Time for something different... the Writing Desk!


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14 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Coming along nicely! A piece of unsolicited advice, A piece of paper or some blue tape will keep the flush cut saw from marring your surface.

Yeah, I should do that- good tip. I use the little Veritas saw, which only has teeth set on one side, but clearly it's not perfect- or (more likely) I'm messing it up somehow with poor technique- because I did have some very shallow marks to clean up afterward. Fortunately, it was shallow enough that it disappeared in just a few seconds of sanding, which I probably would be doing anyway, as I can never seem to get it PERFECT just with the block plane. Again, probably poor technique- and maybe I'm taking one too many passes- but I usually end up nicking the surface with the block plane, or taking a bad shaving or something, when trying to clean up the dowel. Hand tools are new to me... I'm learning... slowly. Heh.

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11 hours ago, Kurt Triebe said:

Yeah, I should do that- good tip. I use the little Veritas saw, which only has teeth set on one side, but clearly it's not perfect- or (more likely) I'm messing it up somehow with poor technique- because I did have some very shallow marks to clean up afterward. Fortunately, it was shallow enough that it disappeared in just a few seconds of sanding, which I probably would be doing anyway, as I can never seem to get it PERFECT just with the block plane. Again, probably poor technique- and maybe I'm taking one too many passes- but I usually end up nicking the surface with the block plane, or taking a bad shaving or something, when trying to clean up the dowel. Hand tools are new to me... I'm learning... slowly. Heh.

I keep some old plying cards in the shop they come in handy for things like this.

The desk is looking really nice!!

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It is coming along very nicely!

At what age did they become interested in helping? My 1.5 year old likes to "help" in my shop, which is usually spreading out small handfuls of sawdust and taking the sanding drums off of the sander. I don't run tools while she is around, she just likes to explore it.

Are they sleeping in the background of the 2nd pic? Do you go with a low VOC finish, or something really strong to make sure they knock out and sleep heavily? :P When I worked at a hardware store a coworker fell asleep on a pallet of paint thinner, said it was the best nap he ever had!

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50 minutes ago, JohnG said:

It is coming along very nicely!

At what age did they become interested in helping? My 1.5 year old likes to "help" in my shop, which is usually spreading out small handfuls of sawdust and taking the sanding drums off of the sander. I don't run tools while she is around, she just likes to explore it.

Are they sleeping in the background of the 2nd pic? Do you go with a low VOC finish, or something really strong to make sure they knock out and sleep heavily? :P When I worked at a hardware store a coworker fell asleep on a pallet of paint thinner, said it was the best nap he ever had!

They've always feigned interest in helping, but their attention span is all of 30 seconds- so I can't usually get much more out of them than helping pound a dowel in or something like that. I built them each their own little mallet, purpleheart & canary wood, so that they can use their own special tool whenever they're helping with something like that. I don't run the power tools around them, though, and they know that those are all off-limits. Our basement is about 2/3 finished, 1/3 unfinished- the tools are in the unfinished area, and I usually just keep the door to that area closed. Eventually, I'll introduce them to the tools- but probably not before I get a SawStop.

So, the second pic- I can see how that's misleading, hah! We use the finished area of the basement as a guest sleeping spot... and a kid play area... and a quasi lumber storage area... and just "crap" overflow. Long story, but we inherited a lot of stuff when we bought this house, and it is taking us quite some time to renovate, get rid of old stuff, etc- the basement is just where a lot of that extra crap ends up temporarily while we figure out a better plan. So, no- no sleeping going on in the pack 'n play or the bed behind it... they were playing somewhere else near me.

I used the new Maker Brand Simple Finish Oil & Wax stuff... they private labeled something, but it's essentially a mix of BLO, safflower oil, tung oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, hemp oil, carnauba wax, and microcrystalline waxes. It's all fairly natural and low VOC. Not zero, but low... I'm not worried about them being around it for 10-20 minutes. And, they sleep far away from all of the tools and finishes, 2 floors up from here... I can work down there in peace after they go to sleep every night, heh.

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43 minutes ago, treeslayer said:

Nice progress and looks beautiful, always nice to have help :) my kids were in the shop with me shortly after they learned to walk, bandsaw, drillpress, sanding chores about age 7 or 8 with close supervision, building simple things at about 10. 

I'm hoping both of mine at least appreciate making stuff, if not join in themselves. They seem to like watching some of the YouTube makers with me- Laura Kampf in particular has been a big hit- so, perhaps it'll catch on once they're old enough to do simple stuff down there with me! Their elementary school has a really nice library/media center, that includes a mini-maker space... I think it'd be pretty funny if they showed up on their first makerspace day in 2nd or 3rd grade or something and were like, "uhhh, where are the REAL tools? these are wimpy, you should see what I already get to build at home!" :lol:

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4 minutes ago, Kurt Triebe said:

They've always feigned interest in helping, but their attention span is all of 30 seconds- so I can't usually get much more out of them than helping pound a dowel in or something like that. I built them each their own little mallet, purpleheart & canary wood, so that they can use their own special tool whenever they're helping with something like that. I don't run the power tools around them, though, and they know that those are all off-limits. Our basement is about 2/3 finished, 1/3 unfinished- the tools are in the unfinished area, and I usually just keep the door to that area closed. Eventually, I'll introduce them to the tools- but probably not before I get a SawStop.

So, the second pic- I can see how that's misleading, hah! We use the finished area of the basement as a guest sleeping spot... and a kid play area... and a quasi lumber storage area... and just "crap" overflow. Long story, but we inherited a lot of stuff when we bought this house, and it is taking us quite some time to renovate, get rid of old stuff, etc- the basement is just where a lot of that extra crap ends up temporarily while we figure out a better plan. So, no- no sleeping going on in the pack 'n play or the bed behind it... they were playing somewhere else near me.

I used the new Maker Brand Simple Finish Oil & Wax stuff... they private labeled something, but it's essentially a mix of BLO, safflower oil, tung oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, hemp oil, carnauba wax, and microcrystalline waxes. It's all fairly natural and low VOC. Not zero, but low... I'm not worried about them being around it for 10-20 minutes. And, they sleep far away from all of the tools and finishes, 2 floors up from here... I can work down there in peace after they go to sleep every night, heh.

Hey, 30 seconds sounds pretty good! I have been trying to train her to leave the power tools alone, but she is still young and big yellow and red switches are tempting. For the tools that stay in place and often plugged in, I keep all of the power switch locks in a bin on a shelf, just to be sure she doesn't accidentally turn something on. My lathe just had a in-line rocker switch on the power cable, so I bought a power tool switch on Amazon and wired it up so I can lock it out, too.

 

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