The Desert Dome Pond

Desert Dome PondJanuary 23,2010When it comes to deserts a lot of people don't think of ponds being part of the natural landscape however they are. The desert dome at the Mitchell Park Conservatory (The Domes) had a lovely, peaceful small pond in the centre of the landscape. I could just imagine thirsty wildlife stopping briefly on their journey for a bit of refreshment.Happy Gardening!Garden

Restoring and Refinishing a Five Drawer Dresser PT. 1

My wife and I inherited this five drawer dresser from her grandparents.  It’s a great old dresser.  The current finish has about four or five coats of paint on top of stain.  You ask how I know that it has stain under all those layers of paint, I know because I took a belt sander to the top when we first got it to the house.  I quickly realized what I already knew you don’t take a sander to a restoration project that has paint all over and OLD paint at that.  Not only did I have a ton of dust, it was one of the worst smells.  A combination of a musty sock drawer and that funk you get after about an hour on the treadmill. 

 

Here is what I was able to do with the power sander before the belt gummed up from all the paint and heat.  I discovered there was some great looking wood under there.  I honestly had no idea what I would find.  You can see in this picture that there is some stain underneath all that paint. 

Formby’s Paint and Poly Remover to the Rescue

I went to Lowes and got some Formby’s Paint and Poly Remover.  This stuff works great.  I really didn’t expect it to work as well as it did.  You paint it on thick to your surface and wait about 20 – 30 minutes.  After that you take a scraper(just a typical plastic spackle blade) and scrape the gunk off.

This is after the first coat and scraping.  I was shocked at how well it took it off in the first pass.  There were some stubborn spots so I reapplied the paint remover on the troublesome areas.  After another 25 minutes I scraped the rest of it off.  There were only a few spots so I just sanded those spots off.  My wife joined in the fun and games and helped with the side of the dresser.  After a couple of coats and a little bit of sanding we have an almost bare dresser side.

There is some wood missing on the bottom foot.  I am going to spend some time figuring out what I want to do with this.  I believe the wood is oak so I could get some oak and make a filler for it.  I might also just leave it as is.  The dresser does rake side to side when you push it.  I will go over how I resolve this in a future post.

 

 

 

 

We went back and forth deciding if we wanted to repaint it or not.  You may wonder why I would strip it if I was going to repaint it.  Two reasons 1) I really wanted to see what kind of wood was hiding under all that paint. 2) I’m not sure what kind of paint is on the dresser.  It might be lead based as old as it is but I am not positive and even though my shop helper doesn’t go around biting the furniture I would rather pull it all off and redo it, plus I have a better base to paint it.  If we decided to paint it, which is totally not what we decided to do.  We are going to stain it.  Out of curiosity I threw a little Cabot Ebony stain.  You can see that in the picture above.  I gotta tell you we both think it is going to look

great.  A few coats of stain to get a nice dark color on it and I think it is going to be great.  I hope to get this finished over the next couple of weeks.  Check back to see the finial restoration and further posts on shoring this thing up. 

Have a Great Day!

Technorati Tags: stain,dresser,refinish,refurbish,formby's,paint,paint remover,woodworking

Using a Kreg Pocket Hole Jig to create a simple picture frame

I finally got some time in the shop tonight to build this simple frame to show the basics of using a Kreg Pocket Hole Jig. 

I was joined tonight by my shop helper.

You will notice that I do practice my safety precautions in the shop even for the shop helper.  He knows that if he is out there he has to wear his headphones and his Safety glasses.

 

Okay back to the purpose of the this blog….

I have a slightly older model than is currently available.  As far as I can tell the biggest difference is the case that everything comes in.

 

It looks like a piece is missing however it isn’t.  It’s the grey disc that sits on top of the jig for the clamp to attach to.  It just easier for me to keep it attached instead of a constant on and off.

 

To begin with I took some 1x3/4” scrap wood that I had in my scrap box and cut four pieces to 8” inches each.

Since this wood is 3/4” thick we need to set the depth on the jig to match 3/4” of an inch.  On this particular model the dept is set on the bottom of the jig using the grey sliding rails on each side of the jig.

 

You can see there are a couple of arrows on the bottom of the jig slide you rails to 3/4” of an inch and lock them in place.  This is accomplished by sliding the rails until you feel/hear them click into place.

Now that you have your depth set it is now time to center one of the holes on the jig on the piece of the wood.

You can see that the jig is centered and clamped to the wood at this point.  Also in the picture you can see the drill bit that you use already chucked up in the drill.  You also need to set the depth for the bit.  This is accomplished by moving the collar that is on the bit. 

There are a couple of ways to set the depth.  In this particular case it has a registry mark for the front of the bit and then tick marks for several common wood thicknesses.  You move the collar to the correct tick mark and tighten the collar.  The instructions will also tell you how far back from the shoulder on the bit to set the collar, for this particular depth is called for 3 9/16”.  I found the to actually be a little shallow as it did not drill out the pilot hole in the wood.  In a case like this loosen the collar and move it slightly and lock it down.  I usually try and move it roughly 1/16” at a time and push the drill till it stops.  You will end up with a small hole in the end of the wood to allow the screw to come through.

In this photo you can see the result of drilling both ends of the wood out.  The holes can be filled with pre-made pocket hole plugs.  I usually don’t use them as most of the time my holes are hidden. 

This is one of the screw that you can use to join the parts together.  They are self-tapping screws.  This particular screw is a coarse cut 1” screw.  This is what the directions recommend for the thickness of wood.  One thing to note with using a single screw is that your wood can spin.  I suggest putting glue on the joint and letting it dry, to prevent the finished product from spinning around.

 

The Kreg screws use a square head and the kit comes with a long square head driver.  I typically chuck up the Drill bit in one drill and the square head driver in another for efficiency.

 

Since this is supposed to be a “Picture Frame” I placed my square across both pieces of wood and made sure the edges were flush and screwed the joint together.  This will help keep the frame as square as possible.

 

 

I screwed one piece to the side and did the same with the second piece.  With those two pieces attached you have what looks like a U, now attach you last side using the square again to flush up the sides and screw them together and you end up with the completed frame.  The picture above shows the back of the frame.  Here is what the front will look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally here is the finished product being modeled by my shop helper.

If you have any questions please feel free to shoot me an email.  Do you also use a Pocket Hole Jig.  Shoot me a picture of some of the projects you have used them on so I can show the other readers. 

Have a great day!

Thanks….

--GROVER

Technorati Tags: Kreg,Pocket Hole,Jig,Tool,Tools,Frame,Picture,Wood

Wow this week flew by

Sorry everyone.. It's been one of those weeks where time just seems to fly by.....  I promise I am still going to get to the Kreg tool demo and the stain story board.  I will do one of the two tonight or both and get them posted as soon as possible.

The Desert Dome Continued

As promised the desert dome in the Mitchell Park Conservatory (The Domes) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin conversation continues. Despite the temperature in the dome being close to the cold outdoor temperatures we spent a fair amount of time in the desert dome. There is just something about arid plants that appeal to me perhaps because they are just so exotic. Graham's SageGraham's Sage (Salvia

Smallish bedrooms

Smaller (yes I know these would probably be large bedrooms to most of us) but done simple with just the things you need in the bedroom !

Shop Safety: The Top 3 things I consider key

Safety is the name of the game when it comes to working with power tools and wood.  I can’t stress enough how important this part of woodworking is.  Things can go wrong way to fast.  In just the few years that I have been active in the woodworking hobby I have already know several people to have had accidents.  It seems the most common injury so far is has been a finger hitting a table saw blade.  This can lead to a very severe injury.  I will just leave it at that.  When you talk about shop safety you can go in many directions.  I am not going to talk about tool safety at this time.  I am going to focus on a few things that don’t always seem to get a lot of press. 

1) Eye protection

I don’t care what tool you are using ALWAYS wear some form of eye protection.  I use eye protection even when I am sanding.  You never know when something could come flying off and with power tools they are accelerated that much faster.  We want to keep your eyes in place. 

2) Hearing Protection

I will be the first to admit that I don’t always use hearing protection.  Some tools are louder than others.  Typically when using a router, planer and even a table saw I will wear ear protection.    Those tools in particular can be very very loud. 

3) A clean/organized shop is a safe shop

It is extremely easy to just leave a shop in shambles and I am as guilty as the next guy of leaving it a mess between projects.  However I find that when I take the time between projects to sweep up all the sawdust, it makes all the difference in the world.  Spend a little time putting up all your tools that you used for the current project all the way down to the screws and sandpaper.  Keep the floor around your tools free of obstructions.  It is very easy to trip over the smallest thing or even slip on a rogue screw.  Taking a little time to clean and organize the shop can make all the difference on how a project goes. 

Well these are the three big things that I try to take into consideration when I am planning a project.  Practicing these three rules will go a very long way in keep you safe and focused. 

Let me know what you think.  What safety items do you take into consideration when beginning a project? 

 

Stay tuned later this week I will be showing the use of a Kreg Pocket Hole Jig and what I am calling a stain story board.

 

Have a great day!

 

--GROVER

Technorati Tags: Safety,Shop,tools,hearing protections,eye protection,organization