Took a break from building the shed as SWMBO wanted one of the raised beds completed so she can get the garlic in for next year. It was nice to take a break to be honest and working with the heavy gauge oak sleepers was a different skill set, which was nice.
The spot for the bed was part of the boy's messy kitchen and overshadowed by a Eucalyptus tree. The tree was in a bad location so the job started off by felling, chopping up, splitting, and stacking the wood to dry. After reading about Eucalyptus on here I didn't even think about trying to plank and season it. The tree was only about 15yrs old but already had a 20cm diameter trunk, felling with a hatchet was a laugh but hard graft. Anyhow the plot was cleared and the sleepers moved into position to check swmbo was happy with the space the bed would take up.
Half lap cutouts were marked up trying to eliminate the worst of any splitting and locate wane inside the bed where it won't be seen.
Half laps were cut with a hand saw as I had no way of manuvering the sleepers to the band saw, at 70-80kg each they are on my limit to manhandle, let alone manouver with any degree of fidelity. Cross cuts were ok but rip cuts were very hard work, mainly as I don't have a rip saw.
Had the brainwave of splitting out the waste and paring back to the line, way easier than sawing, just wish i'd thought of it on the first half dozen!
I'd hewn some peg blanks from an offcut of a sleeper a few months back and dried them inside the house.
I made a jig to make the pegs round. Traditionally pegs are cut with a draw knife, which i dont have, so I cut a 'v' in a sleeper off cut with a rebate plane, added a baton to the back to hook onto the edge of the table and a low planing stop to make a reverse bench hook. I later drilled a test hole to check the peg size as I planed.
Rough blanks were placed on the jig and planed, turned, planed, turned etc etc until the peg became round. It was pretty easy to eye ball them round and true.
Checking for size.
I need about a dozen pegs that took under an hour to complete, it was a really satisfying job making them and they came up better than i imagined.
cont next post.
The spot for the bed was part of the boy's messy kitchen and overshadowed by a Eucalyptus tree. The tree was in a bad location so the job started off by felling, chopping up, splitting, and stacking the wood to dry. After reading about Eucalyptus on here I didn't even think about trying to plank and season it. The tree was only about 15yrs old but already had a 20cm diameter trunk, felling with a hatchet was a laugh but hard graft. Anyhow the plot was cleared and the sleepers moved into position to check swmbo was happy with the space the bed would take up.
Half lap cutouts were marked up trying to eliminate the worst of any splitting and locate wane inside the bed where it won't be seen.
Half laps were cut with a hand saw as I had no way of manuvering the sleepers to the band saw, at 70-80kg each they are on my limit to manhandle, let alone manouver with any degree of fidelity. Cross cuts were ok but rip cuts were very hard work, mainly as I don't have a rip saw.
Had the brainwave of splitting out the waste and paring back to the line, way easier than sawing, just wish i'd thought of it on the first half dozen!
I'd hewn some peg blanks from an offcut of a sleeper a few months back and dried them inside the house.
I made a jig to make the pegs round. Traditionally pegs are cut with a draw knife, which i dont have, so I cut a 'v' in a sleeper off cut with a rebate plane, added a baton to the back to hook onto the edge of the table and a low planing stop to make a reverse bench hook. I later drilled a test hole to check the peg size as I planed.
Rough blanks were placed on the jig and planed, turned, planed, turned etc etc until the peg became round. It was pretty easy to eye ball them round and true.
Checking for size.
I need about a dozen pegs that took under an hour to complete, it was a really satisfying job making them and they came up better than i imagined.
cont next post.
