Anyone get any woodworking done this weekend?

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johnelliott

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It's a tradition on some US woodworking forums for people to say how they have spent the weekend. We should do this over here too. I will kick off with-
I am a self employed woodworker, and my workshop is in my back garden, so I tend to work seven days a week. This weekend I have been building a prototype dresser top. All has gone resaonably well so far, although the glue-up session yesterday evening was a bit freaky, and a number of adjustments needed to be made while the glue was rapidly drying!
One of the shelves ended up a millimetre lower at one end, so I will need to cut the door oversize and then trim it to an (exact?) fit. I use Blum hinges so quuite a bit of adjustment is available
Hopefully I will finish it in the next couple of days
How about you guys, what have you been doing?

John
 
i spend my weeks as a carpenter.

the weekend is my own

yesterday my van broke down and i ended up not achieving much.

but today i machined the timber and made the 4 sashes for the new bay window i am making for my house.

i don't have a workshop so i use the garden and a pop up gazebo thing to keep the rain off

so as i say to my clients at the weekend i di it for myself

aleks
 
Sound like a good idea to me.

My weeks are a bit different. I am at present employed, but would love to become full time in the woodcraft business.
I am at present working on a few things to have a go at selling,just to see how they go.

This weekend, i have made a DINOSAUR CD RACK.
The creature is made, and holds 14 cd's, but i am now working out the markings and colours for it.

The idea and template came from a really cheap and tacky plastic toy cd rack, which cost a whole £1.25 from a local discount store.
This was in a horrible orange colour, and just clipped together, but it gave me the idea and shape to work out a much better looking item in wood.

It was fun and easy to make, and it is now going to be even more fun deciding how to mark and finish it.
I would put the image on the site, but have not worked out to do it.

cheers
 
I agree, good idea John.

Well my weekend was spent doing some normal work and no woodwork as such. But on the plus side I did get some work done on my dust cyclone, that is a proper cyclone, not one of these plastic bag things with a sock on top. With luck if all goes to plan will be able to market it in the near future, aimded at us ameteur guys with limited funds, but will do a good job and not to pricey, will that's the theory. I have the cone rolled up and the cylinder and other bits to hand. I have also found a supplier of steel ducting the right size and prices are not to bad either.
So the only woodwork I got done was making formers for the cyclone for forming the cylinder etc on. Will be using the big fan on my excisiting extractor, which is 2hp and 2000 cmh, so should do the job well.
Woodwork will have to wait till this cyclone is done, then its full steam ahead and no dust in your face. :D
 
Well in between painting and decorating our house I did slip off to the workshed and built the base for my router table. Picked up a 1/2" Elu router on Ebay a few weeks ago and have been meaning to build a table for it. Actually bought (!) plans from shopnotes (<£5). Very good plans - although probably should have come up with the design myself! The base is just some 2x4's with 3" dadoes cut and glued together (although the plans also include details of a cabinet base) - and that's the bit where you wish you had a planer! A nice little gap on the join - although not a big deal for a workshop piece. And got to use my new nail gun when I ran out of clamps.
The top I have done already. The router is mounted to a plate and just drops into the top - which is just a 18mm piece of MDF. This should be covered with two pieces of 6mm hardboard and then laminated on both sides - but I've got no idea where to get laminate so this will do for now.
I meant to give an oak end table I've made a few coats of danish oil but ran out of time. And I still need to sort out my workshop!!!
Cheers
Gidon
 
was supposed to build a runn for the rabbit this weekend but because of the rain i ended up working with a mate trying to make sense of a porsche wiring loom to be inserted into a 911 replica. (it bad news when people know your good with 'lectrics)
 
woodtek":314xkatl said:
With luck if all goes to plan will be able to market it in the near future, aimded at us ameteur guys with limited funds, but will do a good job and not to pricey, will that's the theory. I have the cone rolled up and the cylinder and other bits to hand. I have also found a supplier of steel ducting the right size and prices are not to bad either.

Well, I'm not an amateur any more, but I shall be very interested in seeing your produce and making a purchase subject to appropriate cash being available etc

What size ducting are you using? The US info virtually insists on the use of 6" ducting from cyclone to as close to the machine as possible. I had a look recently but couldn't find any UK supplier of 6" plastic pipe such as is used in the States. Apparently metal pipe is better from the static point of view

John
 
Didn't manage to get any woodworking done, but I did complete the electrical re-wiring of my workshop. I now have 16 sockets on their own dedicated 32A ring and 2 dedicated 32 A sockets just in case I ever buy the tool that will need it :lol:

cheers

Steve
 
Hi John,

Doing WW full time, you lucky chap, I wish I was, but who knows what the future could bring.
I did get a bot more done on the cyclone tonight, but work keeps getting in the way, especially when your self employed, but I will keep you posted as to progress, it will take me a while before it is up and running.
It amazes me, that there is so little over here for us WW's, what ever the Yanks want they can get, all we have is these plastic bag extractors with a cloth sock on top, there not very efficent and the sock gets clogged up so quick with dust, then they don't suck very well. You take the sock off, take it outside and get covered in dust, shaking it out, bit of a waste of time having one!.
Your right about the 6" pipe, I have been looking into this dust thing quite a bit and the Yanks do seem to have the right idea. My own extractor a Charnwood W691, 2hp motor and rated at 2000 cmh and whilst it has plenty of suck, using 4" pipe resticts it a lot, plus the 5" outlet into the collection bag also restricts it. The area of a 4" pipe is 12.566 square ins, a 6" pipe is 28.27 square ins, over double and the Yanks say that the new thinkin on dust extraction you need 6" to get all the fine dust as well as the normal chippings etc. The 4" pipe just will not support enough air flow to do this, they say that the standard used to be about 450 cfm air flow, now they say you need 800 cfm or more to get all the dust. This to me makes sence, so i did some test on my extyractor to see what it was capable of. Taking off the 4" pipe and the pipe leading to the collection bag, I noted wuite a big diffirance in the amount of air flow. So I went one better and took the fan cover off, also the 5" dia pipe to the collector as this was also resticting it. the air flow was amazing, nearly double, I would think and the motor was still within its rated amps, so it won't burn out. Once I knew this, it seemed to me to be the only way to go and make a cyclone, using the fan from my extractor. According to the Yanks, this size motor is the minimum you can have for good extraction and the air flow it gives, smaller size motor will not do it.
So 6" pipe is the best and only dropping down if you have no other choice, my saw bench takes a 6" pipe, so that's good and my P/T is 5", so I should get much better extraction on these 2 machines, for starters.
Any way I hope this helps, let me know if you need more info, I'm not an expert, but I have studied it quite a bit and I will let you know when its up and running.
The plastic pipe you mention can they say cause static, but some say as long as your in a damp area, well the UK is, you should not have any problems. What I found about plastic pipe it was expensive, but of course it is readily available from builders merchants. I have found a supplier of 6" steel pipe and all the required fittings, bends, Y's branches etc and the price was not mad either. 3mt length of pipe was about £18. The also do balst gates, flexiable pipe etc, so i will be persueing this in the near furure, as I would prefer steel pipe, just in case, I don't fancy landing on the moon just yet. If you want to dicuss this further or anyone else for that matter, so these pages don't get to clogged up, send an email to my email box on this site or email me direct at [email protected]
 
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