Monthly Archives: November 2013

A recent issue of Woodworker’s Journal had several “holiday gift” projects, including a tray for doing jigsaw puzzles with slide out drawers to hold the extra parts.  My wife saw it and put in her order.

I thought it would be a simple project, and if I’d stuck to the plans it probably would have been.  But the one in the magazine article was designed for only 500 piece puzzles.  My wife and son take on jigsaw puzzles with at least 1,000 pieces at a minimum, the most recent one was a 2,000 piece puzzle.  Personally, it makes my head hurt just thinking about fitting 2,000 little pieces together.  As it turns out, making the tray had the same effect.

This should be an easy project, but scaling it up made it unwieldy and floppy to boot. I tried to reinforce it, but it wasn’t a lot of fun to put together, and I ended up having to made some “adjustments” to get it to work at all.  But I persevered, and it’s done.  Not fancy, not elegant and definitely not my best work.  But done, and sometimes that’s the name of the game.

Drawers Open

Drawers Closed

I’m working through the design details for the copper lanterns for my driveway gate project, and working on getting some better quotes for having the parts for the street number and lanterns laser or water-jet cut.  That’s going to take a week or two to sort out.  If I was making a bunch of these I could get a lot better price for each one — that’s part of how I ended up starting a business to manufacture chopper parts.  Let’s not go there.

Meanwhile I’m working on a scaled-up version of a tray for holding jigsaw puzzles that has two drawers to hold the parts.  It was in a recent woodworking magazine and a requires from SWMBO for Christmas.   Every time I have to cut something on my tablesaw I’m reminded that I need an outfeed table for it.  So last night I doodles out some dimensions.

Since my shop is smallish I need to make sure I make the best use of space I can.  And since my table saw has a big sliding table I only need outfeed support next to the sliding extension.  About two feet wide, running parallel to the sliding table.  I want it to be able to store my extra blades and saw accessories, and I want it to be mobile so it can do double duty as an assembly table.  I’d like it to be a bit wider for that purpose, but space is tight.

My current thinking is that this will be built similarly to a kitchen base cabinet out of 3/4″ plywood, with banks of drawers on one face.  Maybe I can build some clamp storage into the back side too.  Here is my current 2D mockup, I think it’s enough to start building it.

Outfeed Cart, 2D Mockup

Unfortunately when I start adding up the materials to make it it gets expensive quickly.  I figure at least 3 sheets of 18mm baltic birch ply (5′ square).  It might be 4 sheets by time I add in the drawer fronts, at $45 a sheet.  Plus a sheet or two of 1/2″ plywood for the drawer bodies, and 11 drawer slides at about $15 each.

Good grief, maybe I can do something with cinder blocks and an old door.

Perhaps I’m easily stumped, but as I’m approaching the weekend I feel a building sense of panic over what I’ll do with my shop time.

You see, I finished the Greene & Greene sconce I’ve been working on last weekend and I haven’t decided what to do next.  I’m dying to start a new project, but I don’t feel ready.  I haven’t fully decided what to do next, and I certainly haven’t made plans or bought materials for anything specific.

Done! Finished! Acabado! Terminé!

I’ve been heading towards a major overhaul on the entry to my property, building a new G&G style driveway gate, street number and a pair of copper lanterns.  But I have more design work to do before I can start that.  I also want Santa to bring me a mortiser to speed up the process.

Current design for the new gate

Not that I have any shortage of things I could do.  Just as a for-instance, there is a customized (albeit unfinished) Studebaker pickup truck in my metal shop that has been languishing for 10 years.  My buddy Ron and I chopped the top 6″ and cut a 4″ horizontal section out of the body of the cab.  I built a new, smooth firewall, sectioned the hood and heavily modified the frame so that it had airbags to lower it, independent front suspension and a Cadillac 500ci engine.  Then I got distracted with starting a chopper parts business.  Before the Studebaker I’d been into making furniture (don’t get excited, I was pretty clueless).

There is plenty to do on this, including making new floorboards, welding up about 20 linear feet of seams in the cab from where it was sliced-and-diced, making a custom grill, fabricating a steering column, making a dashboard…  It’s quite a long list, which is perhaps why I’ve postponed starting on it again.  But, it would be really fun to get it to the point where I could drive it to work.  Between the body and suspension modifications it’s considerably shorter than stock and compares favorably with my Mini Cooper.

Chopped and Sectioned Studebaker

I also have several unfinished knife projects.  One is a stainless chef’s knife made from a purchased cast stainless steel blank.  I did the finish work on this blade years ago and had it professionally heat treated (heat treating stainless is a specialized operation).  I forged the dagger from a stack of discarded power hacksaw blades that I forge welded together with thin nickel foil.  When it’s etched it should have an interesting twist pattern in the steel.  The small blade at the bottom is forged from a scrap of 1″ round O1 tool steel.  All three need some more detail work on the blades, handles made and attached and guards fabricated.

Knives in the offing

And I have a long list of “someday” furniture projects.  Two from the top of the list include:

Reproducing this bookcase from the Blacker house:

Blacker House Bookcase

And reproducing this light fixture from the Gamble House for my dining room:

Gamble House Dining Room Fixture

But I’m still left with the question of what to do next.  Sigh.