Wood Working

I went out to the woodshop to fix a footstool for the Missus the other day and decided I really should get scooting on getting the shop a little more ship shape. So instead of working on the Sportster, I spent a little time doing just that. Seems to have been time well spent. Got the footstool done and made some progress towards achieving my goal of actually having all the tools and equipment operational and under one roof. 

  

Persimmon Egg turned from one of the branches that was broken off  the big persimmon tree in the storm that came through about a month ago. I've got a much bigger branch I saved so I turned the egg just to see how the persimmon turned, grain pattern, etc. It's still pretty green but turned like butter with a nice close grain. I put a little bit of green wood goo on it to keep it from splitting when it dries out. It should soak in the stuff for a while for best results but I'm just playing here.

I ordered a grinding fixture for sharpening the lathe tools so I figured I might as well get moving on setting up the grinder and making a rack for the lathe tools. The grinder is just sitting on the bench for right now. I'll fasten it down when I mount up the fixture bases. The set-up is right next to the wood lathe, so it should be handy. Jimmy found the drawing he made of the Indian Clubs from the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame, so I want to get going on those. Plus, I've got a project for his dad that's going to be a real test of my woodworking skills. I'd like to get that done before the snow flies - be nice to have everything set up like I want regardless. Even better would be having the sides of the boat project put together before it gets cold. That's taking up a lot of floor space.

Here's the beginning of the rack for the lathe tools. I don't have a drill press in the wood shop yet so I bored all the holes with the brace and bits of various sizes. The slotted hole on the left I did the old school way as well - bored a hole on each end of the slot and then cut between the holes with a coping saw. The wood is a piece of 5/4 decking. Not the best for the bits. The chips have a tendency to wrap up around the bit rather than feed out of the hole cleanly, but if I backed the bit out and cleaned things out about half way through the hole, it went pretty smooth.

Sketch for my outfeed table on the table saw. The saw table top is only 20" wide, so I'm going to get a 48" x 48" piece of particle board or something with some type of laminate covering and wrap three side of the saw. That will give me another 14" of flat surface on both sides of the saw as well as about 24" of surface on the outfeed. The saw top has some holes for mounting extension wings so I'll bolt an angle to the sides and rest the particle board/laminate on the angle to keep it flush with the top of the saw. Put a few braces underneath and some legs on the corners and I'll be in business. That might have to wait a bit until I get the truck running again so I can drag the piece of particle board home. I also need to pick up a couple of pieces of something, maybe MDF, to make a couple of sleds for the table saw. For certain jobs they make things just so much faster and safer, it's really foolish not to have them.

In the meantime, I'll be back working on the Sportster.