New Out Feed Table for My Table saw.

Table Saw Out feed Table

So one of the biggest things to do in your shop to keep it enjoyable is to make it safe.  That way you can use it for a longer time.  (Since you would not be in the emergency room reattaching a finger).  So I looked into making the table saw safer.

In the past I have created a makeshift out-feed table.  This is a table at the back of your table saw meant to sort of catch your wood as it leaves the cut.  It makes it safer for you to use because you're not leaning over a spinning blade to catch falling wood pieces, plus it keeps your wood from being damaged after the cut by keeping it from falling to the floor.  But I found that the make shift table was cumbersome, not very convenient, could not be used with some of the jigs I have built, and was not as pretty as I'd like.  I, therefore, decided to make one.

First things first, I needed a design.  For this table, I decided to alter my original dreams of creating a combination out-feed table and assembly table, as that would take up too much room.....for now.  I needed to make it so that it would fold away for storage, but could also be set up quickly and easily.  To accomplish this I watched a few YouTube videos and decided to make a version of April Wilkerson's out feed table.  A version, meaning type, but other than that not at all the same.  April is a cool Texas girl who builds things in the shop.  I like that all of her tools match, and she is pretty good at making things. So, I got my measurements and began working.  In the end, I had to take measurements to figure out how it would work since if I made it too wide, I would have problems.  You can skip to the pictures below if you want to cheat and see how it works.

My detailed drawing :)  Makes me think of the Hudsucker's Proxy, "You know, for kids!"

The first part of the build was to cut the plywood down to a more manageable size.  For this I used a straight edge and circular saw.  Handy tip, I placed an extra piece of insulation we had left over from the insulated dog house build, on the ground under the plywood.  This allowed me to place the plywood directly on the ground to maintain support across the entire board.  That way when you get to the end, the plywood doesn't break on you and tear pieces off.

Now that all the boards are cut to their rough size, I did a massive glue up.  Lots of glue to laminate the two sheets together.  This took a 3/4" piece of plywood and made it 1.5" thick.  I wanted to make sure it could hold plenty of weight and not bow with time.

To laminate boards together, you should apply equal pressure across the entire sheet of plywood.  I used what are called 'calls' to to this.  Calls are just 2 boards that sandwich the sheets of plywood between them. Then use clamps to provide the pressure.  You could use weights I guess, but this was easier for me since I didn't have any weights to place.

Once the laminated plywood is out of the clamps it is time to clean up the glue.  I used an old beater chisel to do this, but have since found it easier to use a scraper.  I picked a scraper up for about $10 from Rockler the other day for another project, but since that one is a Christmas present, you'll have to wait for the post.

I wanted to make this table durable, so I decided to add hardwood ends to the sides.   Plywood is really stable, but the sides can be unsightly and brittle. Hardwood can take more abuse and hold up to the bumps and bruises that plywood would split over. Laminating the sides with hardwood is a good work around for this.  In this case, I added some cheap poplar, which can take a beating, but won't break the budget for shop furniture.

Next comes the fitting.  I needed to glue a block on the bottom of the table so that I could attach this out-feed table later on.  I measured the height that I needed in order for the table to sit about a 1/16" below my table saw.  This way my materials won't get a hung up when pushing them through the saw and across this out-feed table.  Once the height was done, I measured, marked and used my router to hog out a couple of channels.  An out-feed table has channels because when pushing wood through, I sometimes use jigs to keep the wood straight and  square to the blade.  Jigs have a long bar that can extend past the table when pushing wood through.  So the channels exist as a place that bar can slide into.

Now it is time to attach my out-feed table to the table saw.  First I measured where I wanted the table in relation to the tool.  I wanted it slightly below so that boards would not get hung up on the edge.  When doing my calculations, taking into account the thickness of the out-feed table, I determined that a spacer was needed.  I cut a small piece of wood down to size and marked out the location of the screws.

Pre-drilling the holes, I wanted to make sure I didn't go all the way through the out-feed table and have screws sticking out the top, so I placed tape on the drill bit for at the desired depth to indicate where to stop drilling.  This is another handy technique I picked up from YouTube.  This technique is also nice because it sweeps away the debris when you are getting to the end of the hole.

Add in some legs with adjustable feet and it is all done.

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!

A Refurb Project: Wooden Croquet Set

Do you like to bring old items back from the dead?  Does revitalizing and reusing former items tickle your fancy? Then this blog is for you!

As I've mentioned before, our house continues to be generous in all the old (and sometimes like-new) items it "gives" us (i.e. that we discover or uncover on the grounds or in a storage area).  In this case, the gift from our house was this wooden croquet set.

Before - all wood croquet set, weather-worn

Another Before - Pretty faded

You can see it was faded, cracked, wobbly, and pretty worse for the wear. BUT the joints were all good and none of the cracks were deathly (in other words - none of the cracks affected the integrity of the pieces).  So one HOT (more on this later) Saturday afternoon we sat on the deck with tools in hand and got to refurbishing.

If you've refurbished anything then you know the first step is disassembly.

After that, with wood at least, comes sanding. We sand, sand, sanded until all the parts and pieces were stripped and exposed fresh wood that was previously hidden beneath the layers of time.

After sanding, it's time to prep for paint.  Get all that dust off the wood - my favorite product for this is the tack cloth that's found in the paint section of your local box store. However, all the crevices in these parts were filled with dust, so I lightly rinsed them under running water.

Did I mention it was a hot day?

So we let the pieces dry, which took probably 5 minutes because we live in the high desert region that is Denver (it's a dry heat).

And then began the painting process.

Croquet memories from my childhood camping days are hazy but I strongly recalled the set was painted like a rainbow, with each mallet displaying a separate color.  So that is the template we chose to take.  I'm sure you could choose any number of paint choices (such as NFL team colors) and achieve something just as beautiful.

fun with craft paint

We used the craft paint from our nearest discount store and some craft paint brushes that we had lying around.  You could tape off the areas that you're not painting if you want to get a crisp, clean finish; but we were aiming for something rustic and wanted the "hand-painted" look with flaws and all.

After the paint dried, Mr. DIY had the genius idea to treat the rest of the newly exposed wood with Tung Oil.  If you are unfamiliar with Tung Oil it is a favorite among woodworkers as it nourishes and seals wood without staining it - although we did read that some folks think it has a yellow tone so if you have a very blonde wood then you might want to use an alternative. For our purposes though, the tung oil seemed miraculous in its results.

Tung Oil brought the wood back to life

Our croquet set is stored on our covered deck and we were unsure if the tung oil would provide enough protection from the elements, so next we made a big mistake.  We waited a bit for the tung oil to dry and then applied a coat of Polycrylic. Oh goodness, skip this step!  The polycrylic just bubbled on top of the tung oil and (did I mention it was hot out?) dried almost instantly.  Basically, this step completely screwed up all the beautification we had just achieved.

either Poly OR Oil the wood, don't try to do both

So it was back to step 2. Sand, sand, sanding until the polycrylic was gone.

Then we reapplied the tung oil and touched up the paint.

Final step is reassembly and then play a game of croquet.  Next time, we'll either do tung oil OR poly and never try both again.

After

After

We hope you're inspired to refurbish something old that's lying around your house, or maybe something you've been thinking of picking up from your local thrift store.  Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!

Ms. Petunia is ready for a game of croquet

A Refurb Project: Craft Dresser

For this project you'll need:

A sense of imagination
Bargain Hunting Skills

Oh!
  and a dresser

____________________________________________

We've been in our home for about 6 months and I still haven't fully moved into my craft "room".  Our bedroom is big enough so we're using both our dressers; which means I lost my craft storage to clothing.  So, like any good DIY'er I decided to take this opportunity to hunt down a used dresser with good bones to refurbish for my craft space.

Folks are doing all sorts of things with dressers these days. I've seen them painted, stenciled, altered into benches, shelves, dog food holders, and so many other creative uses.  With so many choices, my refurbishing plan is to maintain the existing dresser and redecorate it with a combination of paint and a patterned covering for the fronts of the dresser drawers.

Like any good bargain hunter I canvassed multiple estate sales, garage sales, curb sides, and lots of thrift stores.  After a few months I finally came across this beauty at one of our local ARC thrift stores.  She's got eight drawers and lovely curves that I see as the perfect canvas for my refurbishing ideas (insert that need for imagination here!).

the blank canvas, an 8 drawer dresser

With the dresser in hand, my hunt switched to finding an inspiring pattern to cover some of the drawers in.  I searched all over the interwebs and finally found the pattern that called to my inspirational sensibilities at Spoonflower.  Spoonflower is a great site that I can see myself using again since they give the option of purchasing patterns on multiple formats (wrapping paper, fabric, wallpaper, etc.).  I decided to purchase my pattern of choice as wrapping paper since that seems the easiest to adhere to the dresser drawer fronts.

my new favorite spray adhesive

Pretty much every refurbishing project involving wood starts the same way, with a light sanding to remove the existing finish and provide a clean surface to adhere the new products to.  After sanding it's important to remove the dust.  My favorite product to use are the tack cloths found in the paint section of your local box store.  Once the surface is clean, it's time to prepare the wrapping paper covering.

Through trial and error during previous projects, I learned the key to straight edges is to match only ONE edge to the piece you are covering and make the other three sides long (too big).  Once your piece is cut, follow the directions on your spray adhesive of choice and stick it down.  Then take a sharp knife, a straight edge and trim the long edges straight. Be sure to use the sharpest knife you have as a sharp knife is a safe knife.

trimming the excess and achieving a straight edge

keep excess on all sides, easier to trim for the straight edges

I ran out of wrapping paper after covering only four dresser drawers due to not planning out the paper use ahead of time (could have used Mr. DIY's thinking ahead skills here).  However, in my humble opinion the important part of any DIY project is to go with the flow, so I moved on to deciding what paint the remaining drawers should be covered in.  After being silly and agonizing over this paint choice, our local box store provided a color match paint based on the dark orange in the wrapping paper.

I've seen several folks paint not only the fronts of the dresser drawers but also the sides and interior of the drawers.  While I love the look, I don't love the amount of time involved; so it was a simple paint job for me and my craft dresser.  Now it's finished and living in our home, providing colorful inspiration and sufficient storage for my current stash of craft supplies.

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!

The final product. My new craft supply storage.

A Dog House Part 4: Completed

another gift from the house,
 a bundle of leftover shingles

The final steps of our dog house build are finally here!

We learned how to put a roof on from Tom Silva of This Old House ("TOH") fame.  If you want some great tips on making roofing easy, I highly recommend checking out the How To section of the TOH website.

Mr. DIY cutting off the excess tar paper

plastic covering the tar strip

Each row of shingles contains a strip of tar down the middle.  The new row of shingles lies on top of the tar strips and as the sun heats the roof the tar melts and adheres the shingles together.

After laying the first row of shingles we realized the tar strips on these shingles were covered with a plastic film.  These shingles had been laying outside for who knows how many years so this plastic film was stuck tight and a real challenge to peel off.  At first, quite a few expletives filled the air. Then Mr. DIY discovered an efficient method to peel 'em utilizing our pocket knives, so thanks to him this tedious activity didn't add too much time to the project.

Once the roof was applied we added a few layers of paint and voila, the house is complete!  Mr. DIY has dreams of adding a few additional design touches to the exterior, so we might do a "return-to" blog in the future.

a final view from the porch

a final view from the front

that roof's on a hinge

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!

A Dog House Part 3: Getting Closer

As most Coloradans know, our weather can change in a moment and we built this doghouse with that in mind.  What was forecast to be a warm and sunny day can turn into cold, windy, and rainy without warning.  So we installed sheet foam insulation in the dog house to protect against those weather changes.  Before winter strikes, we will be adding an old school light bulb to provide heat (kind of like a space heater).

sheet insulation

In addition to insulating the house, I wanted a deck for our puppy to feel comfortable lounging on during a rainstorm.  There is a slew of great information on installing decks for DIYers out in the great interwebs, however we learned some pretty helpful tips from The Samurai Carpenter and recommend you check out his YouTube channel for hours of instructional entertainment.

The boards were bowing away from eachother, so I utilized
the always handy clamps to pull the boards into line
before screwing them into place

A helpful tip that I learned is to use
the deck screws to create the perfect
spacing between each board.

After laying down the deck we installed 2 support posts and stained it all with leftover deck stain from our main house deck.  Then we took three varieties of fence boards and affixed them to the house entry area in order to add some pizzazz and style to the house.

Mr. DIY had this idea. I wish
OUR home entryway looked this cool.

Our furry girl likes to sit on the deck with us, but has yet to use it on her own.  Maybe that will change with time or maybe I installed a deck just for the aesthetics. Either way, it was fun.

A close-up of the completed porch -
never you mind that roof.  We'll discuss that next!

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!

A New Saw Bench

I was encouraged to blog about some of my projects.  I'm not sure how many I'll add on to my wife blog as I am not used to sharing digitally what is going on in our lives.  But I guess it could be fun.

We have been doing several projects on our new home.  Adding a wood stove, renovating an office, painting 1/2 a garage, and building a dog house.  But all those require tools.  I have purchased many tools over the years and have purchased several over the past couple years.  These tools can make life easier in the DIY world.  The right tool for the job can become very expensive though, so you have to pick and choose which tools will work for now and which tools and do multiple jobs.  Sometimes, you can build your own.  I have complete two such projects for the garage workshop.  A clamp rack and a new saw bench.

Clamp Rack

For those of you that don't know what they are, I'll give a brief overview.  You will find in woodworking that you need to clamp a lot of stuff of varying sizes and shapes.  You clamp to hold things in place while you work on them or during a glue up.  These are indispensable and a common phrase among woodworkers is, "You can never have enough clamps."  This is fine, but these clamps come in different shapes and sizes as well and the question becomes, where to store them.  You want them to be accessible as they will be used on every project, but out of the way.  This is what a clamps rack does for you.  Gives them a place to hang out and become friends.

Storage in the back.

I decided on a vertical clamp rack with similar clamps stacked up against each other.  Some people stack them side by side, but I have a small shop that doesn't have that kind of room.  I had another problem, my walls are not flat.  Because the garage is partially underground, half the walls are a concrete footing with the remaining walls sitting on top of that.  To combat this, I decided to design a clamp rack that has depth to attach to the wall, but comes out far enough that the clamps could hang freely straight down.  So this space wasn't wasted, I made the dead space into extra storage for smaller clamps.  Clamps from Futurama would be proud.

My lovely clamp rack

This is a saw bench.  Made of multiple wood types,
mainly because I used what I had.  I did have to buy
a 2x6 from the big box store, but otherwise I had
almost all the items to make this in house.

The next project I just finished is a saw bench.  This is a modified old timer woodworker tool that can be very useful.  It is high enough to sit on like a park bench, but built sturdy and tough so it can handle a lot of abuse.  You clamp items to the saw bench and work on them, like cutting a mortis and tendon joint or cutting dovetails.  It gets its name from people placing wood on top of them and then sawing through the items.  You could lay a 2x4 on top, step on it and make your cut due to its height or you could place a panel on it and saw down the middle.  Like most useful tools, more uses for them came as people realized that the big heavy bench was a good place for a lot of hand tool work.  And then when you are all done, you can sit on it and drink your cold beverage.

I got my pattern for the saw bench from a You Tube guy named Stumpy Nubs.  He did a video telling how to make it and I basically designed and made it from his description.  He didn't have any directions to buy, so I had to figure it out.  I learned a lot and did some firsts.  The bench features my first handcut dovetails.  Normally I have used a router to make my dovetails, but as large as the material I was using, my jig wouldn't work.  I used a lot of chisels on this job and learned some do's and don't from that.  I learned that most of my tools are not very sharp and that can make for an injury or mashed wood.  I learned that it can be hard to make these joints.  I made my first mortise and tenon joint and even used dowel rods to tighten it further.  I bought and then learned to use a holdfast.  And I learned that my next project will be a pond box to hold my sharpening stones so I can get those tools extra sharp.  I have also already started using it.  Hope you like it.  It is not as pretty as a nice furniture piece, but it is sturdy, sits flat and stable, and will be very useful for years to come.

This was my best of the hand cut dovetails and
a good way to join wood.
It is also a good way to realize your tools are dull.

This is not a butt joint (he he he, he said butt).
This is my first mortis and tenon joint.
The pegs can be seen on the side that pull the joint tighter.

I finished the bench with tung oil, some sanding and
another coat of tung oil.

Already putting it to work.  The blue clamps are called holdfasts.

 Mrs. DYI helped in this project a little.  Especially when it came to the glue up.  Some of these joints were hard to put together in the end.  I mainly worked on this one myself while Mrs. DYI started her own project.  A cool tool for her and a neat reimagining that I'm sure will pop up on this page soon enough.

Thanks for stopping by our neck of the DIY neighborhood. And as our favorite neighbor Mr. Rogers used to say, "You always make each day a special day for me, by just being you. There's only 1 person in this WHOLE world like you; that's you yourself, and people can like you exactly the way you are.  I'll be back next time. Bye-bye!"

Bye-bye neighbor!