Something Finished!

Well, its not a game design or a miniature or anything truly cool like that. However, I did manage to finish a mobile stand for the new lathe. With this finished I can get our assembly table back and do the finish work on the tea rack. Nothing spectacular but any progress is good at this point.

All the pieces cut and ready for assembly.

Legs assembled and attached to the top. All joinery is with screws and glue. This is my first piece using pocket holes.

Pretty much complete at this point. Main brace and the floor braces are in place.

Flipped over and added the wheels. 3" wheels with locks.

Lathe mounted up and the stand rolled into its home. We can work right here in front of the window or move it out to a different spot. Its a rather brute force approach but it gets the job done till I can build something better.

I need to take a grinder to some of the screws that went all the way through. I couldn’t find any 2” pocket hole screws and the 2 1/2” are bit to long. But at least we can use the lathe now!

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Woodshop Projects - Tea Rack

My wife is a big tea drinker, not of that bagged stuff either, its pretty much loose leaf or nothing for her. As the tea "boxes" continued to take up more counter space I offered to make a tea rack for her, just to keep things a bit more organized. Quite frankly its odd that its me that wants to get it organized and not her, if you seen my work space you know that neatness is not one of my strong suits!

The wood she picked out is called Tzalam also know as Caribbean Walnut and the rough hewn nature meant I needed to get a straight edge on one side before I could really start cutting out the pieces. Since I don't have a jointer I needed to make a jig that would let me cut a straight edge on it allowing me to square everything up.

I bought the plans from Fisher's Shop through his online store: fishersshoponline.com

Once I had a good edge on the two boards I cut the pieces that I needed to length and ran them through the planer to get a smooth surface on the top and bottom. Then I ran the piece for the two shelves through the new band saw to get the right height. That band saw worked a charm on this wood as well, it just took me 15 minutes to figure out how to get the blade on. And then another 10 minutes to figure out why I kept losing power. There are only a few outlets in the garage so I use an extension cord that rolls up and has a place to plug in four power cords. In addition it has its own breaker. The band saw was pulling enough amps starting up to pop this little breaker. I ended up maneuvering the band saw closer to the back workbench so I could plug straight into the wall, that solved the problem!

It doesn't look like much yet. The long pieces are for the shelves and the two shorter pieces are the sides.

Now that I finally have everything cut I can pull out the router and chamfer the edges and then do all the sanding work before I do the final assembly.

What's Going On and Tool Purchases

A gift to me on the front porch, of course its on its side contrary to directions on the box.

Its been quiet on the blog, to quiet, and its been going on for most of the year. I have mentioned a couple of times that things have been busy and there is probably a bit of depression to go along with it. Nothing like a pandemic to steal all your enthusiasm. Not going to Reaper Con this year has certainly played into it, there just wasn't any reason to get stuff in the painting que ready for the show. Heck the BFG has been was intended to be an entry for 2019 and its still not ready. I think the hardest has been dealing with Lani our Great Pyrenees/Anatolian Shepherd mix being ill with cancer.

Her particular cancer is a sarcoma and it started in her nasal cavity on her right side. Even though we found it early, it was already in the bone and inoperable. We changed her to a raw diet, that has helped a lot, but the other treatments (we didn't want to do radiation therapy, she wouldn't have survived the treatment I don't think) were not as effective. But here she is as stubborn as ever, she could put a mule to shame, and feisty just not as active as the other dogs and her poor face is distorted by the growing tumor. She is three months past the best estimate by the vets with radiation therapy but it still makes my heart cry to look at her and know the inevitable cannot be put off. So we spoil her absolutely rotten.

Back to the title though. A new tool arrived this week a Jet 1221 "midi" lathe. Weighing in at 115#s I can't wait to get it fired up and start turning some wood with it. I need to build a stand for it first and, hopefully, get rid of the small craftsman 10" table saw that is just taking up space now. I'll need to re-arrange the garage a bit as well to get it in a good spot. Naturally, this tool is one of those that requires a whole raft of other tools to make it usable so my wife and I ended up dropping quite a bit more on those things as well as kits for some of the projects we anticipate needing the lathe for. Hopefully good news on that front in the near future.

The traditional in the box shot. There was enough damage to the exterior box that I was worry the lathe itself may have been damaged in transit.

Wrestled it out of the box and, temporarily, set it up on my little assembly table. I have spun it up to make sure everything was in working order but the chisels hadn't arrived when I took this photo.

Cartoon Wednesday