A three-day weekend! Every weekend should be a three-day weekend!
We had time to enjoy a date night on Friday (Comix Comedy Club at Foxwoods), get lots of house projects done, and even relax a little bit in the evenings.
Instead of starting a big project this weekend, we decided to focus on getting smaller projects finished.
I added a better bird waterer to the coop. The ducks had made a mess of the chicken waterers, so I took a piece of PVC gutter and a cheap float valve and made a new water trough for the birds. I plan on improving it in the future to make it easier to clean out, but for now it is an improvement over the old one.
The new duck/chicken water trough. The trough is fed from a 5-gal bucket in the garage, so I don’t have to go in the cage to refill the water (though I do to clean it out for now).
We also decided to add a shelf and laundry sink to the mud room. Susanna and I worked on the shelf together on Saturday, and I installed the sink today.
Susanna working on the finishing touches of the upper shelf. We plan on adding a lower shelf above the sink later this week.Laundry sink installed. We picked up a kit from Home Depot. It took about an hour to assemble and install.
I even got time to work on the third toy box for Susanna’s school. The box construction is complete, leaving only a couple of coats of varnish to put on the doors. Hopefully the weather will support delivering it on Thursday evening.
Third toy box nearly complete.
The entire household enjoyed the beautiful spring weather. Perfect for finishing projects, hanging out, or foraging for food (if you are a chicken or duck).
The chickens and ducks enjoying their time out of the coop on a beautiful spring day.
Last Sunday I delivered the second toy box to Susanna’s preschool. The third box is in the shop mostly completed – hopefully I’ll get it out the door in a week or two.
Second outdoor toybox delivered.
The roof on the first box is in pretty rough shape after being exposed to the weather for the winter (as I had expected). I finally got the preschool to agree that a better roof is needed (than just cheap plywood). I’m going to put a corrugated PVC roof on the third box, and will retrofit the PVC roof to the first two boxes.
It is nice to start reclaiming my workshop from the piles of plywood that have been taking up space for the past 6+ months.
It has been a busy couple of weeks here. The snow is starting to melt. It is warm enough for nice afternoon walks and evenings in the workshop without the kerosene heater running the whole time.
My shop assistant for the evening. He is reminding me to stay focused. On him. And to not drop boxes on his head (Sorry Tucker).
I have one toybox sitting in the shop completed awaiting delivery. It looks like the snow will melt enough this week to get the trailer out and deliver it. The final box is making progress – I can complete it by the end of this weekend if I focus on it. But of course there is a very good chance I will get distracted sometime before Sunday night.
The boat finally thawed enough for me to pump out the bilge. I’m planning on doing some small boat upgrades before launching in May. I would like to add a permanent fresh water tank and plumbing to the sink. I also want to add some cushions in the cockpit and a new cushion on the port settee.
New cushions will require sewing. Sewing required a working sewing machine. We had an old Singer in stuffed away in storage that I’ve been keeping limping along over the years. This year I replaced a drive belt and various smaller plastic parts that have fallen apart over the years. I’ll have to build a table on the second floor of the loft to sew the cushion covers. I learned that trying to cut the fabric on the dining room table just doesn’t work. And we have the space for a full 4×8 table, so why not use the space. And then to YouTube to figure out how to make cushion covers.
Time to get going on the projects so I’ll have enough completed to relax this summer!
Winter is pushing into March with a snowfall this afternoon. That on top of the frozen snow from the past month’s snow. We are starting to get a little stir crazy being stuck in the house. It even seems that Minecraft isn’t exciting Will as much today as usual.
Instead of just sitting around, we decided to head out to the flea market this morning. The boys each picked up a pocket knife (to keep in the workshop).
I found a small (6″) square for $1 and a large mortise chisel for $10. Both seemed like a good deal. The chisel was pretty sharp, and only took a few minutes on the water stones to get a good working edge. The square cleaned up to a nice patina. I have no idea if it is square. If it is, I will add it to my usable tools. If not close enough to easily correct, I’ll have to add it to the wall decoration (in the workshop – for no reason I can understand, Susanna doesn’t allow me to decorate the dining room with antique tools).
What a beautiful day. The morning started out with a spring snow. The temperature was just above freezing and the snowflakes huge. This afternoon the sun found its way out from behind the clouds and the temperatures soared into the mid-40s.
My Stanley No. 45 combination plane after making a 1/4″ rabbet on a piece of scrap pine.
The yard is still covered with nearly 2-feet of snow, but with warm temperatures I am able to keep the workshop comfortable with just a small electric heater. The kerosene heater puts out a lot of warmth, but at a cost. It is loud.
I put Pandora radio on the computer and spent the day cleaning the workshop. And throwing things away. I have way too much stuff in the shop. I didn’t get the font half of the shop cleaned, but I got the back half looking pretty good (for me). I even dug out an antique Stanley No. 45 plane and got it working – though the blade needs to be sharpened.
A reasonably clean workshop. I even vacuumed the floor. I still have more stuff than I need, but it is heading in the right direction.
I decided to reorganize the “office” corner of the workshop. It is too cold to get too much woodworking done, but it is nice to reorganize things.
One of the biggest additions is a computer. Ben and I had picked up a handful of $20 small desktop computes for the boys Minecraft party in March. It is pretty slow, but it works. I set it up and added it to the wireless network. Now I can stream Pandora, write in my blog, and even play Minecraft with the boys. Though the computer can really only handle one thing at a time.
Ben is working on building a shaker shop stool. We watched the videos from 360 Woodworking and he decided that it was a project he could build (with a little help).
A week ago, Ben and I drove up to the J. Gibson McIlvain Lumber outlet in Danielson, CT to pick up a lumber for the project. I have lots of rough lumber here, but it is mostly Cherry and Oak, both of which are a little hard for him to use. Pine is soft enough that he doesn’t have too much trouble working it with hand tools. He picked up a nice clear 12″ wide piece of white pine for the project. Yes, for the same price as lumber at the box store, you get a much nicer piece wood from the lumber yard.
Last week we milled the pieces for the project. The board was flat enough from the lumber yard that we didn’t need to joint it, so it was a quick job on the planer and table saw. Ben even used the table saw (with close supervision) to cut the pieces to length.
This weekend we cut the braces on the table saw, and Ben started hand cutting the dadoes on the legs and top. He did most of the work himself – though he did find the angled cuts a little hard. He chopped out the waste material with a chisel without any assistance, and the fit was pretty good.
Only three dadoes left to cut and he will be able to assemble the bench. Now to source some more pine for the boys to use in the workshop…
The electronics charging station completed. Currently holding three iPads and a couple of phones.
I put the last coat of wiping varnish on the charging station last night. This morning I hung it in mud/laundry room.
I think I should have made it a little bigger, but it works. I think I’ll also add a power strip in the top section and try to hide the wires a little better. But a new power strip will have to wait until another day. I’ll also need to order a couple of shorter (maybe 12″ long) lightning charging cables to keep it a little less cluttered.
This week is a good woodworking week. I finished a quick home project and have a toy box sitting in the workshop waiting for nice weather for delivery to Susanna’s school. Two projects finished and it isn’t even February. Not a bad start to the year!
After a couple of evenings in the shop, I have the charging station nearly complete. The glue-up is finished and the piece is mostly sanded. I do have to decide if I am going to add a piece on the top to hide where the power strip will go.
I also have to route two groves in the back to allow wires to run up and down the box when it is hung on the wall. Which leads me to the final decision I’ll have to make. How to hang this on the wall… But I don’t have to make that decision today.
I added short wood pegs on the front edge of the bottom shelves to keep tablets from slipping out. The third shelf will hold phones, and the top is for the power strip.
I’ll finish the piece with a coat of shellac topped with a couple of coats of wiping varnish. I should be able to hang it early next week.
I’m not 100% sure on how it looks, but I’ll have to wait to see how it looks hanging on the wall. I tapered the sides, but think maybe a larger taper would look better. And the shelf spacing isn’t perfect. I think the top shelf could be maybe an inch higher. Though maybe I could just clip the top inch off of the sides to make it look right. Thoughts?
Susanna putting a varnish finish on the second toy box for her preschool.
Today was a good workshop day. Normally workshop time is alone time, but sometimes it is nice to have company. While, I did get most of the day alone in the shop, Susanna joined me after she came home from work. I had put the first coat of varnish on the toy box last night, and she sanded and put the second coat on this afternoon (while I glued up the charging station).
I took the morning to get started on the charging station for the new mud/laundry room. Our kitchen counter is a tangled mess most of the time (and all the time when the boys are here), so I’m constructing a simple wall mounted charging station.
The design is pretty basic. It is just a couple of shelves to hold iPads and phones. No hand cut dovetails or drawers. No back. About as simple as you can get.
The first step was to pull out a piece of cherry. The board I pulled out of the loft was about twice as much wood as I needed, but I didn’t feel like digging for a smaller board. Anyway, I have lots and lots of cherry, so no need to stress.
Rough cherry board for today’s project.
I milled (half of) the board into two sides that are 5″ wide and 30″ long. I milled the lumber to a little less than 3/4″ thick – I think it will look nicer just a little lighter than the normal 3/4″. The sides taper from 5″ wide at the bottom to 4″ wide at the top. I milled four shelves at the same time, varying from 4 1/2″ to 3 1/2″ in width and about 12″ long.
I clamped the sides together (back to back) and cut four stopped dadoes for the shelves. The dadoes are 3/8″ wide – I picked it because 1/4″ seemed too small, and 1/2″ seemed to wide and I happened to have a 3/8″ router bit.
I set up the router table to cut the tenons to go into the dadoes. I was wanting to use the table saw, but my dado blades had a carbide tooth fall off (so I’m stuck having to get the blade repaired or order a new dado stack). Anyway, the router table worked fine.
Finally, I cleaned up the tenon cheek with a hand plane and chisels. I cut off the front of the tenon (for the stopped portion of the dado) with a hand saw and glued up the sides and the top and bottom shelf. I’ll add the two middle shelves tomorrow. I can’t do much work in the shop while the varnish dries on the toy boxes.
This is the first real project I’ve made from cherry (I made a bookshelf from cherry veneered plywood but that doesn’t count). I can see why everyone likes cherry – it is an easy wood to work with. My hand tools love cherry. It isn’t as soft as pine, but it is much easier on the tools (and me) than oak.
Charging station glue up. The middle shelves will be fit into the case tomorrow.
