Trimming Parts

This day started off by giving the dog a bath. She gets all itchy when she’s dirty and she was itching a good part of the night last night. So was into the dog-wash with her and now she’s clean and soft and shiny again. For a while.

But then I got busy making parts – while the pup went running around the shop peering out the windows to see what she was missing out on outside until she dried off. I started by roughing out the parts I need for Raffik’s wall hung stopper rack – and as long as I was at it, parts for several more. By the by, this rack will be going to Australia when it’s done! Cutting these parts involved cross cutting long boards into short boards on the chop saw (yellow thing in the back ground) ripping wide boards into narrower ones on the table saw (buried in the foreground) and resawing thick boards into thin ones with the band saw (big white thing on the right). Pretty much the same as what I’ve been doing all week long.

When I got these parts roughed out they joined the steamer trunk panels on the extension wing of the table saw to be surface planed smooth and to proper thickness (using the tool you can barely see behind the stack of lumber – it’s on wheels so I can roll it where I need it). Diligence is called for here for I will be taking some of the parts to 9/16”, some to 5/16” and the rest to ¼” thicknesses; I have to be sure I pull the right parts out of the rotation when they reach their finished dimension. I also have to be mindful of the grain direction, if I plane a face backwards the rotating knives will lift the grain and tear out little chunks of the surface.

This took all morning. Doing this single handed is a chore because it means I take one piece off the table, feed it into the planer, run around the planer – ok, I walk, not run – to take the part as it slides out the back side, place it on the table in a “done” stack and walk back around to the front of the planer. Repeat until a stack is gone, move all stacks toward the planer and begin again. When all stacks have been sent through the planer, unlock the head, turn the height adjustment crank a half turn to lower it 1/32nd of an inch and do them all again. I filled the dust collector bag with chips and had to stop to take the bag out and empty it twice. The stuff makes some good compost of you mix it with dirt and some organic kitchen waste and let it set over the winter.

After lunch I trimmed all these parts to finished dimensions. First they went through the table saw fitted with a fine tooth blade twice; once on each edge so both are straight and smooth. When all the parts – both stopper rack parts and trunk panels -- were trimmed to width I set up the Incra miter gauge and trimmed the stopper rack parts to length.

I worked until supper time, stopped to eat then came back and finished up. Then I stacked all the parts neatly, grouped by species, and cleaned up the mess. It is a little early for a late night (I work three shifts on Tues and Thurs – today is Thursday) but to press on any further would mean having to stop in the middle of a process and I don’t like to do that if I can avoid it because “ah gets cornfused”.

Tomorrow we’ll start fitting trunk parts together, and pray that they all fit like they’re supposed to!!

See you then,

Doug