also, did I mention that there are a LOT of nuts, bolts, and washers? And on the center side I was so distracted by the puzzle of getting the bolts in, that I installed the two back posts upside down. So I was able to take out and reinstall those 12 bolts twice. Fun.

Building a Cold Frame for the Winter

Last winter I read a great book on winter gardens called Four Season Harvest. According to this book, one of the keys to having garden vegetables year round (or at least during an extended season) is the use of a cold frame.

The book describes how to build one of these mini greenhouses in detail, but the width was too great for our garden beds. So after measuring to be sure (3' 3" maximum) I sat down to draw out new plans in Sketchup on Sunday morning. Then I cataloged what I had on the wood rack and what I needed to buy. The whole list looked like this:

Base:

• 2 sides 3' 3" x 11.25" x 1.5" to be tapered to 7.25" at one end
• 1 back 7' 9" x 11.25" x 1.5"
• 1 front 7' 9" x 7.25" x 1.5"
• 2 long sacrificial bottoms 7' 9" x 1.5" x 1.5"
• 2 short sacrificial bottoms 3'3" x 1.5" x 1.5"
• 1 cross brace 3' 4" x 1.5" x 1.5"

Light (x4):

• 2 light sides 3' 3" x 1.5" x 1.5"
• 2 light ends 21" x 1.5" x 1.0"
• 2 stops (to hold the glass in) 3" x .75" x .5"
• 1 piece of tempered glass 1' 10.5" x 3' 1.5"

Notched prop sticks: (to hold the lights up and vent the frame during warmer days)

• 4 prop sticks 2.0" x 1.5" x 16" (two inch notches with one inch of material in between)
  

Other:

• 50 Kreg self-tapping 2.5" pocket screws (everything is screwed together)
• 16 Kreg self-tapping 1" Pocket screws (or some other 1" screw for holding the stops on)

A trip to Home Depot and Lowe's later I had all the supplies, including the 1/4 router bit I needed for milling the grooves the glass will sit in. Sunday afternoon was dedicated to milling most of the parts for what will become two cold frames. Many of the parts were cut down from larger lumber. The 2 x 2 stock, for example all started as 2 x 4 or larger.

To cut the tapered ends, I marked the end points of each side (minus about 4" for clearance and support), screwed a piece of pine from one mark to the other, registered it against the front edge of my Radial Arm Saw table, and set the saw blade even with the longer end. I was ready to make the cut, but first I set two combination squares to the depths of those marks. On each of the other three ends I just marked the length from the combination squares and screwed down the same piece of pine as a straightedge. It worked perfectly.

The only hand work was cutting angled notches in the front and back. Here I learned that crosscut really can make a difference, and since the first notch was started with a rip saw and finished with a crosscut saw the fit of the cross brace was a little sloppy. The second one was nice and tight, just like I would have wanted. In the picture below, the blemish is a knot hole.

I nailed the sacrificial sections to the bottoms of all the sides (these can be removed and replaced when rot starts to become a problem), and took one set of parts out into the yard to screw it together with Anne's help. It came out well. With luck, I'll get the lights done next weekend.

Sam Maloof Leaves an Empty Chair

Sam Maloof passed away last Thursday. He was one of my woodworking heroes: someone that left corporate America to build enduring and beautiful furniture and succeeded wildly. I know he was tremendously lucky as well as talented, but his story still inspires.

If you must be dead to be a legend, a woodworking legend was born Thursday. Thank you, Sam. (Hat tip to Brian)

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-sam-malo of23-2009may23,0,3907018.story

Building the Jointmaker Pro (Part 2)

In the last post on assembling the Jointmaker, I forgot the picture of required tools. The Allen wrenches came with the Jointmaker, but everything else you'll need on hand. The (accurate) 6" square was extremely useful. The small hammer and needle-nosed pliers were only used once, but without the pliers, it would be very hard to drive the spring pin.

These tiny Phillips head screws hold the saw blade into the spine. I used the longer screw driver to put them in initially, but later (when tightening the blade in) I found the stubby driver to be the right choice.

Here's a picture of the spine with screws in place (though not tightened).

Next was the attachment of saw blade guides. This required the screws and washers pictured above. Notice the very thin washers: these are just .010 inch thick and sit between the saw blade guide and the front spine guide. Getting them in without dropping them was a challenge.

The first guide went on without a problem, and I was pleased with the speed and ease of the assembly. But the second guide occasioned much swearing: Everything seemed to be going well, until the front screw bound up. I backed it out, reseated it, and tried again with the same result. The screw would not go, and I was not going to force it.

I examined both the screw and the tapped hole. The screw had a white residue on the front of it, and the threads inside looked like they might be stripped. I panicked and immediately wrote to Bridge City tools (both to John Economaki and Michael Berg - the production manager. At least for now, their email addresses are included in the User's Guide. And even though it was the weekend, I received a reply from John before the end of the next day. Had I tried scraping the threading gently with an awl, or something else pointed? There might be some gunk in the threads.

The awl couldn't get the right angle, so I made a tool with a small brad:

Sure enough, what looked like cross threading was gunk. After scraping the threads thoroughly, I tried assembly again. This time I could drive the screw past the problem, and a few runs back and forth wore away what was left of the gunk.

Now the entire transmission was assembled. For some reason, the auto focus really didn't want to focus on the anodized aluminum. The picture above was the best I could do (it focused on the thread adjustment).

The instructions called for a transmission check, holding the unit in a bench vise and temporarily attaching the handle to take it, literally for a spin. Everything worked as described: I was ready to install the transmission in the table.

The travelers hold the transmission square to the front and back, and ride in the protractor slots at the front and back of the unit. Notice the white spots on each of them: these are nylon set screws that allow width adjustment to take out slop (there wasn't much) in the fit between the travelers and the front and back plates. The fitting was done before attaching the keel assembly to the frame.

Here's the front traveler being fit to the frame.

The keel is slid through the back plate.

The shaft is inserted into the front traveler.

And the back of the keel rests on the back traveler. Now the keel can be attached and adjusted.

And we're ready to attach the travelers to the front and back plates.

Locking knobs and nylon washers, which prevent damage to the aluminum front and back plates.

The knobs, once installed, will hold the keel in place. These are only finger tightened lightly until adjustments are made to the keel.

The jam nut will hold the handle in place with friction once it has been seated.

The handle screws on, and...

The jam nut is tightened against the bottom of the handle.

These four screws secure the keel on the travelers.

Notice on the shaft, the three nuts. These are part of a clever system for setting depth of cut for exact repetition. The stop that fits there allows perfect depth of cut every time (assuming you set the depth right in the first place).

The saw is beginning to take shape. Now it needs the sliding tables.

There are four dovetailed ways that for the supports for the tables and six aluminum spacers that make two rigid tracks for the tables to ride on.

The tracks slide into the front and back plates to form the rest of the frame.

Now there is a lot more screwing to be done, in the literal sense of the word.

I'm not sure how many screws are seated and tightened during assembly, but there are a lot of them.

Once the tracks are tightened lightly, the tracks are checked and adjusted to make sure they are coplanar.

These four sliders fit the dovetailed ways and make the suspension on which the tables ride. The bumpers prevent damage to the sliders by preventing them ramming into the front and back plates.

Here's one of the sliders after attachment.

And one of the bumpers installed next to it.

One of the sliders for each table has screw holes, the other has slots to allow adjustment back and forth. The one with slots is not fully tightened and once the tables are placed on the ways, with the sliders riding in the dovetails, you pull the slotted slider toward the edge of the table before tightening it down.

The fences attach with square headed bolts, that ride in slots on the bottom of the table.

This is a dovetail nut, which fits into a sacrifice fence and holds it in place. I'll probably want to get a router bit that cuts a matching dovetail at some point, so I can replace the fence when it gets too worn.

The dovetail nut attaches to the front of the fence.

Saw teeth on a seriously thin and well sharpened blade.

The blade inserts between the saw guides and is tightened into the saw spine. Easy to do.

Flip stops allow repeatable angles. There is a track on both the front and back plates. Set the blade at the correct angle, but a flip stop up against it, tighten it down, and you have an instantly repeatable setting that can be moved out of the way when not in use.

Installation of the flip stops requires some coordination, but with a thumb through from the back, and an index finger holding the square nut in back, it goes on quickly.

After all these pictures, I can't believe I didn't take one of the full assembly, but I didn't. I managed to secure the saw to the table and take some test cuts: smooth as glass.

Compost Bin Design Session

Today I assembled two thoughts for compost bins:

The first is built on a foundation of cinder blocks and has hardware cloth on three sides for ventilation. The fronts are prevented from spreading by a 2x4 attached across the front.

The second is modeled on a traditional New Zealand Box design that I found in the book "Let it Rot". The posts are driven directly into the ground and the slats on three sides are attached to the posts with half inch gaps between them for ventilation. Across the top is a "spreader bar" that prevents the tops from bulging out under the weight of compost. Both have slats that can be slid in at the front to build a taller pile that doesn't fall out.

We'll probably build the second one, because it hides the contents from the neighbors—somehow eggshells and vegetable scraps don't inspire confidence in the modern world, and we've removed many of the bushes that once obscured the compost heap from public viewing.