March 2016

Doors and sidewall gap filler

  • Posted on: 29 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

All of the door parts dimensioned and organizedAnother weekend, another update. I'm getting into a rhythm here.

This weekend's goal was to build the front and side doors. Unlike the main structure, which is out of southern yellow pine (SYP), I'm building the doors out of whitewood, which is significantly lighter. I don't want the doors to sag. 

Crosscut sled set up to cut half-lap joints on the door frame partsI ripped an 8' 2x6 down into 1" by 1 ½" strips on the table saw, then cut them to length on the chopsaw. The plan is to half-lap the corners for strength. The doors should be light enough, even with the cage material attached, to stay square. I set up the crosscut sled on the table saw to cut the half-laps. This took some dialing-in. I set it up for less than half the depth and then inched up on the correct fit. I didn't bother installing the dado stack, I just nibbled away with multiple cuts. (AKA, 'The I'm too lazy to set it up' method, or better known as the Norm Abrams method.) Here, you can see that the depth is *not quite* deep enough. Another half-turn on the blade height knob and it was perfect. I also tweaked the location of the stop block a touch to make the overlap perfectly square.

First fitting of the half lap joints on the lower side door. Still a little shallow. I'll need to raise the blade just a touch.AHalf-lapped joint on the corner of the lower side door. Still dialing in the length of the tenon at this point.fter cutting the joints, I then went back and touched them up with a sharp bench chisel to remove any loose cruft between adjacent 'nibbles'. This also smoothed the cheeks of the inside joint enough that the glue joint should be strong. I glued up all of the doors and allowed them to dry for about three hours.

I'm using the quick clamps for everything these days, since most of my nicer clamps are all still packed away in a box somewhere. The sad part about that is that I built a really nice wall-mounted clamp rack for all of my clamps back in Florida, but I just don't have the wall space in this shop to put it up. (Not that I want to drill any more holes in the rented walls in any case.)

Progress has been made. Started mounting the doors.

Door jambs, Test assembly, Stain

  • Posted on: 21 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

Front wall frame laid out in prepartion to fit a door jamb. I cut the L-shaped jamb pieces on the table saw, then cut them to fit with the ryoba.I worked on the aviary some more this weekend. Building a piece of furniture is always an exercise in mental gymnastics, as you figure out the sequence of how things must be assembled and finished on the whole unit. Since the walls need to have grid material installed before final assembly, but since it's a modular unit that can be assembled and dissambled, there are some things that need to happen first and some later. I decided to add door jambs for the doors, to make it more certain that the doors close solidly, and also to prevent gaps through which a tiny finch might escape.  Fitting the door jamb for the large front doors. Looks like a good fit on the left one.Both central door jambs on the rear side of the central pillar of the front of aviaryI had a pair of spice finches in college for a short time, until they both escaped out of the Chinese bamboo cage I had purchased for appearance. 

I started the work this weekend by cutting L-shaped moulding pieces to be installed on the inside of each frame where a door will be installed.  These were done on the table saw, but then cut to size using one of my ryoba. For quick, smooth cuts where fine sizing is helpful, I really like working with the Japanese pull saws.  At this point, I also finished sanding the walls to a fairly rough finish. And I did each of the jamb pieces as I cut them. I only sanded to 80 grit for time, and also due to the fact that it's just contruction material, and the birds will get it dirty soon enough.

Aviary structure held together with clamps so I can stain it

Recent Outage

  • Posted on: 18 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

What a tangled web we weave when first we suffer to . . . blog?My site here had a rough patch the last few days. I attempted an update to the content management system, which caused problems. But then backing out of that update caused the whole site to go down. I should know, working in IT, to depend on things going well when you upgrade. Luckily, I do have good backups. And we're back up and running now. 

These shenanigans have prevented me from posting a bunch of updates recently. For a change, I'm doing a lot of work in the shop and I have lots of thoughts on topics I want to talk about here. I'm designing and building an aviary to hold finches for my wife's new bird-keeping hobby. We're in the process of hunting for a house, which frankly, has given me lots of insight into the U.S. mortgage lending industry. It's not pretty, folks.  Oh, and  my workbench project continues to make progress. I'll post updates here as I have time.  (Time is always short, but especially now as I try to stand up an asset management system at work. Fun.)

Reverted to Drupal 7.41

  • Posted on: 13 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

Two weeks ago, I updated the site to the latest version of Drupal. v7.43. This caused all kinds of problems with uploads. I gather that the 7.43 release was all about vulnerabilities around the Files module. There were so many problems, I did a major revert and went back to 7.41. The only things still broken at this point is that module updates will not work. When the system tries to retrieve the file, I get an error. I think wherever it's trying to save the file, Drupal doesn't have write access, and I can't figure out where that is.

Began Work on the Aviary

  • Posted on: 12 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

Prepping the plansAfter I went out last week to buy BORG lumber for this project, I got started this week cutting the 2-by lumber down to more useful dimensions. I had to stack all of my lumber outside on the back porch this time, since I'm out of room in the shop. Hopefully it'll stay dry for a few days until I can bring it in. (Note: It didn't, of course. We had the wettest two weeks of the year so far right after I posted this.)

The lumber for the aviary stacked outside the back window of the shopEven though I dimensioned for 2"x2" legs, I just used the dimensions of the lumber define it. So all of the members actually ended up 1½" x 1¾". (That's ripping a 2" x 8" into four pieces.) Once that was done, I started the process of chopping to length and then butt glueing and screwing into place. The little birds have hatched and I need to get this thing done quickly.

This thing is going to be modular, so if it's too large to fit through a doorway, I can take it apart into four walls, a floor, and the roof pieces. So I started by framing in the front and back walls with their long legs. Building the front wall of the aviary. Butt joints, glued and screwed.I extended the legs 10" below the bottom of the aviary so that it'll sit up higher. I've got a ton of long screws from the outdoor playset I built the boys back in Florida, so I used those with glue to hold the frames together. After the front and back, I built the side walls. The right side is a simple rectangle, but the left wall has members in the middle to support three little doors for feeding and cleaning the cage.

The back wall of the aviary leaning up against the chopsaw station. I was running out of room in the shop on this project.

Power in a Temporary Shop

  • Posted on: 9 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

As I've mentioned recently, my workshop is a temporary construct. We've moved several times and will move again in the near future. This is the result of our evil banking industry and the fact that when they tanked the world economy, my wife and I were forced to accept a short sale on our Florida home. Rental is never stable, as we found out when our first Atlanta home was needed back by the owner last year. From a shop perspective, that was really too bad, especially since I had invested in a pair of 30Amp circuits in the basement shop in my las rental property. (You're welcome, Mr Landlord.) But the additional burden of moving a shop is that things just get lost.  I still haven't located my random-orbital sander.

Running power down the stairsBut lately, it's been getting even worse. The wiring in this house is absolutely horrendous when it comes to supporting a woodshop. The entire lower level, including our garage and my workshop, are on a single 20Amp circuit. That was bad enough, but then some time during the winter, that circuit just . . stopped. It hasn't tripped a breaker. I can't find a single problem wrong with it, other than the fact that there is no juice at the outlets or lights on the circuit. And since I'm moving soon, I refuse to invest the time and energy into tracking down the problem. Especially since we've reported a ton of fix requests with the renting company. I fear we're getting a reputation. 

Milestone: Finished leg mortises and fit stretchers

  • Posted on: 5 March 2016
  • By: Jay Oyster

Stretchers fitted to legs, with the table top leaning against the wall in the backgroundAfter a great pile of drilling, followed by a whole passle of chisel-poundin', I've managed to fit all eight stretcher tenons to mortises in the workbench legs. This is the quickest work on this project yet. The boys are 9 and 4 1/2 now, so I'm finally able to grab a half an hour here and there to sneak down to the basement and get some work done. (As long as I balance it with other fatherly duties.)

Natural light in the workshop is much preferred, promoting health and good humourNext up, I set aside one four inch wide strip of silver maple to serve as the front edge of the workbench top. I had originally intended to carve a message into it, but the more I think of it, the more I want that edge smooth and unblemished for better work-holding. I think I may, though, carve the message into the front of the leg vice. I'll have to see what looks right. I think I'll still stick with my original message, from 'Two Tramps in Mud Time' by Robert Frost

Completed fitting stretchers to the legs