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It's funny . . . . . . these machines don't seem nearly as big as they did in the old shop.

Well you might not get to 50 if you don't come up with some good story fast to explain why you have your arm around that college girl.

Thanks guys. Yes that is an old car sub-woofer. It has been looking for a purpose in life ever since I got rid of the car it was installed in. It now provides the low, low end for the shop tunes. A little more progress this morning :-) Seems like a workbench out to be standing there… Oh yeah, that is where it goes. It’s taking so long I almost forgot :-)

Celebrated 49 years with this pretty girl yesterday, now what to do when the big 50 comes

Here is how you tote stuff when you can only lift 30 pounds at a time. I made progress on the wall next to the tool cabinet this morning.

Amen Coop. I did manage to get the cleats on the jig wall yesterday by using a variety of MacGyver methods. Due to all sorts of unexpected things, the appearance of COVID not the least of them, the new shop build has taken way longer than I could have ever expected. This means things have been moved around, moved again, and again. I have jigs in all sorts of places and will experience a Christmas-like effect as I stumble across them now that I am finally moving in. The point of all that is that this pic shows jigs that I will keep on this wall and others that are just for example as I do not use them regularly. I just threw up those that I could lay my hands on easily to demonstrate what I am trying to do here. This wall is perpendicular to the tablesaw and router table area.

made some caps for the legs. I started with some blocks 1 3/4" thick and the same width and depth as the legs. I set the table saw blade at 15° and cut the two short sides and then the two long sides, pushing a scrap behind them so I didn't get any digits tangled up in the saw blade. I took some lengths of scraps and made up some molding to go with the caps and also at the base of the legs. I there should be way more then needed of the three different moldings but I don't want to have to go back and recreate something at the last minute. Next thing up was to put a coat of shellac on the panels and the edges of all the stiles and rails before I start the glue ups. I put some blue tape on the edges where glue will be applied. The first part of the foot board glue up was the lower section that has the three panels. When that dried I added the horizontal panels and top rail to the bottom section. After that came out of the clamps I used a flush trim bit and straight edge to trim just a fuzz off of the edges so the legs will set perfectly flush with the panel section. I think it would have been fine but this extra step assures a nice fit and it removed a heavy 1/32 of an inch.

My Grandparents-in-law (is this a typically way to describe this?) live in an odd house that is slab on grade and concrete block walls. The doors that were installed when it was built are also odd. They are a very thin 3 panel door and do little to protect against cold winter weather. They requested a new door, initially i was going to look into a pre-hung and slide it in the existing opening. That was a no-go as the opening is an odd size and no standard available door will fit. Also it's concrete block with no room to expand the opening. So being a good grandson by marriage, I offered to make a new door to fit the opening. Chosen wood is Western Red Cedar. I can buy rough sawn from Menards, It's like Lowes or HD but green. If you don't have experience with the store they have an outdoor lumber yard that you can drive strait up to the pile and load from. It's a wonderful convenience not considering their prices are usually 11% lower . To get the door to the thickness i wanted. I ended up ripping 1_7/8" wide strips and edge gluing them together. The long stiles ended up being around 6.5" wide. I went a bit wider than normal to make sure the lock set would fit between the panel portions. It also made the panel dimensions easier to cut from the lumber lengths without huge waste. The rails were constructed in the same manner. Once all the rough material was glued, using tightbond 3 because exterior, I jointed and planed everything down. The finished thickness is 1_3/4" because that's what the window is calling for. After making everything strait and square i cut in grooves for the door panels. I did this at the table saw flipping the board so the panel is perfectly centered. I squared the grooves with a chisel and installed weather striping. This will keep the panel centered in the door, allow for expansion and contraction, but also prevent drafts around the panel. Probably overkill but it was easy and inexpensive. For the rails the groove was cut the same way but was able to be cut through. I miss judged the panel size and groove depth so I ended up having to use 2 layers of weather striping to fill the extra groove. Once the grooves were figured out I laid out joinery. For this I'm doing floating M&T joinery. I used multiple plunges lined up to make a 2.5" wide mortise that was 50mm deep. Mortise stock is 12mm. The only deviation is the bottom rail. I made that rail 9" wide and figured I should split the tenon into two and make them a bit larger. So there I went with two 1.5" wide mortises. Joinery complete, raised panel next. I started by gluing flat sawn material to make 2 panels that were not the size I wanted them to be.... oh well. I was making the door larger than I needed it and was goign to cut it to size on site. Now I'll just have less material to cut off on site. I was able to shift the top and bottom rail to account for the reduced panel size. I used the dado stack to fit the panel to the groove. After that was complete I wanted to do some sort of raised look but was getting stumped on how to do it. Then i remember that you can tilt the table saw arbor. I tilted the blade to 30 degrees. adjusted the blade height, adjusted the fence and cut a simple bevel. I didn't have a spare plate for zero clearance. The stock plate wouldn't work. So pucker factor at 11 I want forward. It went smoothly. I kept my hands near the miter slot, so far away from the blade. It also wasn't a through cut and there was no off cut to become a missile. You can see the profile created at the top of the image below. I forgot to take a picture of the panel after sanding before assembly. I'm going to have to keep this technique in the back of my mind as it worked really well. I like the results. After this was door assembly. This involved glue (Titebond 3), clamps (parallel 36" type), a hammer, and swearing. So a typical assembly. After assembly comes window but that was on order so the door sat in my shop for a week while I waited. I had yard work and a shed to organize so I took a break. Window came. Size was larger than I expected. I thought I ordered a 22" x 36" window. It ended up being a 24" x 37" window. I never knew how these assemblies worked so here is a picture of the window with half the frame removed. I took measurements and cut the opening a bit larger. Once done the window fit like a glove. I love how the cedar turned out. Cutting staves and gluing them so the wood was all vertical grain leaves an awesome effect. I wish I'd done the same with the panels so they matched. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to finish the inside of the door. The outside face will be pained for sure but I'm on the fence if I wanted to do a clear coat on the inside or paint it. I'm leaning clear coat finish, they will be proud of the door and will likely show it off. If it's painted it won't look like much. More to come. I still need to finish prep, finish, and hang the door.

Nice to be missed! I'm still around. I just found myself getting a little burned out on WW. New semester preps, my own shop projects, friends' shop projects, etc. All woodworking, all the time. I've been hanging out on a British audio forum (Naim, should anyone be interested in whether or not one can hear the difference in a $50 speaker cable and a $5000 speaker cable) rather than coming here in my online time. Getting new tile in the living space this week, finally. I did manage to get some carriage doors built over the summer. And I adopted a new (5 YO) pup. She's a Rhodesian ridgeback, Tibetan Mastiff, Rottweiler mix. That's what she thinks, anyway.

Finally Finished the Bench!!!! Now a three part finish of equal parts of spar varnish, thinner, and Boiled Linseed Oil. First project from the bench will be a new tool cabinet to fill the space in front of the bench so that my most used tools are right there at the bench at the ready! Just about burnt up this poor drill - drilling 24 holes through 4" hard maple

OK, it's been awhile, and my patience has finally paid off. My upholstery guy took the month of July off, and with the backlog of work he had to do I just got the couch back this week. So it's time to put a bow on this build. I like the fabric we picked, the cushions and couch look real clean and it sits very well. The MCM look is beginning to permeate my home, and this project will result in a few matching pieces for the room (love seat, coffee table, end tables). So here's the finally couch; Thanks for following along and I hope this was enjoyable to watch, I can say it was enjoyable to build.

Got help to dolly the DP into the shop. the rest can be moved in small pieces so I'm good with that. One more piece of the puzzle done . . .

I've been needing to clean out and organize my shed since i had to scramble to sheet rock the garage. I finally made the time to do it and wow what a difference. I didn't take a before picture but lets just say there was an isle for the lawn mower and nothing else. With it clean I have to stop saying I have no space to store a riding lawn mower. I can easily open up both shed doors and drive my ATV inside. In my cleaning i found a place to store all those miserable cases handheld power tools come in. They eat SOOOO much space and i can't bring myself to throw them away. I know i should just stick them on facebook for sale but all the effort and minimal gains leaves me keeping them or if i get sick of them sticking them in the trash can. Right now they will live in the shed attic.

Well, I started working on it and for some reason I focused in on a feature of your wood that seemed a bit odd to me, but I found a sample of "teak" that has it so was very pleased with myself until I realized that it really wasn't teak at all but rather an obscure wood (Baikiaea plurijuga) that has "Rhodesian teak" as one of its common names. Also that wood really doesn't have a face grain that is a close match for your wood. SO ... no joy so far Just FYI, the feature I was looking at is what appears to be "diffuse in aggregates" parenchyma (broken up banded parenchyma) but that seems unusually regular for diffuse in aggregates. Here's your wood with an example of the feature circled and then the same thing on the "teak" piece SO ... back to square one. EDIT: I realize this post doesn't tell you anything useful, I just put it up to show what a PITA this wood ID can be and to further excuse my long delay in getting to this.

Cl That is with a wood cleaner coat (that will evaporate). It shows what the finish will look like.

I unloaded the plane till so it could be moved. It is depressing to see this much dust on these things. Not that they don't normally get dusty . . . it's just that this is the wrong kind of dust ;-) These cleats will be hidden by the fixture. You can see that they have been used and re-used a few times. Helpful tip for aligning sections of cleat when a single piece is not used. There is cleat material running the full width of this fixture.

Finished morticing the rails, and leveling them with the legs. I didn't take pics of the joints, because they look like a beaver made them. A very OLD beaver...

Well, I finished it and took your advice, @gee-dub. I put stretchers at the bottom and top and then used 2 layers of 3/4" plywood on top. I think it turned out pretty good. For those curious I used spax hardwood/mdf screws. I would definitely do rabbets on the walls and top and bottom next time.

Continuing on... This is the hardware I am using to attach the side boards to the legs each part sets flush in a sallow mortise and attaches with screws. I'm thinking it will be easier to rout the mortises for the hardware before gluing the legs to the foot board panel section. I have been working mainly on the foot board at this time, but as with some of the other steps it seems to make sense to do the mortises in all four legs and the two side boards at the same time. So first up was prepping the side boards. After milling them flat I need to rip them to width and cut them to final length. My shop doesn't have the space to do this on any of the stationary equipment, so I am using the track saw. Cleaned up one edge and the ripped to width. After ripping the two sides I was able to pretty up both edges on the jointer. This was the set up for cutting to length. I used my shorter track along with the TSO guide rail square. I made up a jig to cut the mortises along with the plunge router and a 1/2 long pattern bit. Then leaving the jig in place as a guide I cleaned up the corners with a chisel. And the fit. The legs were pretty much the same process. The leg fit. I do have one more step to do on the legs.

That is the Depelter Quattro. Multiple grits of sanding mops but I do have the quick-change milkshake heads on order . I'm such a chatterbox I think I must have. Let me check . . . . apparently not . Essentially it is two long-arm buffing mandrels on a fixture of my design that spins both with one motor. The motor is kicked on and off with a foot pedal. Although on medical restrictions as to weight and effort for a while yet I was able to do some more things thanks to a hydraulic lifting table and simple levers and blocks. I will have vac setups like this on opposite walls. This one is primarily for tool extraction. The other one will serve the bench, stock breakdown and assembly areas.

Now to reveal the reason for the wide dado around each leg. Slice directly through the center, removing the feet from the legs. And lay out a matching square on the bottom shelf. I don't know who first introduced blue tape marking in this forum, but thank you. Skipping ahead...I transferred the squares to the opposite face, using a wheel-type morticing gauge on the tape. Then I marked the center of each square, and drilled a small pilot hole. This transfers the center through, and helps guide the forstner as I drill in from each side. To leave a clean hole. How many times have you cut a mortice with a jigsaw? Of course, jigsaw blades deflect. A lot. So, using a square guide and sliding sideways helps get the hole straight. Once the center hole was cut, I moved on to routing the rest. I only excavate the depth of the 'tenon' formed when I cut the feet from the legs. Done one each side, this forms a Maloof rocker style of ledge in the shelf panel. I routed these free-hand. Using a 1/2" diameter but in a full-size router helped limit the bit from jumping if it caught. I used the step wheel on my plunge base to take 1/8 increments to reach full depth. Starting in the center hole, and spiraling outward in a climb-cut direction made the bit tend to push back to center, rather than digging in and ruining the edge. The final pass was about 1/16" at each step, and after the first one, the edge of the hole made a decent guide, cutting this way. I've practiced a lot, and this joint design tolerates an imprecise edge very well. If you feel uncomfortable, or need real precision, use a guide. Now for the big reveal: This Maloof-ish joint makes the legs appear to pierce the shelf panel without any visible seams. Feels pretty solid as-is, but that center hole will allow me to fully bridge the joint with a filler piece through the hollow legs. Yet anothe "pro tip". See that little piece of tape on the corner of the back leg? I marked the least attractive corner on all 4 legs, and aligned them to face inward, the least visible aspect.

Hi Folks, my name is Mark and I'm the maker of the EZtension gauge. On blade thickness, Mick S. is right that blade thickness changes the amount of pressure required to reach "proper" tension. The EZtension gauge was designed for .025 blades for the 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2-inch wide blades and .30 for the 5/8 and .035 for the 3/4. -mj

Your log didn't looktoo big. I didn't really notice milling to become slow until I was over 26" wide. Moving the material prepping etc always takes longer. I need to get a skip for my 48" bar setup. I always buy fresh gas the day i mill. For a larger higher value / higher performance saw the minimal cost is nothing compared to downtime. I also usually use enough that my other 2 stroke equipment can burn the stale gas between milling sessions. My leaf blower and string trimmer are indifferent to fuel age. I swear i had gas in my string trimmer for 3 years. Can you get enthaol free premium? You have power equipment and you didn't set the log with a down hill slant? Elevating the log so you can just let gravity do most of your feeding is the best advice I've ever received for milling. I never lay my logs flat if i can help it. It also helps airflow around the log to keep dust out of the saw, and exhaust out of your face. I also usually try and mill on windy & cool days. Some photos of my setup. I use shop made wedges from leg taper cut offs. Beats paying for the uber expensive stihl branded ones and i have a good 2 dozen. Smaller log on driveway. U used support on both ends to get out of the dust. This is what my homemade brace looks like. It's held around 500 lbs or half of a 1,000 lb log. I've been meaning to make it a bit nicer and sturdier just haven't gotten around to it.

Worked on the rails today. Sled and dado stack to nibble away the tenon cheeks and shoulders. I set my stop block for the shoulder cut, then placed the work against tbe rear fence sled so it could slide over to chew off the remaining waste. Sometimes I'm just to lazy to change blades... The dado stack makes perfectly good cross cuts, you know. For the short rails, I thought it safer to mill away both tenons before cutting them from the stock. And the rest of my afternoon was spent hacking out mortices. Drill & chisel today. Too lazy to set up a routing jig. But a couple of the rails are in place, now.

The face side of the beads is a different matter. If I had thought about order of operations, I would have rounded the corners first. But I rushed, didn't think, snd made a boo-boo. Time for CA and sawdust! After a little carving of the groove, it isn't so bad. The color going on this piece should hide that pretty well. Moving along, I started cutting to "cock-beaDing" that goes around the legs. I put a 45* block on a bench hook to help, but these thin pieces were pretty simple to cut. Since my marking knife won't fit in that groove, I use the marking pin stored in my combo square to punch a mark for the inside of the miter, then take it out of the groove and mark witb a knife. A sharp pull saw can really take a fine cut! So, here is the cock-beading in place. No glue yet, so the tape helps to avoid losing any small bits. Here is what the lower shelf looks like with legs attached.

My son in law, his brother and a couple of friends helped me move everything. My lumber got moved a couple of times; that was no fun either time. As to storage, this was a sore spot for a long time but I have gotten over it . The delay of the shop caused a reverse domino effect delaying work in the backyard and some home remodeling. My machines, tools and materials have been in one of three outbuildings on the property, in a large trailer on the property and in the 3 car garage. With the shop near-done I am moving what I can from everywhere . So much stuff has been inaccessible for so long, every day has started to feel like Christmas. I have lost count of how many times I have said "there that is!" and "I knew I had that!" in the last week. I hope to get the all clear (weight limit on lifting following minor eye surgery) this coming week so we can move the big stuff in. Things should move rapidly toward making sawdust after that

Cody and I made our annual pilgrimage to the 'Archaeofest', held at Pinson Mounds State Park to commemorate the culture of the Woodland-period people that built the mounds. The event was subdued, between Covid concerns and rain. Still interesting. Oh, and it is just 2 miles from my home.

Ya done good my friend, but I feel so sad for that model you rented for this pic., I'm gonna call your wife.

Partial shipment of my Christmas present! This was a filler to use the rest of the gift card and I think I am going to like it. It does a nice job of fitting the cap iron screw on both my Veritas replacement sets and my Lie-Nielsen planes. Kinda cool!

A few minutes free this morning, so I ripped some pieces for trim. I don't use a special jig, just a sacrificial push block that supports the off cut, and a featherboard. Using my smallest roundover bit, I radiused both edges of each strip. Fence required, as these were thin enough to slip under the bearing. The result. These will be ripped to width, most of them fitting into the grooves around the top end of each leg.

What part of the country do you live? After 50yrs I doubt it is going to get much worse as long as you protect it from the elements. I bought mine in 1976, and didn't do anything with it until about 20yrs ago. It was either in storage or hanging out in my garage. I honestly don't remember what finish I put on it but I suspect it was Danish oil, since that was my preferred finish at the time. If you are concerned about the large crack you could butterfly it in a couple of places. That edge is going to be really hard to finish. If I was going finish mine today, I would brush epoxy on edge and inside the large voids. Then I would finish the top and bottom with Osmo Polyx. It is really durable and easy to apply. It is really too bad that you don't have a place in your house for it. But finished with a base the right person will pay a small fortune! Ours is about 4' x 2' it a root burl, and we paid $75.00 for it. I was offered $3k not to long ago.

I get a new filter every other year with a cleaning every six months. Just a personal decision but with my chronic sinus issues it really helps (or at least in my head it works who actually knows).

I was pleased with the way they came of the saw, but they have been sanded. A couple things went into this. I wanted the top panels of both the foot board and head board to have sort of a recessed look the the top drawer of the night stands. If you look at the last picture of my first post about the bed, the dry fit picture, the two top panels are resawn and book matched and the grain sort of follows the grain and curve of the top rail. Hope that makes sense.

What?

I thought that is what all of us are here for.

Didnt ho fishing but can across a makita slider for $75. Havent even got it out of the trunk..

Cut down a dead spruce, rented a stump grinder to get rid of it's stump and the maple stump from a tree i cut down last year. I'll be hiring out any future stump removal. That was miserable work and I don't think I saved all that much money.

One last thing for today. The tops of the legs need an apron, since this bench uses table-style construction. I want to emulate a detail from existing furniture in the room, so a molding is in order. A few rips on the tablesaw, a pass over a coving bit, and a little hand plane work give me a reasonable impersonation of an ogee.

I have been eyeballing the chainsaw mill but have not been able to pull the trigger yet. We hade an elm tree fall this spring so I figured what can I lose and I just free hand cut some of the logs and got a nice stack of some wood to dry. Just hoping I have enough that makes it so I can make a small box or something. Just feels cool to be able to make something from a tree that was in my yard.

I finished up the S-curve in the DC shed. The S-curve assembly was surprisingly stout once taped. Despite this I wanted some support in the event of an errant bump so I built a three point support. The little pieces of wood at the cyclone connection points were just temporary supports for the tubes of EMT while I was assembling. They serve no purpose now.

@Chet, it really is. My great-great uncle had owned much of that property, prior to the state acquiring it for the park. I remember, as a kid, walking across the fields from his old house, to climb the big mound. That was maybe 10 years before the state developed the existing park facilities. Many people don't know it, but Shilo National Battlfield, about 45 minutes drive from me, also contains a significant Woodland-era mound site.

Baby steps . . . the hydraulic table has already paid for itself in the past. It is way ahead now ;-) With the DP Wall Cab in the new shop I updated the build thread (bottom of the linked page) if anyone is interested or missed it.

Knowing you machine, confidence in your set up and having your head in the game makes the difference. Having said that, good time for a auxiliary tall fence.

The best wood is the one you like the look of and enjoy working with. The 2nd best wood is the one that you don't mind how it looks and you can afford. It's a difficult question to answer as the wood you like the looks of, I might hate. There are also some woods that are better for some places (outdoors). In general any wood that has a relative janka hardness (750+) is more than durable for interior household work. Softer woods will work but may ding or dent easily. Availability is a huge consideration. I could say Black Walnut is the best but if you live in New Zealand, you'll probably never get your hands on much.

Wishing you a quick recovery @gee-dub sounds like all went well, glad you’re ok and back to 100% in short order

Anywhere in California we would be calling it under water year.

But freehand cutting a full log is a royal pain. I tried it on an oak that had to come down last year. Got a couple of 10' "boards", if you have a very loose definition of board. Also a slab about 3.5 to 4" thick, still drying in the garage. By the time I mill away all my crazy saw marks, it might be 2.5". I decided to leave the milling to the pros.

Does every tablesaw have this little plug in front of the blade? Handy to mark the blade width, so both sides of the cut can be aligned before engaging the teeth. Next operation on the legs is to cut a bevel of about 30 degrees on the bottom end. With the saw unplugged, I rotate the teeth backwads until the edge closest to the cut just kisses the edge of the tape. Now use the fence and a stop block to lock in the distance from the cut point. I bought this saw off CL, and the miter gauge was missing. Never replaced it, because a sled takes care of most tasks. But gauging from the right side doesn't work with my sled, so I made a simple, fixed miter gauge for this. On to the next task...

Just got back from our quick overnight trip to St. Paul. We had a good time at the gallery. It was great to see my piece on display with the others in the exhibition--still hard to believe. And yes we were wearing masks, just took them off for the photo.

Project left the shop today, wrapped it in moving blankets, loaded on a hand truck and up 2 flights of stairs it went with a bit of wifely assistance. Few more trips up and down with drawers, internal parts, plus an impact driver and about 3 dozen brass screws for the back boards. 20 minutes of final assembly and I call this one done. Color looks a little different outside the shop, I've got those 5 or 6k bulbs in the shop.