Popular Post Cliff Posted June 4, 2016 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted June 4, 2016 Finally time to cut out the sink hole. Easily the most scary part. My counters are perfect, but this is the easiest way to render them unusable! Started by laying it on 1/4" ply. Found center of the two edges. Then grabbed a 1" forstner bit as it matched the radius of the sink curves. Not that it matters as we are doing a negative reveal on it, so you can't see the sink curvature. Tried to use the track from the track saw to run the Trion along, but there is a strip of rubber on the jig saw that made it real hard to do that. So it got free handed. Test fit. Wife signed off. Tomorrow is the counter cut. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted June 4, 2016 Report Share Posted June 4, 2016 Cliff, I don't know what you have planned for the area around the sink, but here's what I did with my daughter's wood counter with under mount sink. I coated the edge of the hole, the area behind the sink, and about 3" around the hole on the underside with epoxy (West 207 hardener). It's quite low in viscosity & soaks in well. The sink is secured with clips, not glued, to allow for wood movement. Between the wood & sink is sealed with clear caulk. Looks great & the water doesn't seem to be an issue with the wood 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 That is pretty close to my plan. The only thing is I was going to seal it with something else. I can't remember what. I think someone suggested it in another thread i started back in Jan/Feb when I was just thinking about this project and asked some questions. I do need to go get some more 207 though They were out at the shop I go to a couple weeks back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 Now I got a hole. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted June 6, 2016 Report Share Posted June 6, 2016 Nice job, Cliff. I really like your work space, too! Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephThomas Posted June 6, 2016 Report Share Posted June 6, 2016 Looks like you are using those 'saw horses' a lot. +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2016 I definitely am using the crap out of the centipede. I also picked up some metal saw horses last week that are made by Toughbuilt or something that collapse down. They have jaws on both sides so you can put 2x4's in between to make a table type support system. Picked those up at home depot for $49 each. Between those and the centipede, I'm pretty satisfied with my sawhorse game. I just wish I had level ground to set these things on, even the driveway is crazy uneven. I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to join these two pieces together before finishing. Either my track saw is not square or I did something wrong because my two pieces come together in a inverted V. They look great from the top, but the gap at the bottom is probably 1/16th+ off. Which means, I need to fill that all with epoxy. Since I already cut the sink out, I can't take anymore material off of the pieces. And I knew about this before I cut the sink hole, but I'm already an inch shorter than i wanted to be on the overall length - which I have to hide with trim (this entire project is being held together with bubble gum I suspect) so I just went with it. The unfortunate part of joining these things together is that makes it so I have to put finish on in the garage, which means I have to move everything in the entire garage as far against the back wall as possible so I can fit this thing in and have room to walk around it. I guess that is sort of ok because the next couple of weeks I need to be studying because I just accepted a new job offer, and will be using a particular technology I'm only passingly familiar with. So other than finishing the counter, I won't be out in the shop a lot anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cliff Posted June 24, 2016 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted June 24, 2016 Finally got a chance to do a thing or two, now that new job hours have basically eliminated afternoon post-work woodworking. First, it's the all new Dyson dust collector for drills! I elongated the holes that were in cabinet for the old countertop. Then I used some 1 1/4" kreg self-tapping screws to connect the top. Easy as can be. I did do my best to leave it sticking out past the cabinet the same distance, which is about a 1/2" and at the same time make it so the gap between the countertop and the wall is not wider than the thickness of the tile we're going to use. The wall, as you might suspect - is NOWHERE close to square/straight. I really didn't want to scribe a line though. I got it to work. FYI - the picture looks like crap compared to the real thing. My wife keeps touching it. It feels like glass. I can wholeheartedly recommend Waterlox on walnut, especially if you follow the exact method they say to use on their site. Well, only difference is that I switched to a foam brush for coats 2-5. And I did end up polishing with a 50/50 mix of mineral spirits and mineral oil and a 1000 grit Festool pad. It worked fine. Now we can start to tile on this side of the kitchen. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikemenifee Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 Looks good Cliff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 Today I took my horrid assembly/outfeed table and leveled some 2x4's across it. Needed as flat of a surface as I could get in my mangled garage. This may be the last act of this particular assembly table. I'm ready to build a torsion box soon. I then drilled holes for the zipbolts from Lee Valley I then I made it so these things will never ever come apart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 I was thinking about this project a few days ago wondering if you ever finished it. That little section looks good. I might need you to explain the polishing step you did. My last coat of Waterlox is always wiped on in a thin layer that dries quickly as to not collect dust and bugs. It always cures super smooth and I've never sanded/polished the final coat. Always interested in finishing tips though. I watched wood man's videos after you mentioned him with Waterlox and really liked the can clamp idea. Haha a bit overkill on the titejoints! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephThomas Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 20 minutes ago, Cliff said: Today I took my horrid assembly/outfeed table and leveled some 2x4's across it. Needed as flat of a surface as I could get in my mangled garage. This may be the last act of this particular assembly table. I'm ready to build a torsion box soon. I then drilled holes for the zipbolts from Lee Valley I then I made it so these things will never ever come apart. Ah I thought part of the design on those things was to allow for occasional re-tightening...is this a common thing to 'flood' them like this, or your own idea? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric. Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 Nice seam. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 2 minutes ago, JosephThomas said: Ah I thought part of the design on those things was to allow for occasional re-tightening...is this a common thing to 'flood' them like this, or your own idea? It's cleaning up my not very good cuts. The counters pushed together had an inverted V so I had to fill the gap in the joint anyway (since I'd already cut the sink hole I couldn't try to square up the cut.) So I just flooded it. The problem here is.. why the hell did my track saw not cut them square? I don't know the answer to that. This project is just being held together by epoxy at this point. Soon maybe some twine! But it just has to look pretty ok. 1 minute ago, Eric. said: Nice seam. There was a surprising amount of needle and thread used here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 If the tracksaw cord gets snagged the saw can tip. If dust or chunks of anything get under the track the cut will be angled. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 Also the possibility that your saw is out of sorts. I saw a post on FOG once about a guy taking the front cover plate off his TS and using a machinist square to tune the saw to perfect 90. You would also be surprised what your technique can do when using the track saw. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 What track saw are you using? No matter how many adjustments or fast or slow I go, my circular saw undercuts whatever material I'm cutting toward the thick side. I deal since that's never the last thing to touch the edge but I'd be pretty ticked if a track saw did it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 26, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 2 hours ago, Brendon_t said: What track saw are you using? No matter how many adjustments or fast or slow I go, my circular saw undercuts whatever material I'm cutting toward the thick side. I deal since that's never the last thing to touch the edge but I'd be pretty ticked if a track saw did it. Makita. I'm not too happy with the track either. It seems warped. Could be the culprit, if it's lifting off the wood in places. I have to take the time to troubleshoot it. This is the reason I didn't order the super long track, as I hear you really gotta go see a Makita track in person before you buy it. So eventually I plan to replace with Festool tracks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendon_t Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 I see festool tracks all the time on cl. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted June 26, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 How to roubo when one has no roubo I got about an 1/8" more width than the other side. Really not sure how that happened since they were both sent through the table saw with the fence at the same position. Oh well. Going to use smoothing plane to take it off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodger. Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 20 hours ago, Cliff said: Makita. I'm not too happy with the track either. It seems warped. Could be the culprit, if it's lifting off the wood in places. I have to take the time to troubleshoot it. This is the reason I didn't order the super long track, as I hear you really gotta go see a Makita track in person before you buy it. So eventually I plan to replace with Festool tracks. Check dp shoptalk in YouTube. He has a makita, and had an issue with a track from the ts kit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cliff Posted July 18, 2016 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted July 18, 2016 Finally time to put this counter in! Pulled out the old counter and sink, only to find a gaping hole in the plaster. I'd say this is why the tile didn't stick (I could tear them off with my fingers) but it didn't stick where there was plaster either. Bad tile work. So I sorta cut out a piece of cement board and filled the rest in with drywall compound. It's not neat but I think that since the lathe is still there, the drywall compound will make it a decent foundation for tile. Then it was time to address the cabinet leveling. There were blocks placed around to make it level. I don't like the block thing. Too easy to shift I figure. The entire left side of the cabinet needed to be raised 5/8" because of the power wire for the garbage disposal, and the dish washer height. Since I didn't need strength so much as shims, I just bought a piece of half-broken discounted 5/8" particle board. I would have preferred plywood, but there wasn't any in quarter sheets and I just didn't need more than that. I cut some strips, and notched out the strips and counter a bit so the wire could fit through. On the right side, 3 corners were off by 1/4" and 1 corner off by 3/8". So I used 1/4" plywood and some tapered shims. I also cut 4 corner blocks out of 3/4" plywood to actually screw through to attach the counter. Pocket screwed them in. Next I turned my attention to another pressing cabinet issue. When we replaced the cheap crappy dishwasher with a nice one, the entire cabinet face fell apart. They cut the cabinet up to put a dishwasher in and did not brace it. It was being held together by optimism. So I brad nailed the crap out of the face frame at the bottom, then added a cleat level with where the rest of the counter height should be, and then pocket screwed a piece to the face frame. Now it's sturdy as can be. It's not actually level - what do you call it when you hold the level vertically? Whatever, it's not straight up and down, but it's sorta at the same incorrectness as the right side of the dishwasher where the other cabinet is. It's wrong but it's symmetrically wrong. Now for the horrid part, I drilled 3/8" holes for the brass inserts, and my tape worked it's way up the drill bit without me noticing. As a result I completely drilled through the top in one spot and punctured it in another. so I have some repairs coming. Got the inserts in without too much trouble (using 1/4" x 20 stainless steel hex bolts instead of the awful tiny ones they sent with sink) and attached the sink. However, it's a little loose. I am not sure why. I may just have the plumber fix it while he's here to hook up the faucet. After that I put screws in through my elongated holes in all my corner blocks (after making sure for level) and that was that. The only real issue I ran into is the wood twisted just a bit. And of course, I have a pretty big gap under the counter that we'll cover with some trim painted the same color as the cabinets. And then on the sides, the counter ended up being around 1/2" short, so once we put the tile up, I'll need to trim that out as well. That was just a result of my inexperience in planning this sort of thing. Semi-not-really-finished setup: 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Eric. Posted July 18, 2016 Popular Post Report Share Posted July 18, 2016 Well man, despite all the trouble you've had with this thing, it looks damn good. Nice job. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted July 18, 2016 Report Share Posted July 18, 2016 Nothing ever works out perfect in an older home! Nice job! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Posted July 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2016 1 minute ago, Eric. said: Well man, despite all the trouble you've had with this thing, it looks damn good. Nice job. Thanks man. I'm very pleased overall. And I owe everyone on this forum a beer someday for the massive amount of tips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.