Wood Working - Made anything from wood?

[Omegaman 3.0 7,506]

Well, I feel bad that I started this club, and there is nothing here! So, while I hope this does not become about me, I am going to put things here if others are not. For your consideration, a table I made (and still have and use) in about 1979 I think. It is already in another thread, so if you have seen it, my apologies.

[other one 29,446]

it's been some time ago, but when we last moved in 1979 I built our kitchen cabinets.   I'll post a picture later.

 

[Omegaman 3.0 7,506]

Looking forward to seeing that other one!

[bryan 394]

That table looks nice.   I'd like to build some nice wood furniture some day.  Last spring, I organized our garage to have an area for woodworking with french cleats on the walls and various custom hangers for tools.  Next step will be to build a decent dust collection system so cutting wood doesn't coat everything in sawdust.

[Omegaman 3.0 7,506]

I sure get that about the dust! My dust collection system is "mother nature". I do my table saw work on the driveway, and we get frequent high winds here, and the dust just dissipates into the nearby field. I do have plans to mount a central vacuum system in the garage, that will be plumbed through the walls of my home. That way, the dust and noise from a vacuum, are taken to the garage. I will also install vacuum hose ports in the garage also, and be able to plug into that when needed. Thanks for the compliment on the table. 

The table was something I did in my twenties, when I had no knowledge, no skill and no budget. I was just too ignorant to know, that this sort of project was outside my skill sets. It is made of mostly Luan door skins, from Builder's Emporium, an out of business chain similar to Home Depot, before there was a Home depot. The door skins were sliced on a table saw into strips about 1-1/2 inches wide, and glued down onto a sheet of particle board in a chevron pattern. As I worked my way to the center, a geometry formed which left me with four, offset square holes.
I needed something to fill the holes. I could have just made smaller and smaller pieces of Luan but I wanted to break up the monotony. So, I took a Mahogany board and set it up on it's edge on the table saw. I then sawed the board lengthwise in the middle of the edge. The saw blade was not big enough to saw through the board, only a bit past halfway into it. So, I flipped the board end for end in the saw, and sawed into it again, so that the new cut, met with the previous cut, thus dividing the board in half. The board had been 7/8 of an inch thick. Now, it was missing 1/8 of an inch due to the material removed by the thickness of the saw blade (the kerf). 

That left me with two pieces of Mahogany, which were 3/8 inch thick. Repeating the same process (cutting the two thinner pieces in half through their thicknesses) gave me 4 pieces that were 1/8 of an inch thick, just like my door skin material. 

A person might wonder: "Why not just start out with thinner material to begin with?" The reason is that now, I could cut a triangle out of each of the four pieces, and end up with grain that matched perfectly. Then laying the four triangles together into a square, the lines of grain match up to each other. I also used these pieces of resawn wood near the edges and corners of the table, you maybe have noticed.

That is what I am trying to show in the graphic. If you look carefully in the picture of the table, you can just see the four squares, and there matching grain triangle construction.

There is a border on the table, that is also Mahogany, and it has an undercut section to overlap the edge of the particle board. Then there is a groove sawn into the intersection of the Mahogany edge and the Luan strips, and a wedge shaped pine strip is pressed into that groove.

Ingenuity and effort, can sometimes overcome the limitations of knowledge and budget! Maybe this will inspire others to try something new, but if so, keep in mind that spinning saw blades cut very quickly. I proved this about 8 years ago, when I sawed halfway through 4 fingers in a heartbeat, $30,000 worth of surgery later, and I still can't play the guitar any more! It was not so much a lack or interest in safety or precautions, it was a one second lapse of attention.

When out triplets became toddlers, I knew that I would want more protection for the top, that the Varathane lacquer could provide, so I went to the local glass shop, and has a piece of tempered glass made for the top, and that is probably one of the reasons this table is still in great shape, about 40 years later.

Now of course, it is a family heirloom, that my five kids will have to fight over when I go to be with the Lord. One of the things that adds to the heirloomness of it, is that although I protected the top of the table, I did not protect the underside, which bears the crayon adornments that the kids added there. 

 

[other one 29,446]

I have a friend who makes a lot of things on a lathe....     I have never had the desire to make bowls and glasses and things.   He is really good at it.

 

[Omegaman 3.0 7,506]

9 minutes ago, other one said:

I have a friend who makes a lot of things on a lathe....     I have never had the desire to make bowls and glasses and things.   He is really good at it.

I have a friend also, who does wood bowls. I won't say I have no desire, but I have too little desire to make it happen. I think I understand the nature of wood well enough, as well as cutting tool geometry and the concepts of lathes, and the speeds, feed rated and chip loads, after all, I was a machinist for about 50 years (off and on). That was typically with metals and plastics, but I think I could adapt well enough. 

If I were to take up the wood lathe, I think I would make my bowl blanks out of various colors and sizes of woods, laminated together, and watch the patterns that evolve in the finished products.

I suppose also, that with some planning and determination, one could just just a chisel or a router, no lathe needed, and you would not be restricted to bowls that are round.

By the way, expect to see some bowls here later, probably a few months from now. If they come out as planned, they will be unusual, and other than reveal that I plan them to be made of Oregon Myrtlewood, I am not going to tip my hand just yet, about the details.

[other one 29,446]

On 9/4/2017 at 0:33 PM, other one said:

it's been some time ago, but when we last moved in 1979 I built our kitchen cabinets.   I'll post a picture later.

 

A little messy, we just finished dinner...  I built the cabinets from scratch, and the chairs from kits....  took me a year to make them in the garage then instal them

[Omegaman 3.0 7,506]

9 minutes ago, other one said:

A little messy, we just finished dinner...  I built the cabinets from scratch, and the chairs from kits....  took me a year to make them in the garage then instal them

 

They are a bit dark for most modern trends and tastes, but I like them, warm and on the edge of rustic, which I like!

Post Script: I'd love to redo those countertops in concrete, LOL!

[Omegaman 3.0 7,506]

On 9/4/2017 at 4:57 PM, bryan said:

 Next step will be to build a decent dust collection system so cutting wood doesn't coat everything in sawdust.

Bryan, you might want to check youtube with a search like "How To Make a Cyclone Dust Collector for Your Shop Vacuum", look at the video, or one of the others that come up in the side bar, so you can cheaply pre-collect the dust before it gets to the filter material of bag of you vacuum. Just a thought.