Woodworking

An Organiser for Sandpaper

This was my last woodworking project for 2016 completed on New Years eve a storage box for sheets of sandpaper. It only took about 2 hours from start to finish. It all made from offcuts left over from recently completed projects.  The carcass is constructed from 12mm construction grade plywood and the shelves are made from 3mm mdf. I used the sheet size of the sandpaper to lay out the internal dimensions an added about 10mm width to accommodate placement in the grooves. I cut all the groves on the table saw spaced 25mm apart. I cut both sides in one piece to make sure that everything would line up. Top, bottom and back are also from the same material. I glued and nailed the carcass together. The shelves for the sandpaper were a little tricky because the kerf on my saw is 2.8mm and the self material is 3mm. I dealt with this by planing a low angle bevel on each side and sanding. So thats all for 2016 and my sandpaper has a home for 2017.  

By |January 1st, 2017|Categories: Tools and Jigs, Woodworking|0 Comments
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More Storage for the Walk in Robe

An out of the blue request from SWMBO to tidy up the walk in robe. The storage unit is approximately 1800 mm high and 900 mm wide with a shelf depth of 295 mm. In order to save time I decided to build the storage unit out of precut material all the sheets are 295mm wide. I bought melamine covered particle board 3 pieces at 1800 mm and 7 pieces at 1200mm. A sheet of 3mm MDF serves as the back of the storage unit. Cutting was straight forward 2 of the 1200mm boards were docked at 900 for the top and bottom. One 1800mm board was cut to 1768 as the centre divider. The carcass was assembled on  floor with the bottom top and sides assembled first. The storage unit was screwed together with 32mm 8 gauge chipboard screws. The divider was put in next and followed by the shelves. I measured the width of the shelves after the carcass was constructed to ensure accuracy. Two offcuts of melamine was used to space the shelves at 295mm. This saved time as I did not have to measure and mark for each shelf.    On one side I had to use pocket holes to attach the shelves to the central divider. This was not so successful because some of the pocket hole screws pushed through the adjoining shelf. I did this because I wanted a single piece in the middle. I did try an model the unit in Sketchup prior to construction but a pencil and paper was a much quicker way to draw up plans. The unit is now installed and awaiting the arrival of clothes.

By |December 29th, 2016|Categories: Around the home, Furniture, Woodworking|0 Comments
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Baby Chair Repair – Part 3

This is the final part of the baby chair repair. Part 1 focussed on dismantling and stripping the paint off the baby chair. Part 2  was concerned with repairing the dismantled parts. This last part is about sanding finishing and assembly. Sanding is a boring but necessary part of any project. Many YouTube woodworking videos skip over sanding in fear of boring their audience. The baby chair had lots of sanding. I completed the finishing process using cabinet scrapers which always yields great results. I brushed on a water based varnish allowing a day between coats. A light sand between coats knocked the bumps off. I waited for a week to before final assembly so that the finish would harden. I recall reading about this in a Woodsmith magazine a long time ago. The metal parts including the wheels were also caked with years of paint. Paint stripper and a wire brush cleaned up these parts. I finished the metal parts with a two part rust inhibiting paint. A black satin finish sets the metal work off nicely. As with the previous parts there is a compilation courtesy of Animoto.

By |December 1st, 2015|Categories: Furniture, Woodworking|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Baby Chair Repair – Part 2

Following on from part one of this series some of the cleaned up parts required repairing. The baby chairs is constructed from what I think is Tasmanian oak. There wasn't much damage one tenon had broken off a rail. The other parts that are have worn are near the cast iron wheels. I was able to turn a custom dowel to replace the missing tenon. I had thought the tenon was integral to the stretcher so it required drilling to get the bits and pieces out. I even used carving chisels to clean up the stretcher. In the end the repair was successful. The pieces close to the cast iron wheels had splinters missing making the area for the axle holes  weakened. I uses a straight cutting router bit and a router table. I was able to carefully remove the damaged parts. I had some old pieces of Tasmanian Oak on hand that allowed me to make small pieces to replace the damaged parts. The new wood was a good match for the original timber on the baby chair. The other major damage to the baby chair was the tray. The original was a piece of plywood which had become delaminated overtime. I did entertain gluing the original plywood back together. In the end I  made  a new tray from some old plywood I had kept from dismantling old furniture. As with the previous part of this baby chair repair I have a compilation from Animoto.  

By |November 30th, 2015|Categories: Furniture, Renovating, Woodworking|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Hand Drill Restoration

In e recent post I mentioned that I received a hand drill as a gift. There are no identifying marks on the drill so I don't know where it comes from or how old it is. Most likely it is an Australian hand drill although there are a lot of English tools in Australia. What I really enjoyed was taking it apart. Every piece was screwed together which meant that I could completely disassemble it. This is unusual now as most products are made in a way that makes disassembly difficult. A nice feature of the drill is a compartment inside the handle. This would be great to small drill bits. After a thorough clean and oil I put it all back together. The only real damage was the crank handle which had become bent over time. This was easily fixed at the vice. I decided not to paint the drill. The action of the crank and crown wheel is really smooth. The chuck tightens very  nicely and can hold drill smaller than my modern cordless drill. This is useful for drilling small pilot holes. Particularly in the case of small brass screws which break easily without a pilot hole I was too impatient to make a video so I put together this collage on Animoto. The following looks pretty good and gives a great look at all the parts that make up this hand drill.

By |November 22nd, 2015|Categories: Tools and Jigs, Woodworking|Tags: |0 Comments
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