Storage Bed Frame Phase 1

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Chase

Storage is a premium in our house and rarely used bedroom items like blankets and extra pillows take up a lot of space. I looked around for ideas and instead of trying to build a better chest of drawers than we currently have, I went for a new bed frame with storage. I couldn’t find many good examples of bed frames that keep the boxsprings and provide a decent storage solution. So I designed my own.

The frame is going to be in two halves that are joined by a narrow bit of plywood to tie the two together. This makes each half narrower and lighter, and get it the right size for drawers.

Most of the body parts are made of plywood that will get covered in maple face framing. I used pocket holes to aid in assembly and came back afterwards with screws from the other side to help with strength. Each base has 3 cavities of the same size. The ones closest to your head will have a false drawer front because our night stands sit too close for them to be useful.

Suburbans make decent panel saw platforms

Pocket holes in the uprights

My saw benches make a good assembly platform

Marker sticks for repeatability

The drawers are going to be big and heavy, so instead of messing with metal drawer slides I am just going to have them slide on the floor. Each drawer cavity got some clean pine along the edges to help horizontally guide the eventual drawers. Everything is recessed 6″ to prevent me from banging my foot on the corners like I always do with our metal bed frame.

The left and right half with drawers all needed face framing. I hand planed all the surfaces, and went with waterlox varnish (a thinned tung oil) for the finish based on my lessons at the tampa woodworking show. I am pretty sure I applied it too heavy, but I really like the results.

I did the same for two long sets of rail to go across the upper portion of the drawer area. It isn’t a traditional way to do face framing, but it was much easier to do and will still look good. Everything got strapped down with pocket hole screws.

With all the face work done I could finally assemble the whole lot. Pocket holes around the edges will hold on the lip that keeps the box springs from falling off. I screwed up a cut and had to do the center spanner in two pieces instead of one. A few alignment instructions later and it was ready to install in the bedroom.

The installation went pretty well and after a few weeks of sleeping on the frame we are really happy. The height is good, the frame is sturdy and no banged toes!

Currently I am using a few pieces of pine as the boarder to keep the box springs in place. I need one across the head, because the boxsprings have slid up since we installed them. The bedskirt ended up covering most everything. I was going to be more decorative with the box spring trim, but now will probably keep it simple. Phase 1 complete, phase 2 will be the trim and a piece to cover up the bottom face, and phase 3 will be the drawers.

Adirondack Add-Ons

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Chase

I was a bad woodworker and bought a set of adirondack chairs. Yeah I know shameful. In my defense they were really cheap and reasonably comfortable. They are going to sit on the porch with the buns and they are just going to chew it half to death anyways. I felt we needed a few accessories to go with the zazzy new chairs. First, a cup holder!

Being that they are wooden chairs I can screw or glue anything I want to them! I took a 3 inch hole saw and made a cup sized hole biased slightly to the one side of a board. I used my largest forstner bit to make a depression for the cup to sit in. Unfortunately even my narrow based pub glasses were too big, so I ditched that part. A bit of sawing and sanding later and I had a notch for my coffee mug handles to fit into.

I made two sets and attached them to the end of the arm rest on each chair. A spare block added more distance between the top retainer ring, and the base. I did some shaping with saws, spokeshaves and sanders to get something a little curvy after the fact. Not exactly gorgeous work, but it does a great job of holding your drink!

Side table

The arms on an adirondack are supposed to be mega wide for holding spare items like drinks and plates. I got the drinks covered, but a side table would be helpful. I had some spare pine lying around so I put it to good use.

Speaking of good use, I made use of my dividers and compass. The dividers helped center up the upright board quickly, then the compass made some pleasing curves for the band saw. The top sections turned out great, but the feet are a little awkward. I still have a lot to learn about curves and proportions.

I assembled everything with screws because it was quick and this is going to see a lot of abuse on the porch from rabbits and spilled food. Not exactly fine furniture.

Though not fine furniture, it looks really good considering it is about 15 dollars of pine, and a single evening of work. It will hold our plates and various other outdoor items for years to come. That is assuming the buns don’t chew it down first.

Mother’s Day Gift #2

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Chase

I had another gift in mind using the family wood. I couldn’t leave my mother-in-law out. She is an avid reader, so I stuck with the book theme and made a set of bookmarks. This is the thinnest resawing I have done, and I was planning to sand down even further. We are getting into thin veneer territory here. A fun project with a little skill building thrown in. Cue up that gorgeous family walnut!

I planed the right side flat to have a good surface to start with, then used a marking gauge to mark off a plank of about 1/8″. I might try my hand at doing thinner next time, but this was pretty thin for me.

I cut two just in case, but as it turns out each one was wide enough to make two bookmarks. I left one quite long, and kept a full thickness of the top inch or so. The rest of that one got thinned dramatically. The intention is that the thicker portion will add strength, and keep a portion of it proud of the book when shut.

The shorter one was thinned across its entire length till it was pretty flexible. To keep it from splitting It found a small piece of purpleheart and glued it on with the grain running perpendicular to the walnut grain. A lot of shaping at the sanders gave it a nice look and feel. The purpleheart piece will also keep the bookmark from slipping down inside the book.

Once sanded smooth both pieces got a few layers of spray lacquer. The shorter one should be good for novels and other small paperbacks while the big one should be great for larger hardcovers.

Mother’s Day Gift

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Chase

There are some pieces of walnut that have been in my family since my mom was a small child. They were used to hold things down and as ballast in a sailboat. Some sections are incredibly solid, while others are somewhat worm eaten. I needed a good mother’s day gift and got inspiration from what I call, the family wood.

The pieces are 2-3 inches thick and 6-8 inches wide. Quite a heft to deal with on the miter saw.

I chopped off that nice rotted wormy section at the top for this project and a few others I have in mind. I think with a bit of cleanup this could be a perfect book end for all of mom’s fancy book creations.

It probably isn’t heavy enough on its own to hold the books up. I considered drilling it out to add shot and a grippy bottom. Instead I cut a small relief in the bottom to allow a metal tongue to protrude. The weight of a few books on this tongue should resist movement. The metal is a bit of 20ish gauge sheet steel. A good hit with a center punch depressed the area enough so that a countersink screw wouldn’t protrude. Two part epoxy was probably overkill, but it will keep it from rattling.

I pulled off the really loose chunks, brushed everything down, and planed the 3 vertical sides that weren’t wormy.

No project is complete without a little message to remember it by.

I may have gotten carried away with getting it finished and off to her early. I did a number of coats of spray lacquer and never took a photo of the finished product. Luckily for me, mom is a great photographer, and sent me some really pictures of it in use with her homemade books. Happy Mother’s Day!

Small Hive Update

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Chase

After a week our hive appears to be thriving! Lots of activity coming and going and there appear to be pollen pants coming in. I shot a quicky for instagram, so take a look at the busy girls.

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Easy Toolbox Labels

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Chase

I constantly struggle with organization in my shop. I have a lot of boxes with drawers, but always move and misplace things. In aid of my shop woes I have found a better labeling scheme

You can buy sheets of whiteboard material that are magnetic backed. 9″x12″ sheets are less than 20 bucks They are thin and easily cuttable with a paper cutter, scissors, or a straight edge and knife.

Small drawers got small labels big drawers got big ones. They are easy to pickup, reposition, and when a drawer’s contents change, the label changes quickly too. My only issue might be wiping them off too quickly with my fingers when grabbing the drawers. A few weeks in the hot garage ought to cure the writing a bit. Time will tell if this trick helps my organization problem.

Double Owl Box Rescue

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Chase

I have been without bees for a few weeks now since the death of Ester II. I was sad, but my mourning is over. I was able to do a double rescue with my best bee buddy Willow. We had reports of two owl boxes occupied by bees that needed to come down. Both were in really rotten shape and not long for this world.

The first is this guy only about 8 feet up in a tree. It must be reasonably full of bees, because it weighed a ton and they had started building comb under the roof entrance.

I pulled the comb off, duct taped shut the 40 odd holes and cracks that they were coming in and out of, then pried it off the tree. We took it home, screwed it to an inner cover, and drilled a hole in the bottom of both. Hey presto, couldn’t be easier!

I shot a little video right after we got them in place, then again a day later. I think they are here to stay for the long haul.

With my new hive secure, it was time to pop over and take a look at the next one. First though, we had to visit some new baby chickens!

Ok, on to hive number 2. This one was a bit higher up in the tree. What do they say, don’t look down?

This one felt really light and was very rotten. We got it home and instead of drilling a hole we just pulled the bottom clean off. We found a small hive, with not much comb. They must have moved in recently.

Once again the duct tape came to the rescue. We didn’t think screwing it down would work well. Doesn’t that look pretty!? Time will tell if they stay or not.

Kukri Restoration

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Chase

I have been watching a show recently called “Forged in Fire”. It is a bladesmithing competition reality show that is very much worth watching. Everyone in it is skilled and helpful and most of the knives and swords produced are works of art. One episode in particular piqued my interest in the Kukri. It is sort of a hacking weapon like a machete or short sword, but has a big belly on it for chopping. It has been used by the Nepali solders (Gurkhas) for ages, and they dismembered enough British solders with them in the early 19th century that the fighters and their swords grew quite a reputation.

As it would happen a coworker turned me onto a site that bought a Nepali palace’s entire armory. There was stuff stored in there from all different ages that never got used. This included 19th century Kukris that were packed in grease and forgotten. A good friend and I went in together to purchase two and restore them.

100+ years has left them pretty pitted in places, but over all in decent shape considering the age. The one picture shows a greasy thumb print from someone handling them before they went into storage.

Our first job was to cut through a lot of the remaining grease and gunk. WD40 and steel wool got through with a lot of elbow grease.

The staining was deep and didn’t come up with steel wool so I moved on to a brass wire wheel on my bench grinder. It was slow work, but after a while you could see a lot of the pitting cleaned up and the staining faded.

We switched from the brass wheel to a buffing wheel with coarse emory polishing compound. It helped the luster, but didn’t do much to the remaining staining. Maybe a heavy sanding is what we needed to start with. They aren’t polished to a mirror finish, but neither is the surface completely dull. The letter on the spine looks great.

My blade had a decent chip taken out of the center of the belly. I spent some time on the bench grinder trying to grind past it. I got part of the way there, but didn’t want to dramatically change the shape of the blade. I am not an expert in this. Both went to my work sharp belt grinder to get a battle ready edge.

Now to test them. You can’t just refinish a blade like this and not put it to good (bad?) use. It is time to make some fruit suffer! I picked up a watermelon and some coconuts just for this test. Pictures don’t do it justice, so we shot some video.

Frame Saw – Giant Hack Saw

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Chase

Paul Sellers has a really great video on making your own frame saw from a band saw blade or blades available specifically for frame saws. It is a wonderful project that can be done with a minimal amount of tools and material.

I started with a metal bandsaw blade and a few pieces of scrap oak I had around. Typical hack saw blades are only 12″ long. This one is going to be 18″. The extra length should translate to a much faster more comfortable cut. I will also have a lot more fine control on blade tension vs a normal hack saw.

The shorter pieces will make an upright and the long piece will act as a pivot bar in the center. The uprights got a small set of mortises with a rounded relief to let the pivot bar do its pivoting! The bar got a matching tenon on each end with a rounded section. I did the round with a few saw cuts to get it close, then finished with a rasp.

When I got those fitting reasonably well I moved on to the bottom. A saw cut will let the band saw blade in, and a hole set 3/4 of the way over will accept a nail to hold the blade in place.

To hold the string I cut a small notch down, then used a chisel to sculpt both sides into that saw cut. Once roughed in I pulled out the ole spokeshave and went to town. What a fun tool to use. It can be hard to see in the picture, but I did a lot of subtle shaping on the handle side. Being able to hold it, then shape, then hold again is a fast way to make a part like this fit you really well in a short amount of time.

When everything was rounded I assembled, tensioned the bow by twisting the strings with another small scrap of oak, and tried it out on a bar of steel I had around. Very nice! The saw is light and well balanced, and the 18 inches of length meant I could really get into the cut without having to hold back.

Next time I will work harder on making the rounds at the mortise/tenon joint more consistent, but otherwise I am very happy with this. With testing done, I disassembled it, coated everything with BLO, and reassembled when dry. The first picture of this post shows the saw with finished and in a low tension storage state.

Beard Oil Redux