Tray Rails

Posted here are brief notes about our actual daily progress. Start to finish details on this type of project are Available Here

Today we made and attached the tray rails to Kathleen's HD TV Tray Tables. The construction article for this step is available for your inspection HERE. Since I had some extra time left, I also got started on making the spreader parts. We will look at that tomorrow.

Sanding Ribbon Panels

I started off the new week by cleaning up the ribbon panels we glued up for Kathleen's HD TV Tray Tables then sanding them smooth and flat. Then I cut out the backer panels and attached the ribbon panels to the backers. I am re-writing the construction article for this step because we now have a wide drum sander and no longer have to spend an extra day smoothing half-panels then joining them into full panels. I will have that done and posted for your inspection tomorrow. Posted here are brief notes about our actual daily progress. Start to finish details on this type of project are Available Here

Ribbon panels

Today I made ribbon strips for Kathleen's HD TV Tray Tables by ripping down chunks of lumber from yesterday's activities, then started gluing the ribbons into tray panels. More photos and details are available HERE.

Parts Blanks

Thumbnail pictures can be enlarged by clicking them. Start to finish details on this type of project are Available Here

Marie and the Legal Beagle have given me permission to proceed with Kathleen's HD TV Tray Tables even though we have not yet received the check for the 2nd progress payment. I hate to delay the other orders too much, and even if Kathleen should skip the country on us we can always sell a set of cherry TV Tables. So, we forge ahead.

I start off by running the rough lumber through the surface planer to just skin off enough of the rough, "tanned" surface to see clearly what the coloring and graining is underneath. Then I take the skinned boards into the assembly room, which will for today serve as a staging area, and lean them up against the wall so they are all where I can see them. The templates then join us and I begin the process of selecting which boards will become which parts.

As I lay out the various parts on the boards, I chunk up the long lumber into billets using the chop saw for cross-cutting and the table saw for ripping. These billets are stacked on a rolling cart (on the left) along with the templates for each part.

That uses up most of the morning. The rest of the day is spent trimming and planing the billets to parts blank dimensions. By the end of the day all of the parts blanks are done and we are ready to begin forming parts... but we'll do that next time.

Starting a new project

Today (Wednesday) we start a new order; Kathleen's HD TV Tray Tables. No, these are no High Definition, they are Heavy Duty, which just means they are built a bit beefier to be a bit more rigid than the Classic version, which are no wimps themselves. But, there is a hitch... (Click Here) to read more. (Please note that the above link leads to a page that is updated every day, so the information it presents changes daily.)

Done!

Today I completed the three cutting boards, I've been making for John, Jim, and Dan, even made up the custom cartons and got them shipped out. Well... Mostly... Doug

Cutting Boards

This week I am building three cutting boards; two are Over The Sink Cutting Boards, one for John, one for Jim, and the third is a custom, countertop board with handles for Dan.

Details are HERE.

Doug

Cut Boards

Today I milled out the strips I need to make the three cutting boards that are on order, jointed them on our new sander and glued them back together into cutting board blanks. Why do I cut boards apart just to glue them back together? Mostly it is to be sure the boards don’t warp. By ripping the wood into narrow strips, turning them 90 degrees and gluing them back together we pretty much eliminate the chance of the wood shrinking unevenly and warping the cutting board. As the boards came out of the clamps I scraped the glue pips off and sanded them smooth (removing any ridges or misalignments at the seams). We now have the three blanks needed to make the cutting boards. On Monday I will begin trimming the blanks to size and shaping the boards to fit the templates provided. Have a great weekend! Doug

Truckin!

I recently heard from a couple of my loyal readers who wished to chastise me mildly for not posting updates to the construction article for the Garden Benches, they’ve been waiting patiently since I posted the page on Long Rails.

This morning Tim and I made quick work of mummifying the last bench and loading all three on his trailer so he was on his way several hours earlier than we had anticipated – a good thing too since it’s thunder storming here now, as it did yesterday. We were given a window of beautiful weather to load and send Tim & Kat over the mountains.

Unfortunately the storms have prevented me from opening up the lumber piles to extract the maple I need to build three cutting boards. So I decided to use this time to get caught up on my article writing and get some badly needed rest.

So, Long Rails has been updated and completed, and you may step through the rest of the article by clicking the NEXT link at the bottom of each page.

I’m going to do some cleaning up and putting away in here then, as soon as the rain lets up enough to get back to the house safely, I’m going to go take a nap!

Doug

Mummification

The last bench is in the finishing room for it’s final coat of oil and I’ve mummified the other two benches with cellophane wrap to help protect them should Tim drive through any wet weather while enroute to Vermont. Since the benches will not be stacked in the back of a semi-trailer with tens of tons of other cargo there is no need for crates – which would require delaying shipment another two days to build the crates. The out door finish on the benches will protect them from rain, but I don’t want them to arrive all covered in road grime and sludge, the plastic wrapping will help repel that.

Tim will be up here tomorrow afternoon to load and head out, and he expects to arrive at their destination Thursday afternoon. So… this one is about done.

Next up: more cutting boards.

Doug

Finishing Line

Since my last post, with a good deal of help from Marie and Tim, we got all the parts sanded, and two benches completely assembled, finish sanded and the first coat of oil on.

This morning I applied the second coat of oil to the first bench and have been assembling the third bench while that dries. Its frame is completed and in clamps now, I have only to install the seat slats and plug the screw holes and do the finish sanding.

I will continue to alternate between assembling and finishing today. As soon as the first bench is dry enough that it will not act as a dust magnet I’ll roll it out and take the other bench in for its second coat. It takes about an hour and a half to oil and wipe one of these benches. Hopefully this evening I will be able to apply the first coat to the third bench.

This finish requires a minimum of 24 hours of cure time between coats, so I can not apply the second coat to the third bench until Tuesday evening, and the trio of English Garden benches should be ready to hit the road to Vermont Wednesday afternoon.

Once they are on their way, I am going to take a well deserved day off. I’ll use part of that to complete the construction article on these benches. Until then, I’m focusing on getting them completed.

Doug

Home Stretch

For the past few days (or weeks, it's hard to say they all blend together so much right now) I’ve been working hard and steady on getting James’ 3 garden benches built. Typically I come in between 3:30 and 4:30 AM and work until 9:00-10:00 PM.

Tim has been coming in a couple of times per day to at least keep me company and lend a hand when he can. Tim, a retired trucker will be making this delivery for me because he can get them there in one day where the truck line will take two, and by loading them onto his trailer, wrapped in plastic instead of having to build crates for them I can save another two days of production time. That’s 3 days saved… might be just enough to meet our revised deadline.

The mortising bit that I ordered – and paid extra to place as a RUSH order – finally showed up yesterday. It took a week to get here, then it doesn’t fit! So it’s going back. Fortunately I was NOT sitting around waiting on the bit, but came up with a way to use a 3/8” mortising chisel to cut the ¾” mortises; it just takes four times as many cuts to accomplish, and required rigging an adjustable jig to move the piece being mortised in and out from the fence exactly 3/8” when I was ready to make the second pass. That took a while, but it worked. Good thing too, since things worked out as they did.

At this point in time I have all the end frame joinery cut, the parts fitted and dry-assembled (no glue), the back assembly is fitted and dry-assembled, and the front rail/seat support assembly is fitted and dry assembled. All that remains in the construction phase is to mill out the seat slats, then knock everything apart again, sand to 100 grit and start gluing parts back together.

Once that’s all done we’ll move on to the finishing stage.

We have been snapping photos as we go along, but have not had time to format them and write the accompanying text. We’ve been concentrating on getting the woodworking done since this trio of benches needs to be *Unloading* in Vermont one week from now, and the finishing alone will take 3 days to accomplish. I’ll complete the construction diary as soon as I get some slack in the schedule.

So I’d better get back to work, got to go make seat slats!

Doug

Long Rails

Today I got started on forming up the long rails, now that they have all been glued up. Didn’t get them done because some of them are quite complex, and because today is Friday when I have to put on my Administrative Assistant hat. Besides that Marie and I have a standing agreement and obligation for Friday evenings, so I can’t work until 10:00 tonight. I’ll be back in again bright and early tomorrow morning. Doug

Short Rails

I started out the day by finishing off Step 5: the legs. Then I forged ahead to Step 6: making the short rails. Short rails are those parts that run front to back on the Garden Bench. No mortises here, just tenons. I did not get the article on this written up yet because while I was working on that Marie came over to walk me home, said it was time to call it a day. She’s the boss, what can I say!

During this day I also got the last three long rails glued up, the last one is in clamps now.

See you next time! Gotta go now...

Doug

Making Legs

Yesterday and today were spent getting a good start on making the 12 legs needed to make 3 benches. Details are HERE.

Gluing up of the arms short rails is complete, and I am working on sanding and gluing up the long rails as I am making the legs. More of the details will be added to the Step 5 page as I get it done.

I did run into a setback today: about ½ of the way through cutting the monster mortises in the legs my mortising chisel went up in smoke. I located one that will fit my machine and have ordered it, with expedited shipping, and hopefully it will arrive before I run out of time. While I’m waiting, I have other things I can be doing, so it’s not like we’re stalled out.

Doug

Band sawing my Legs

Today I came in early – about 5:00 AM to get a head start on things since Marie has some holiday plans for us this afternoon. Instead of sanding the long rails I decided to cut the front and rear legs to shape. This way I can be working on mortises & tenons in the end frames as I sand and glue up the long rail blanks. I think it will yield better use of the time. Today’s tasks included laying out the shape of the front and rear legs on the parts blanks then using the band saw to cut the legs out and the stationary sander to smooth away the saw marks and refine the shape. Other than taking a short lunch break, I worked straight through and got all 12 legs done – and twelve seat support blanks glued up – by 3:30. I took some photos of this process but have not written up the article, formatted the photos or posted the web page. I’ll do all that stuff tomorrow sometime, maybe during my lunch break. Today I needed to focus on just getting the days woodworking done so I’d have a little time for holiday fun with my sweetie. Tomorrow it’s back to regular work days for both of us. See you then, Doug

Lamination lamentation

Today I continued working on laminating parts for James’ three Garden Bench’s.

I would glue up as many pieces as I have room and clamps for, then go back to sanding more sets and stacking them in the assembly room where I’m doing the glue-ups until the glue was set up enough to remove the clamps and do another round. I’ve got all the short parts sanded, on Monday I’ll sand the long-rails – that ought to be interesting!

See you then,
Doug

Conspicuous Consumption & New Toys

Throughout this week I have converted a serious pile of rough sawn white oak lumber into two tables full of stacked parts blanks for James’ three Garden Bench’s. This is a fair bit of work accomplished, but there is so much more yet to do, and our production deadline is now a week closer than we had been counting on. That means not only that we will be working longer days, and Saturdays, but will need to take some short-cuts in order to meet this revised deadline.

On a brighter note, we received a new piece of equipment today; a Performax 16-32 drum sander. This item has been on my wish list for some time, but this job, with the large amount of lamination work to be done was just the right incentive to pay out that investment capital.

The sander was scheduled to arrive yesterday (Wednesday), but the freight company in Knoxville messed up and it didn’t get it on the truck. When they called to tell me this and ask if delivering it on Thursday would be alright, I agreed but informed them that I had kept our pick-up truck that day to use in shuttling the crate from the hard road up to the workshop in case their truck was not able to turn into or get up our steep gravel driveway. I would not have the truck on Thursday. The dispatcher assured me they would get it delivered, even if the driver had to put it on a hand truck and wheel it in.

Apparently they thought better of that. When it arrived today, instead of being on a their 24 foot box truck that makes regular deliveries to this area, it was in a cargo van, all by its self. At 280 pounds we still had to cut the strapping holding the boxes to a pallet and off load them onto my dock individually, but at least he could get into the dock. All went well and the boxes are sitting in the shop awaiting unpacking and assembly.

Marie and I assembled and tuned the sander Thursday evening so that it would be ready to prep parts-pieces for lamination on Friday. It was after 10:30 PM when we were done, so I didn’t get this posted until Friday morning – I was too tired to type!

Friday will be spent surfacing the glue-joints of long rails and gluing the rail halves together. Almost every part for this piece of furniture is made up of two or three pieces of wood laminated together to form the thick timbers used in this heavy duty bench. Laminating all those parts will take a couple of weeks, but I will be cutting and assembling some parts as others are being laminated.

On Saturday I’ll put in an extra day and continue this process. Monday is supposed to be a holiday, but I’ll work that day as well because of the tight deadline we’re under. The Step 4 page of this project article will be re-posted as additions are made.

See you Monday!
Doug

Busy day today.

I started off by completing the work on the Garden Bench template set. I now have a full set of templates for this bench that contain all the information needed to build the bench. No picture or plan is required.

Then I took some time to package up William’s cherry tray tables using one of our custom made boxes, lined with Styrofoam and padded out with shredded paper. I ran the final payment on his account and a shipping label -- and this order is on its way. Hope you enjoy them William!

The late afternoon was spent selecting lumber and roughing out parts blanks for the benches. This process will take several days because I'm building three of these benches all at once. I will update the Step 3 page as we get things done, but this is enough for one day.

Doug

We are back from our NASCAR pilgrimage, rested and ready to return to work. This morning I scuff sanded William's tray table set and shot them with a second heavy coat of lacquer. While that dried I brought in the white oak I had set aside for use in making these three English Garden Benches for James.

It may be of some interest that the white oak we are using to build these benches came for the flooring of a century old barn that had to be torn down up in Parrottsville. This lumber formed the floor boards under the hay loft, so one side of these ancient boards is caked with decades of hay dust, the other has aged to an almost walnut brown color from never having seen the sun. Once the outer surfaces are planed off, they will be the color of white oak, but I find it interesting to know that lumber from a 100+ year old barn will soon be gracing the garden where James’ daughter will be getting married.

Once the lumber was all stacked inside the shop I looked over the templates for this project. The last time I made these benches, they were made about a foot shorter, so the templates for the long rails needed to be re-made and the lay-out for the back slat mortises redone.

My final task for the day was to apply the skim-coat of polyurethane to the tops of William's tables. That will cure overnight and they should be ready to be packaged up tomorrow.

More information about our templates is available HERE.

Doug