Wall Vent Covers

For about half a year now we've had two gaping holes in the walls. One on the ground floor and one on the second floor. They are the pipe outlets for an air circulation pump.

I once made one out of Oak that was cut from the yard, air dried for a year or so and milled it when I had my shop in the basement. But I guess it wasn't well acclimatized to the shop when I glued and milled the boards. Or maybe the wood just was not dry enough and it warped. I never installed it, nor made the second one.

I choose Oak at the time as I thought I might give the grid an Osmo oil finish just like on our Oak floor. My Misses though, thought that it may be nicer painting the grids the same grey as our doors.

Finally yesterday I started new ones. Having leftover 5mm MDF from a previous project, thats what was selected as it gets a few coats of paint anyway. I cut two panels at the same size and used double-sided tape to stick the panels together so I could work on them at one.

Then I pencil drew a layout which with I messed about a bit before settling for a final layout.

With a straight flute router bit/ cutter and the router on a guide rail the flutes were routed. Pencil marks on the guide rail marked the beginning and endings of the two row flutes to be routed. 

To anyways keep good sight at the router bit and the markings on the panels I decided not to connect the dust collecting hood and vacuum. Instead I vacuumed after each cut.

Detail of the finished cut flutes on the two panels. Notice I crossed my pencil lines. This was done intensionally as I figured it is more pleasing to the eye.

To make a frame for the panels Pine was ripped in half on the table saw and went through the thickness planer. Here miter joints are cut on the miter saw.

Glued mitered frame in clamps drying. Initially I just used paper tape as "clamps" but while I was doing this I looked to my right and saw a couple of clamps and though... Yeah, well...

The MDF panels in their Pine frames ready for some primer paint.

 In the primer...

And here dried with a second coat of grey paint.

Here it is installed on the first floor.

 And here on the second floor.

Sharpening Station and Assembly Table Hardware

After looking at the pictures in the last post I realized that one can see brass drawer knobs and door hardware on the assembly table that I didnt yet blog about. In this post some more details on that. Also seen in the previous post is a sharpening station, or well, thats just a fancy description for a small table that holds my Tormek grinder.

The two drawers for the sharpening table were made to fit accessories inserts that hold jigs that are used with the Tormek. 

The table top is a small torsion box construction made from 20mm MDF and the sides are dressed with Padouk. Legs and stretchers are also made from MDF and are hollow. Note the spacers that I used during glue up seen at the top by the gripper clamps. I don't really know where the definition of the word apron starts or ends but just under the top are some 20mm MDF strips with a 4mm thick MDF overhang strip. (Still following me?)

Here the construction of the box that holds the two drawers. Glued and floating tenon joinery.

Trying to make the job as easy as possible the box is glued not where it will live in the table but on the assembly table. After the glue had set it was inserted to the table and attached with a little glue and brad nailed into the legs.

Not really finished yet but it does hold the Tormek by now. Maybe one day I'll dress the legs up with thin Padouk scraps that are laying around the shop.

See here the assembly table with the side panels finished but no hardware installed yet. The bar that holds the paper roll is a curtain thingy purchased from the hardware store that I just had to cut to size.

On one end I glued the knob on the bar and the other knob I epoxied a threaded insert and a small piece of threaded rod in the bar stock. I just unscrew it to change the paper roll.

I should have some brass drawer pulls around that I salvaged from some old cabinets that were trashed about a year ago. But even after some big time brass search and rescue throughout the house and shop without real result (I found only one of them..) Then I considered fabricating something out of wood but being for the assembly table I know that in my use it will get banged and dinged, ehm.. well, a lot!
I gave up, then googled and bought 30 used knobs from Ebay. 

Instead of measuring the 8 drawer fronts and eight doors for the hardware installment I did mock up two jigs. One for the drawers and one for the doors. Of course by the time the glue had set I could have measured the place for the knobs on 30 drawers and doors.

This one is for the doors.

And this one for the drawers.

Not the best photograph I think but it does show some hardware!

My Son's Handicraft Furniture

Our workshop has a partial second floor and my Misses intends to take our son's painting and various other handicrafts activities out from our kitchen and up there... so here.. in the shop ;-) . So I've started a table and a chair for him to work on. I plan on doing a few more chairs and or stools for his mates may they want to join in. 

The table top and mitered apron are made from a cutoff Baltic Birch plywood sheet and for the legs I glued up some Spruce construction timber.

When we were building our house we had to cut a big Oak tree from the yard as it was doomed to fall down and might have caused danger in the next few years, according to a cities arborist that came upon request to review the situation. The tree was of such size (about 50 cm in diameter from the stem all the way up to about 9 meters high before branching into smaller parts) that I decided to take it to a sawmill and let it be cut into various size boards. The boards have been air drying for a bit over one and a half year now and since some weeks I have had some boards laying around the shop too. For a chair I selected one crooked piece with huge knots that I planed and thicknessed and cut up into parts equal sized parts. For the seat and back rest I used Padouk as that is too what I have around. Love the stuff.

Front legs with floating tenon joinery glued and in clamps.

The back rest and legs in clamps.

Here's the plywood aprons already attached to the top and the Spruce legs installed. Sanding followed rounding the edges, Etc.

Here's the finished chair. It still glosses as paraffin oil was just applied. Maybe later I'll apply some hand rubbed beeswax, maybe not.

I really like the Oak grain popping.

The table got a Tikkurila Supi Saunasuoja finish in the color black. (It's commonly used in sauna's here)

We had it laying around and as it is a water borne acrylate finish that can take water and should easily wipe dirt off... That's what I settled with.

Cabinet doors

While working on an assembly table for the past ten days or so by now, I realized that I hardly documented it. Today I worked on the doors and took some photographs.


This photo is from about a week ago. After careful calculations weighing the costs of MDF and Baltic Birch ply for the cabinets.... I drove to the local IKEA and purchased eight open cabinets. After assembling them I added a sheet of the cheapest sh*t I could find with screws to the bottom and attached ten casters and checked if the cabinet structure was level. The top is a torsion box structure made from 20mm MDF which was build on top of the level base structure. As a removable top there is a 4mm sheet MDF brad nailed to the torsion box and then flushed up with a flush trim bit in the router.

Rails and stiles are made from Padouk with floating tenons. I glued the frame in two stages. What you see in the photo below has already been glued and now the 4mm MDF floating panel is inserted and the remaining stile will be glued in place.

Spreading glue.

Adding clamps and access glue removed with a rag and alcohol.

All clamped up.

At a discount store I found reasonably priced hinges. They though did not fit without a substantial 1cm gap in the IKEA cabinets' existing holes so I had to drill some extra holes a little further in to line the doors flush. I made a jig to do this which lined up by inserting 5mm drills in the existing holes to set the jig in place.

Jig in place.

Doors test fit. Here one can see the drawers too. Simple construction 18mm Baltic Birch ply glued with lose tenons and a 6mm MDF floating bottom panel.

In the following photo the doors are installed. After sanding the rails and stiles once with 100 grid paper one coat of boiled linseed oil was applied and rubbed with one coat of beeswax. (Just like the torsion MDF top and Padouk edging) The drawer fronts are attached with glue and two brad nails to hold them in place before adding clamps. The drawers, nor the drawer fronts have yet finish applied.

Planer thicknesser wheel brackets

In order to move the surface/thickness planer neatly back towards the wall efficiently and back out to more open area, I decided to make wheel brackets to do so. The need to do this is to avoid hitting a structural column and other stuff when planing long boards. Having the planer permanently placed in more open space blocks the pathway and is therefore no option. After opting a lever/ tilt mechanism I decided to go with permanent on wheels. Time will tell if it is the way to go I guess.


    Welding jig, glued and nailed spruce blocks on plywood.

    Clamping the cut strips in place.

    Tack welding before applying long beads.

    This is how it looks before cleanup and paint.

    Attached to the surface/ thickness planer.

Detail, here one can see how I had to bring the wheels down to prevent the bolt that attaches the brackets to the machine from touching the ground.  I did this with washers as I had them around. Yeah, yeah, measure twice cut once...