Sanding Scott & Cheryl’s Legs

No, no… that’s not some sort of sadistic hair removal method; I’m referring to the legs for their tables.

The process involves this jig I built, a power sander and a respirator. The jig and the portable vise hold a leg so I can run the sander over the upper face in one long uninterrupted sweep. Otherwise there’s not much to say. The purpose here is to remove milling marks, fuzzy bits, pencil lines and knock off the sharp corners. More refinement will be done when I do the finish sanding. As I get the matched pairs sanded I go ahead and install the pivots so they stay matched up. For those that will not be stained I also pre-finish the area inside the pivot joint. This way I can be sure there will not be any unfinished wood left hiding inside the joint after I shoot the tables with the HVLP spray gun… those pivot points can be pesky this way.

Once the sanding was done on all of these I turned again to Mikes walking stick. And quickly ran into a problem. The tool rest I have is only 6 inches wide. The stick I’m turning is about 30” long. Normally, if turning a spindle or post this is not an issue, I just move the rest along and work on one section at a time. But here I’m to turn a long, smooth taper; no beads, coves, or any features of any sort just a taper from 1” diameter at one end to just under ¾” diameter at the other end. Getting this long of a taper smooth and even would be much easier to do with a wider tool rest. So I went on-line to look for one at my usual tool stores. They all carry the lathe, but no tool rests. Humph! I’ll work on ferreting out one of these this weekend; I should have plenty of time.

Tomorrow (Friday) is my day at Treasures, and Saturday I'm standing in for somone who just had surgery so the shop will be closed until Monday.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Doug

Rounding the Stick and Making Legs

I started off this morning by marking up Mikes stick to find the center of each end and punching the center to make a dimple for the spur on the drive center and the tail stock center.

Hickory is one of the toughest woods around. They use it for things like axe handles because it is so tough. Part of this toughness comes from the fact that the fibers in the wood are interlocked. Think of a bundle of drinking straws; in most woods the straws lay neatly next to one another. In hickory the straws are all twisted around one another, making it difficult to separate one or a group from the rest.

Because of this locked together grain, hickory can be difficult to turn; it doesn’t shear away real well… especially at the very beginning when I’d be turning it from a square piece to a round piece. As those corners come flying around and slamming into the chisel, it will want to tear chunks off. To reduce this, I cheat. I first round the blank down by running it through the router table a couple of times to take most of the corner off.

I find that a hidden knot that came to light when I cut this piece of hickory from the larger piece is not going to hold together, so I dig it out and fill the void with Epoxy putty that I color with black universal tint powder. This will make a very solid, durable patch that will still look like a small pin knot. Most of it will be turned away as I round the blank and add the taper toward the bottom.

Then I tap the drive spur into the upper end and mount the piece on the lathe. I have to wait for the epoxy to harden, so I turn my attention to Sheryl’s and Scotts tables. Today I’ll make the legs.

It is decided that since I’m making tables anyway, I may as well make a couple of extra sets… Christmas draws neigh.

The first step is to get out my template set. This collection of patterns contains all the information I need to make a set of tray tables, no paper plan is needed.

Making the legs means I sort through the lumber and find good straight boards, cut them into lengths, rip them into 1”x1” blanks, surface plane these to the proper thickness and bore 6 counter bored screw holes in each pair of legs. I spend the afternoon working on the walnut legs for Cheryl’s and Scotts tables, these I make from scratch. After supper I finish up making the legs for an oak set and a cherry set. These legs I had cut long ago when we made a large batch of tray table sets – I think we made six or seven sets that time, and I cut some extra legs and rails thinking that it would give me a jump on the next order we got. Unfortunately all the orders we’ve gotten since have been for walnut. So I’ll use them now.

That’s enough for today.

See you tomorrow!

Doug

Re-grouping

Today was one of those “catch-up” days. I spent the morning doing the bookkeeping that I didn’t do at the appointed time because I was rushing to meet a deadline. I also brought in walnut lumber for a couple of TV Tray Table sets; one for Scott and one for Cheryl. Then I cut into a large piece of hickory I brought in last week and rouged out a blank for Mike’s walking stick.

No, I’ve never turned a walking stick before; this will be a first. But Mike is a good guy, and he needs a good stick, so I am happy to help out. Mikes stick needs to be 35” tip to top to fit him properly, so I lay-out where to cut off the turning blank so that the finished stick will be the right length. Then I cut it off.

And THEN I got busy cleaning this place up. For the past week or so I’ve been putting 12 to 14 hour days, most of the time leaving without cleaning up the shop first. All that accumulated saw dust and assorted tools scattered about makes my work just a bit more difficult, so it’s high time this place got cleaned up. The girls came around to say “hey” so I put them to work. Dolly stayed to help – or at least to keep me company, Zadie snuck off. Too nice a day to be stuck in doors.

I doubt that you’re interested in the details; cleaning is cleaning. Tomorrow we’ll get back to woodworking. As for tonight, I’m going to get out of here at a normal hour and go relax a bit.

See you tomorrow!

Doug