Popular Post Coyote Jim Posted June 26, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 26, 2019 Fairly simple monitor riser I made for my desk at work. I used a lot of suggestions from you guys on this project. All in all this simple thing took an incredible amount of time. Not only because life has been extremely busy which makes getting shop time hard but because I am apparently just a slow woodworker. I would love to just chalk my slowness up me always trying new techniques and joinery for the first time but if I am honest with myself I just don't have a very fast pace. But I suppose the slow pace is a good percent of the enjoyment for me. I have a stressful job and two young kids so I am "GO GO GO" all the time. Getting to take her easy in the shop is often needed. So if you can't tell from the angle this is red oak. Specifically it is that really wide board on top of the pile. That was about 11" wide. I got that pile for $100 from some guy on OfferUp. It was a really good deal that I felt that I could not pass up, but I am actually not that big of a fan of red oak. I find the natural color to be a bit bleh and I really don't like the tiger stripe effect that happens when staining red oak. But I have a pile of it so I decided that I just need to find a way to like it. I only have a 6" jointer so the only way to flatten this board with my current set of tools will be by hand. I just needed to get one side flat enough to run through the planer. This board has some challenges. It is cupped and bowed. Not only bowed but bowed in two directions, kind of like a very subtle letter "S". It also has reversing grain. Boy was I in over my head here. I have never tried to flatten a board this wide, and I have never tried to flatten a board this long. But I have the tools to do it so I grabbed my scrub plane and got after it. I tried and tried to get this darn board flat across it's entire length but I just have not quite developed the skill to do that on such a long wide board. What I ended up doing was cutting the board shorter. A shorter board is easier to flatten than a long board. My intent was for this riser to be around 70" long, I had to throw that out the window if I wanted to use this board. But I got it done eventually. I used the table saw to cut the miters, I taped them real good to create a tape hinge. The clamping setup was a bit awkward and I actually applied a little too much clamping pressure and pulled the tape hinge on one side open just a bit. I hit you guys on these forums up on what to do to fix it. You guys gave me the burnisher technique which worked like a charm. Thanks for that everyone. While the glue was drying on the miters I milled and fit the "front". I cut the angles by hand just to see if I could do it (I also had plenty of red oak in case I screwed it up) and to my surprise it worked great. For the dividers/supports I wanted to use a dado joint instead of just a butt joint....you know.....because I'm fancy. I also wanted to try cutting these by hand all Derek Cohen style. Now I don't have Derek's Azbiki saw. And I don't have Derek's cool magnetic saw guide. Nor do I have his experience. Or skill. Or know how. So needless to say these did not turn out quite as nice as Derek's hand cut dados do in his build journals. But they turned out ok. One was just a bit tighter than I would have liked. The other one was a bit looser than I would have liked. Both of them were not as clean as I would have liked. But these are on the underside so who cares. They are solid and look good from the front. I had left these supports/dividers a bit long so I needed to trim them down. I decided that cutting these by hand would be much quicker than pulling out my table saw and cleaning it off so taking great care I marked the line and got to cutting. This is a longish cut to do free hand for me so I was nervous about it. I wanted to cheat and cut on the waste side of the line by a lot then just plain down to the line, but Chrisopher Shwarz (my favorite woodworker.......and spirit animal) says that "If you can see the line, you can cut to the line, any line." So I put on my big boy pants and gave it shot. Turned out not too bad. Just had to clean them up a little bit with the plane. Why am I including such a small detail like cutting a couple of boards? I'm not sure why but these cuts were a big deal to me. For me, half the joy of woodworking is learning the skills. So being able to free hand a long cut like this meant a lot to me. I'm far from an expert or anything close to being an expert but pulling off this cut was the proof in the pudding that I am learning the skills. You know the whole dopamine reward of setting a goal for yourself and achieving it thing. This was one of those small things that meant a lot. Glued in the dividers and glued on the front. Now I need to figure out how to finish this red oak in a way that I would not hate it. I decided I wanted to try tinting shellac. So I went to Woodcraft and bought some shellac flakes and some Transtint dye. Then I went to a thrift store and got super lucky, the first thrift store I went to had a digital food scale, a coffee grinder and glass jars. Now to teach myself how to shellac! I tried lots of different combinations on some scraps. I tried using a sealer coat then the dyed shellac over that. I tried using just dyed shellac. Shellac with just a little bit of dye. Shellac with lots and lots of dye. Just about all of these combinations ended up with tiger striping. I took all these samples to work to see which would look best with my desk. I was not trying to match my desk I just wanted a color/tone that would compliment it. And you know what combination looked the best? No combination. Just regular amber shellac with no dye at all. Shellac has a bit of a learning curve but I think I got it. I wish this picture did this justice. The amber shellac makes this red oak glow. So I think I may have found a way to like red oak after all. Which is good because I have a lot of it. Last I am adding a slot for cable management. Doing this after finishing was a huge mistake. I was so nervous the whole time that I was going to scratch the crap out of it. But I was extremely careful and got through it without incident. Chopped out the waste with a chisel. Then hit the whole thing with steel wool then finally a coat of wax. I don't remember where I heard that you should wax everything but I am so glad that I heard it. Wax just makes whatever finish I do better. And with that I was done. Just needed to bring it to work and take some glamour shots. So here they are. Thanks for checking out this small build. Of course suggestions and criticisms are welcome, just be gentle I have a fragile ego. 11 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted June 26, 2019 Report Share Posted June 26, 2019 Little different design then you normally see I was expecting something just under the monitor. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coyote Jim Posted June 26, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2019 40 minutes ago, Chet said: Little different design then you normally see I was expecting something just under the monitor. Not sure if you are saying that as a pro or a con. Three reasons for this though. 1. I need a second monitor so wanted the platform to be big enough to handle that. 2. What you don't see in any of these pictures is how incredibly messy my desk usually is. I wanted this thing to be big enough so I can slide papers, keyboard, mouse and other stuff under it to hide the mess when I need to. 3. I don't like doing things they way they are "normally" done. I'm a contrarian by nature. I don't even do it on purpose. I'm just naturally difficult. (Read: PITA) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted June 26, 2019 Report Share Posted June 26, 2019 Complimenting you on the design. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted June 26, 2019 Report Share Posted June 26, 2019 Nice! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post RichardA Posted June 26, 2019 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 26, 2019 Well done, I have one suggestion. The surface of your desk is slick, where the monitor sit on flat cut oak. It'll move if touched, or bumped. Try some 1/8" cork on the feet of your riser. It should help stabilize it. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted June 27, 2019 Report Share Posted June 27, 2019 Nice work! Color and finish look great. Next time you need to cut a hole through a finished piece, painter's tape will be your friend. Be liberal. Also, a suggestion to try on another oak project. Chemical coloration can produce stunning effects, the like of which, if done with stain, might obscure even red oak grain. Try a mild acid like vinegar to weather it (usually lighter color), iron acetate to 'ebonize' it, or mild basic solution (lye) to darken it. I posted a pic somewhere, showing how lye turned red oak a lovely cola / caramel brown. The joy (and heartache) of chemical coloration is that it's like a box of chocolates - variations in the wood itself mean you never know (exactly) what you're going to get. But the result is usually good. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted June 27, 2019 Report Share Posted June 27, 2019 Nice job! But your boss called and wants 3 dozen more units. By Friday. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Coyote Jim Posted June 27, 2019 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted June 27, 2019 17 hours ago, RichardA said: Well done, I have one suggestion. The surface of your desk is slick, where the monitor sit on flat cut oak. It'll move if touched, or bumped. Try some 1/8" cork on the feet of your riser. It should help stabilize it. This is a great idea and I actually have some cork to use. Thanks! 14 hours ago, wtnhighlander said: Nice work! Color and finish look great. Next time you need to cut a hole through a finished piece, painter's tape will be your friend. Be liberal. Also, a suggestion to try on another oak project. Chemical coloration can produce stunning effects, the like of which, if done with stain, might obscure even red oak grain. Try a mild acid like vinegar to weather it (usually lighter color), iron acetate to 'ebonize' it, or mild basic solution (lye) to darken it. I posted a pic somewhere, showing how lye turned red oak a lovely cola / caramel brown. The joy (and heartache) of chemical coloration is that it's like a box of chocolates - variations in the wood itself mean you never know (exactly) what you're going to get. But the result is usually good. Why in the world did I not think of painters tape!?!?!? Chemical coloration sounds interesting. I'll have to google up some images of what that looks like because you have me very much intrigued. 2 hours ago, Mark J said: Nice job! But your boss called and wants 3 dozen more units. By Friday. Well....um....you see....I'm my own boss. But....if I don't deliver the 3 dozen units by Friday I suppose that would give me grounds to fire myself!! That would be awesome. I would have way more shop time! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardA Posted June 27, 2019 Report Share Posted June 27, 2019 39 minutes ago, Coyote Jim said: Well....um....you see....I'm my own boss. But....if I don't deliver the 3 dozen units by Friday I suppose that would give me grounds to fire myself!! That would be awesome. I would have way more shop time! And less income. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted June 28, 2019 Report Share Posted June 28, 2019 On 6/26/2019 at 7:01 PM, wtnhighlander said: Nice work! Color and finish look great. Next time you need to cut a hole through a finished piece, painter's tape will be your friend. Be liberal. Also, a suggestion to try on another oak project. Chemical coloration can produce stunning effects, the like of which, if done with stain, might obscure even red oak grain. Try a mild acid like vinegar to weather it (usually lighter color), iron acetate to 'ebonize' it, or mild basic solution (lye) to darken it. I posted a pic somewhere, showing how lye turned red oak a lovely cola / caramel brown. The joy (and heartache) of chemical coloration is that it's like a box of chocolates - variations in the wood itself mean you never know (exactly) what you're going to get. But the result is usually good. Ross, this chemical thing, does it need to be done after final sanding or does it go deep enough that final sanding won’t effect it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted June 28, 2019 Report Share Posted June 28, 2019 Coop, in my experience, a single application goes about as deep as the dyes I've used. But if water is the solvent, some grain raising takes place. For the cherry bar top, I applied the solution after 120 grit, bringing out color and raising the grain before the 180 grit pass. I repeated between 180-220, and again between 220-320. That left me with a deep, even color that did not appear affected by the 320 sanding. I started applying poly from there. After reading many posts about lye as a coloring agent, I learned that some folks wash the surface with a weak vinegar & water solution to neutralize any unactivated lye. Some say that is necessary when using shellac, as the lye can react with it, but not with poly. I can say the examples I saw of cherry with lye color and vinegar wash took a slightly pale green cast, not the near candy apple red I got. I did have some hazing on the top side of the bartop, but not the underside. My theory is that was caused by moisture - I was working in an uncontrolled environment, and a weather front brought loads of humidity after I put poly on the underside, but before the top side. Also, look for a pure lye product. Drano brand has too much other gunk in it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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