Making a Coop

There was no woodworking going on this weekend as it was all about building the chicken coop. I started on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. and setup a temporary outdoor bench and started cutting the wood for frames. First just a base, and then the side and end walls. Everything went together with pocket hole joinery which is a quick way to go. But quick is a relative term as it took a couple of hours to get all of the wood cut and into their respective frames.

My neighbor came over and helped me put up the 'walls' and get them screwed together. We then put up the 'joists', although I use that term loosely for what we actually put together. But it worked... 2 sheets of 4x8 1/2" CDX served as the sheeting (sp?) for the roof. We then went in and primed everything since I only used pressure treated for the base.

The last part of the day was putting up the shingles. Even though it's only a chicken coop, it really bugged me that I only had one pack of shingles from Home Depot, so when I ran out to get more from Parr Lumber I just go whatever they had, which turned out to be a different color, which looks very goofy. However, I don't think the chickens will mind.

Today (Sunday) was spent at my neighbors helping them with their chicken coop. We were basically able to get to the same stage with theirs, but their design is different and they want a galvanized roof which has yet to be purchased. I came home and put up the side 'walls' which are old window sashes. I then drew out what would finalize the hen house and can hopefully get that done next weekend, weather permitting. I'd like to be done just to have it over with and so that I can back to some actual woodworking.

Frames being built...

All the frames together

Getting the shingles on (notice that my helper who was supposed to be holding the ladder decided it was a better idea to take pictures. Luckily I didn't fall to my death.)

2 of the walls up.

Chicks Man....

Well, the chickies have arrived and they're in their temporary home in the brooder downstairs in the workshop.

EggSlayer & Kanye West doing, well, whatever it is that chicks do...

All 4 of them together (or is it 8?)

More chickie madness...

Top Rail

I was able to get the top rail fit.

Getting rid of the waste with the palm router.

Chiseled out the waste - made so much easier with the fishtail chisel (yay!).

Pretty good fit...

Desk Update

Today I was crafting the top rail of the desk that will hopefully hold the two legs together. I'm especially hoping that it will add stability (that was lacking on the prototype).

The rail laid out with the dovetail at the end....

On its side.

I transferred the lines to the top of the legs.

Ready to hog out the bulk of the waste. Will it work? We shall see (ran out of time tonight).

EW Desk progress

I received my new chisels in the mail this week (3/4 & 1") - I put the new chisel to work today with shaping up 4 mortises and as many tenons.

This mortise on the leg was cut with hand saws only. The cleanup wasn't too bad...

The fit on this leg really isn't very good. Ugh, thank gosh for sandpaper.

The leg and the side went together OK, but it was way off initially (actually, because of a cut on the table saw). It had to be cleaned up with the hand tools.

The 2 front legs and their sides connected along with the future stock.

Next Desk

The next desk up is the one being made with the english walnut I purchased a couple of months ago. I had to cut off a 5" chunk of the large slab in order to get large enough stock for the front legs. I was able to get the legs into shape and picked out the pieces for the rest of the carcase. Still lots of work ahead.

This is from last week with Milos, making the stub tenons.

What's left of the large slab. (Still quite a lot, and no - I didn't pay $475 for it, only $65...)

The 2 front legs, what will become the sides, the front stile, the back legs and the back.

Further Along

I was able to add the hinges to add the middle cubby. Unfortunately, the lid stays I purchased last week won't work for this, so I'll either have to purchase additional hardware, or just use a chain or something so that it doesn't open up too far. It would probably be best to buy a better type of lid stay -of course that will probably cost more than $0.45 per unit. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be so cheap.

Finishing the desk

Almost done - put on the first coat of finish. I don't like finishing plywood.

The middle shelf is being finished separately until I receive the hardware later this week...

What I've learned: thicker legs, much thicker legs; figure out something better with the back shelves in terms of construction. Thicker legs will hopefully not allow it to wobble as much.

Desk Update

Things are moving along on the desk. Below shows the lift in place. Now I need the hinges and box lid lift to come in from Lee Valley that I ordered a few days ago. Meanwhile I was trying to finish up the drawers and add fronts - they were getting "fidgety". Overall should be done soon - I learned quite a bit so far on this design and will refine almost all the elements on the next one.

Creating a Lift

I had been wondering how I was going to make the finger hold for the middle drawer. I thought perhaps I would cut it at the table saw using the dado blade (too complicated a setup), or with a router bit (not deep enough of a cut). So I thought - why not just do it with hand tools? I was glad I did.

First I gathered the necessary tools (OK, this was after I had made a test run).

Next I marked out the depth.

Then I cut it with my cross cut saw. Incidently, this was the first time using the $5 Diston saw - it has a nice cross cut fleam. I also tried out the dozuki, but being a rip profile it didn't cut as well. (Really makes me rethink my next Lie-Nielsen purchase - maybe I don't need that cross cut saw after all!)

Next it's hogging out the waste with an aggressive setting on the shoulder plane. Followed up by lighter passes with the chisel. Finally using a card scraper to make it less 'rough'.

The practice piece shows the difference between one cut with a router and via hand. I like the hand one a lot better, and plus it was a LOT quieter!

No Headboarding!

Last weekend I helped a friend make a headboard. The design and materials were inspired by the crafty folks at Design Sponge. There didn't turn out to be a whole lot of woodworking involved, per se, although we did originally try out legs attached with pocket screws, but buying BORG fir plywood doesn't lend itself too well to such joinery when the inside plies are essentially void space and whatever crap China throws in there to substitute for actual wood layers. Oh well. We were also constrained by height, as it couldn't be greater than 24" height.

It was a chance to work with fabric and foam, which was a first - it worked out well and the 'customer' was happy, at least to what they told me. I very much liked the fabric and pattern, although it was a crime to cut into it with scissors!

Desk Progress

Work progressed well on the desk yesterday and today. Within a day I was able to cut the top (out of some 1/2" poplar ply), and the 2 drawers. I made the drawer material out of some old plank 'white wood' and I don't think I'll ever use it again. I'm not sure if it's southern yellow pine, or some other species of evergreen, but it's seemingly 40% wood, 10% moisture, and 50% resin. It's just nasty and tough on the tools - not like a hard wood, but in terms of coating everything it touches. It makes me very much appreciate the local maple I have.

Today I was getting bogged down for a while in creating drawer runners on the drawer sides - this was done at the router table but it will be done with the hand router and an edge guide.

The only thing I did right today...

...Was to use this hand clamp to hold up the body while I screwed in the back. It might even be square.

Other than that, the base is coming together. Instead of doing a top like the final ones, I'm thinking of just putting some 1/2" poplar plywood on it.

Next Project - Desk

I've had a few folks ask me what I'm working on, and I say that I'm working on a desk. It's true. I'm doing things a bit differently this time. For one, I'm actually making a 'practice' unit, because there were some things to do here that I haven't done before, and I didn't want to screw it up with nice wood. Another thing that I'm doing differently is to use the design of a piece that I saw online. I thought about posting the original, but I didn't want to draw attention to this in case there was some little known law about copying others work that I wasn't adhering to. (It won't hurt if it winds up looking nothing like the original either.)

With that, I've made templates for the sides and rear legs. One of the new aspects her is the fact that the legs connect with the body at an angle, which becomes 'tricky' if you've never attempted this before. Thus, the templates should in theory make sure that I get a good match with both pieces. After cutting the practice pieces to rough shape and then flush trimming on the router table I was able to make the mortise and tenon to join them. Then I had a problem - how to clamp these two things together. I wasn't going to be able to clamp from the end of the leg, so on the first one I clamped the leg between two scrap pieces, while on the second one I made some clamping blocks out of scrap. I think the clamping blocks worked out best, and those will be used for the 'nicer' ones.

For this practice piece this will be the only 'real' joint I'll be using, the rest will be pocket screw joinery, which should go relatively quickly. (Well, relatively means a couple weeks instead of a couple months. We'll see....)

Sides & legs...

First glue up

Another angle

2nd glue up with scrap blocks

Another angle...

Coffee Table - Almost Done

Sure, it's been a while since the last post but that doesn't mean that I've been sitting idle. (OK, there has been a lot of movie watching...) The 'flop has been in use, it's just that I haven't had the time or inclination to photo-document the goings-on. There's also been a bit of activity from Milos on his cabinet, so that's been taking up the past few Sundays.

The coffee table needed to be sanded and then the finishing process began. Oil was followed by 10 coats of shellac, and now it needs several top layers of General Finishes urethane. It will be interesting to see if it has a pronounced weeble-wobble effect (unfortunately, it will fall down though).

Glue Up Ugh

Tonight I glued up the table and ran into some issues. I had already glued up bottom piece, so it was ready to go. It was going to be a more complex glue up than I was used to, and I made the mistake of not doing a dry fit. I don't know why - I was lured into the assumption that since there were few pieces it wouldn't be difficult. It turned out that the middle riser piece had dadoes that were slightly skewed - not in the same plane. Either that or the two shelf pieces were not perfectly flat.

I had to wrestle to get the two shelf halves into the dadoes. I didn't think they were going to go in. The only saving grace was using plastic resin glue which has the longest open time of any adhesive, thus I had a lot of time to fiddle around with it. Eventually I was able to get both pieces half way in and get it come with a clamp.

Looks-wise, it's OK, but it's very tippy and there's going to be a lot of cleanup with sanding going on, and potentially a new leg to keep it from tipping over.

Glued up the base - no problems...

Table glued up

Side view

On top of the bad luck, got the recipe mixed up for the resin glue, so now there's a lot of waste.... Ugh!

Work continues on the CT.

For the bottom legs, I needed to make the mortises, so I used a 5/8" forstner bit.

A bit of work with the chisel(s) gets the round holes square.

The tenons for the legs & bottom rail were cut at the bandsaw. (Didn't use a handsaw, kind of wimped out I guess...)

Tonight it was time to create the 2 mortises for the top. The router only wandered a couple of minute times, but nothing that the middle piece won't cover up.

Almost ready to go, just need to square the ends and make sure everything fits.