Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

4 Jan 2021

Greetings,
Happy New Year to all of you! Let's all hope, wish, or pray that 2021 is a huge come back for all of us!!!!
Got some needed work done in the shop, my natural gas heater stopped working so I had to get my HVAC son to take a look at it. We got it working again and I have a new part for it coming in this week. Make some really good progress on the dining table benches. Here's a pic of where I am right now:
bench.jpg

I will be doing the finish on both benches this week and I hope to deliver them the coming weekend or sometime next week.
New Year's Eve was our traditional "junk food" night with anyone that visited. Was just The LOML, me, my son, and my mother-in-law. Went to bed early and woke up in the new year. I'm practicing some new skills in woodworking as well as music style playing with my bass guitar.
The next project to finish is The LOML's addition to her kitchen pantry that I built. More on that to come.

That's it for me and it's back to "the grindstone" at the day job. What did YOU do this past holiday week?

Best of weeks to you all!

[Frank Necaise]

Worked on finishing my redux of the dust collection system for my shop. Lowered the dust collection roll about and installed fixed 4 inch PVC piping to table saw, band saw, and work bench.Dust Collection - 1.jpgDust Collection - 2.jpgDust Collection - 3.jpg

[Charles Taylor]

Happy new year! It's back to the grind this week for me as well after being on vacation for more than a week.

Similar to Dennis, we slept through the transition to 2021. New Year's Day I cooked ribs and jalapeno hors d'oeuvres while my wife made the traditional black eyed peas and cornbread. That made for an ample dinner on a nice day of bowl games and relaxation.

The kitchen buffet I'm building will sport raised panels for the doors and on the sides that show, but the back will be simpler. I made flat panels for the back over the past week. I also began experimenting with finishing schedules that will complement the existing cabinetry in the kitchen, something I should have begun earlier as I want to do a lot of pre-finishing before assembly.

[Alan Lightstone]

Lots of shop projects going on at once.

I installed a switch and proper DC hose to run from my new Woodpeckers DP table / fence to my central vac unit that sits next to it. It works great.

Installed filters, and a large desiccant vessel to my air compressor. Hopefully this will do the trick. The radiators that people suggested looked incredibly impressive, but beyond my ability or probably needs.

Installed the vise and attached the 2" hard maple workbench top and leveled the table at the right height for the table saw. Huge amount of work there.

New Workbench before dog holes 1.jpg

Next project, besides the dog holes, is to make a new top for the outfeed table of the new correct height. Went to Woodcraft to pick up some 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood. When I arrived, a guy had two sheets at the register. Of course, the only two sheets in the store. So, aaaarghhh!!!!!

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, that bench is pretty darn nice!

Happy New Year to everyone...'hoping it's happy and healthy, too. I actually did see the ball drop. I do a lot of reading a night so it wasn't a stretch to make midnight. Professor Dr. SWMBO was sawing away, however...

Not a whole lot of work in the shop this past week although I did complete a new drill press table. There's a lot bouncing around in my head at present, but I do have some small projects that need attention and will hopefully get that this week.

Oh, I do have a "grand-kitty" now. Meet Harry. Yes, lightning bolt and all.

Harry.jpg

[Todd Trebuna]

I've been working on an end table for my wife. She makes beautiful things with thread. And generates alot of clutter. The first two pics are of her end table and her "supplemental storage solution" or "overflow" as she likes to call it. It's the matching end table across the room. This is my solution. Walnut end table with a sliding top, so she can stow her phone, tablet etc. The final model has a power strip in the compartment with the cord routed back into the main case, behind the drawers and out the bottom. Originally thought about a flip top (kind of like a toy box), but decide on full length drawer slides so she wouldn't have to clean the top to get to her phone. Works great and so far a very happy customer.

IMG_20210102_171222.jpgIMG_20210102_171234.jpg IMG_20210102_165106_resized_1.jpgIMG_20210102_165030_resized_1.jpgIMG_20201230_054507_resized_1.jpg

[Lisa Starr]

Wow...lots of you folks made great progress on your projects. I'm kind of in a lull right now, as I've sold my 15" Grizzly Planer and am still waiting for my Hammer A3-31 to arrive. Guess the November/December delivery date wasn't very accurate. I did get an email last week saying the machine is in the "shipping queue" so maybe....

I've been watching for an old Craftman Table Saw to setup as a dedicated finger joint machine. Located one (a 113.29901 made Aug. 1965) over the holiday and went for a drive to view/purchase it yesterday. The gentleman I purchased from said it wasn't very accurate, but my examination of it looks like it just needs setup correctly. He put a new motor on it that is the wrong RPM for the pulley he was using, so I'll correct that. It also needs the blade adjusted parallel to the miter slots. With a little clean up and adjustment, I think it will work just fine for my purposes. The fence and miter gauge were with the saw, but I don't expect to need those as I'll be running a sled on it. Hopefully the combo machine will arrive soon so I can get back to making things.

[Paul F Franklin]

Happy New Year All! Spent a quiet NYE in with Mary. Nothing different there really, we haven't gone out on NYE in a long time. Traditionally we make a meal out of appetizers or light bites. This time it was homemade pizza and crispy chicken wings (air fryer rocks for wings) plus some cut up veggies. Oh, and Christmas Ale. Yum. Broke out a bottle of Prosecco later to actually toast the new year. We watched a pay per view comedy special and played some board games until time for the toast.

Made decent progress on the desks. Got all the base pieces milled to final dimensions. Cut the panel grooves in all the rails and stiles, and cut the stub tenons on all the middle stiles.

When I built the prototype, I just marked out all the mortises on the legs, using a type of story stick. But with 16 legs to do for the real deal, I wanted a faster and less fiddly method. Every leg has multiple mortises on at least two faces and some on three faces. I'm using the little domino and I prefer to reference it positively off its base and sides rather than rely on lining up the cursor. So I made a fixture that will support the leg (and also works with the rails) in the correct orientation and allow me to use spacer blocks to positively align the domino and rails. I had bought a bunch of the matchfit stuff a while ago for another project, so I used that on the fixture. (Boy do I hate routing MDF!) Haven't tried it yet because I need some longer 10-32 screws, but I think it's going to work well.

[Frederick Skelly]

I used a Michael Fortune video that Lee Schierer posted last week to tune up my bandsaws. It made a noticable difference for both!

[Bruce Wrenn]

LOML and I went to bed early on New Year's eve. On New years day, cooked the traditional Southern New Year's meal (black eyed peas, collard greens, fresh pork, corn bread and sweet potatoes. Last year we had our group to friends and widows over for dinner, but this year we did meals on wheels to them. Sunday, being first Sunday, made biscuits and delivered them to the ladies. Got my "Little Griddle," grill top griddle from Amazon on Saturday ( a day early.) Used it Sunday morning to cook ham for all those biscuits . Much quicker than using frying pan. Watched a lot of videos on cooking on the flat top, and how the brands differ. Worked some on a tip that I'm submitting to one of the wood working magazines. It's an item that I came up with in 2007. When I design a jig or something, I write the date on it with a Sharpie, so I know I've been toying with submitting this idea for the last THIRTEEN years. Made up "care package" for our number three grandson, who recently moved in with his best friend and another house mate. Fixed a "care package" for wife's brother and his wife (biscuit fixings and country ham,) which I got in the mail today. Been burning up brain cells designing my flat top cook surface. Have most of the details worked out. Now I need to find a "dead" front control four burner gas grill. Tomorrow will go by dumpsters and put the word out of what I'm looking for. Built a wooden wrench to screw out fill plug on portable humidifier. Gave my first to some older friends a few years back, along with a humidifier. During winter months he was suffering constant nose bleed from dry air. Donated a pint of blood to local blood bank. I've given over ten gallons now, despite being removed from donor list for about ten years due to a medicine I WAS taking. Took down the Manger scene from by the road, and replaced Christmas lights on fence with white lights for New Year.

[Justin Rapp]

I spent the past week putting together my new 3hp cyclone and running ducting to every machine in my shop. I finished it tonight and already want to make a few minor upgrades. Here is a thread with some pics.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....-Duct-Delivery