a little custom cnc work

we did a little custom cnc work for our friend bill laberge recently. he designed a table with a 2.75" thick edge, cut on a 60 degree angle ... we had a bit that would work, but it was too small to do the work efficiently, so for a moment, we considered alternate methods ... bandsaw it with circle jig? different angle like 45 degrees? in the end, trevor found a larger 60 degree bit and the cuts were faster, very smooth and exact. bill glued up the apron blanks with the grain running parallel to the table top to minimize the effects of seasonal movement. the table has four 22" leaves. (wow...big one), trevor cut and beveled the leaves to length and bill cut the leaf apron edges on his tablesaw ... ill try to wrangle a finished photo when its finished ... i saw it mostly assembled last week and it looked pretty cool. cilck the photos to enlarge them ...
stepping cuts had to be made ahead of time to allow room for the collett that holds the bit
in the middle is the top mated with the apron piece .. very smooth and precise ...

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Winter Wall Cabinet Wonderland

The almost complete breakfast bar
in use.

I hope youve all had a great holiday. Things have been quiet here at the Penultimate Woodshop (at least the shop has been quiet). My grandiose plans are to finish the breakfast bar and make progress on the workbench while Im home for the Christmas break, but well see how that goes.
No matter what my progress with the counter & bench, I know what Ill be working on in January: The Wood Whisperer Winter 2011 Guild Build. I was lucky enough to participate in the inaugural Guild build, The Shaker Table. I skipped the Chest of Drawers (too little time and no need) but Ill be back with a vengeance for the Hanging Wall Cabinet. I think Im going to bastardize mine into a tool cabinet, but well see how that goes.

The Winter Guild Build.

In the mean time, I cant say this strongly enough. You must join the Wood Whisperer Guild.
Marc is not paying me to say that, but I wouldnt be yelling it any louder if he was. So go join if you havent already. While the builds are reason enough, there are many more reasons to join. Marc has gone through pains to list them all on his Join the Guild page and hes done a good job at chronicling all but one of them. Hes missing my new favorite reason: youll also get to be a Brown Shirt at Woodworking in America (if you dont know, then dont ask. Hint: were not Fascists).
So go join. Then wrap up whatevers going on in your woodshop and get yourself ready. Its going to be a winter wall cabinet wonderland.
Oh, also I was wondering what projects have you bastardized to suit your needs / tastes?
Now go!

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The Bastard Wall Cabinet for tools!

The Wood Whisperer Guild Winter Build is upon us, and for those of you new to the site, Ill be participating as loudly as I can. Rather than go Marcs suggested route of a fancy, nice piece of furniture to hang in the house and proudly display, Im opting to make a utilitarian, sheet good tool cabinet. Call it my Bastard Wall Cabinet.
When a wall cabinet was first suggested as the next Guild build I knew I would turn mine into a tool cabinet. Yet, it wasnt until this passed weekend that I gave it any serious thought (and truth be told, I wouldnt even have thought about it yet, had it not been for Adam Kings egging me on to share it). As I suspect that Im not the only woodworker in need of a tool cabinet I invite all my fellow Guildites to bastardize their cabinets too. Ill share mine as frequently as I can, but let this serve as a warning: Im not Marc & Im not trying to co-opt his build. If youre turning your Guild cabinet into a tool cabinet, its best you follow along with him and modify the Guild design as necessary to suit your particular needs (Im guessing Im the only one who need the final cabinet to be exactly 17 3/4" deep).

The original bastard.

My DesignThe first design parameter I have to meet is the size of my current sliding storage cabinet. As the tool cabinet will hang on the wall immediately next to the sliding storage cabinet and I plan to build more cabinets to hang next to the tool cabinet, I want the tool cabinet to match the height (27-3/4") and depth (17-3/4" + French cleat) of the existing slide out cabinet. Since the cabinets will hang immediately against one another, Im also forced to design doors which will open and swing without requiring any side clearance.
Understanding those parameters, I watched Marcs previous Guild video on the design of his tool cabinet. I was intrigued with the idea of storing the planes on their side. I went as far as to create a SketchUp using that storage method late Sunday night. As you can see, storing the planes on their side would be great if I could make the cabinet shallower than 17-3/4", but in my case it left a plenum of dead space behind. My first thought was to make the front portion of the cabinet pull out to reveal the plenum. After a good nights sleep and lots of consideration (and a helpful email exchange with Marc) I decided to scrap my first design. Making it pull out would not only be overly complicated, the clearance required for the slides and exterior frame would dramatically reduce the size and utility of the plenum they would be revealing.

The right side of the new bastard.

My next source of ideas was an article entitled "Tool-Cabinet Design" by Chris Becksvoort from the 2001 edition of Fine Woodworking Tools & Shops (its a members only article). In the article Becksvoort arranges his planes vertically on an inclined shelf that hinges up to reveal storage space behind it. I thought this would be a better and easier choice to use my 17-3/4" depth and developed my second design.
One element that has stayed the same are the doors, with 3" deep recesses behind them. After seeing The Village Carpenters shop, I plan to copy Kari and make removable racks for my chisels which will fit in the 3" deep recesses.
Thats about as far as Ive come with the design so far. Ill keep the blog updated as it evolves.
Whos inspired your tool cabinet design?

The left side of the bastard.

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Shop Furniture Sliding Storage Cabinet

I like shop cabinets. After having a few in my old shop and seeing how clean and organized they kept everything, I fell in love. The old shop had a series of three custom built rolling cabinets that stored under my old, massive miter saw bench. Each was built of MDF. They were open on one side and had a single shelf. Three 19” toolboxes fit beneath the shelf and four 16” toolboxes above the shelf. The tops had a 1” overhand to assist with clamping . . . but I digress. This post is about the new sliding storage cabinet.

The new cabinet is inspired by the Grizzly H5654 cabinet. The Grizzly has a pair of doors on the front and two slide out drawers on each side. It houses a total of 7 pegboard panels. When I first saw it I was enamored with it’s ability to store so much in such a small area. And it was all stored in a closed cabinet to keep the contents dust free.
The more I thought about the Grizzly, the more hung up I became on its biggest design flaw - the drawers which slide out to the side. They meant that the H5654 would take up twice as much wall space as the width of the cabinet. As I plan to fit in as many cabinets as I can along my walls, this was a deal killer for me.

Knowing that the solution was to have all of the drawers slide out from the front, I began to hatch my own idea for a slide out cabinet. I bough some 2’ x 4’ pegboard and a sheet of 3/4” OSB from Lowe’s. I let efficient use of the pegboard determine the size of my slide out storage drawers and then I designed the rest of the cabinet around them. The drawers ended up being 16” deep by 24” high.
The cabinet is 28” wide by 28” high. It’s made of the 3/4” OSB assembled with pocket screws. It’s attached to the wall via a French cleat so I can easily move it around as I continue to work on the shop. As it is currently my only wall cabinet I have extension cords hanging on one side and air and vacuum hoses on the other. The cords and hoses hang on cheap metal garden hose racks.

I finished it off with some satin finished drawer pulls which don’t really match anything, but I like the look of them anychoice. I was too lazy to sand or finish the cabinet. Even in it’s naked form I’m loving it. The sliding storage cabinet now houses my tape, most of my hand saws, all my headphones and some cordless drills. While I’m sure the contents will change over time, the cabinet itself will certainly serve many years of faithful services in my penultimate woodshop.
What kind of cabinets have you made for you shop?

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Finished the Jewelry Cabinet

Will completed the Jewelry Cabinet today ... Finishing takes time, and its alchoices best not to rush it ... He has been building the layers of aniline dye, gel stain,varnish and polish for the last week or so while he helped with the construction of the mahogany table .. Hes also been adding the mirror, stool upholstery, velvet drawer bottoms and compartment dividers ... All done now ... It will be off to its new home on the Vineyard before long ... This was a interesting collaboration with the clients and an inspiring new design ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
Before the color ..
All done ...
With themirror and drawer dividers ... The trays slide easily completely in and out of the case ...
It is really hard to photograph a mirror
Shows what you can do with a little judicious photoshop cutting ... All the photos above were cut from their busy backgrounds as we have too much stuff in the finish room to set up the background paper ... Takes a minute but it is well worth the time ...
The finish sample and fabic choices we sent the client ...

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oversize tv or undersized cabinet

weve got a good project coming up ... two recycled chestnut cabinets and a new mantle, built around an existing stone fireplace ... the clients were interested in having a large flat screen tv pull out from the cabinet on the right ... a 46", larger, in fact, than would fit in a traditional head on installation. my friend, and, coincidentally, the audio/visual man on the job, kem verner, told me it was no problem to do this as the tv could go back into the cabinet on an angle ... hmmm.. why not? ..
the clients were serious, so i picked up one of the sanus tv brackets we typically use .. i first tried putting the wall for the tv bracket on an angle, thinking that would give me the most flexibility, but, in the end ...
kem suggested mounting the bracket on a vertical partition 90 degrees to the face of the cabinet and as close to the front as possible ... click the photos to enlarge them ..
in the end, this location gave us the most extension and smoothest in/out operation for the tv and the clients ( and i too) were able to see it would work ...
the vertical mdf on the left represents the retractable door in the closed position.
this photo shows the tv in the all the choice out location ... you can see in the photo below that the door, when its retracted, will be behind the face of the stone and the tv will be out past it ... a slick solution ...

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The Montshire Museum Project

will took this picture at frog hollow yesterday when he dropped off the bench ... they decided to display it with the frame that will be buried in the ground under the installed bench ... i guarantee, no one will be walking off with it once its installed ... other entries are in the frames above ...
5/1/11 ready for the show that opens at frog hollow in burlington next week ... it will be there for a month and then installed at the museum ... the openings next friday evening ... come by if you are in the area ... it should be fun ...
were coming down the home stretch on the montshire museum bench. the top half of this post i wrote back in early february and now were wrapping up the actual construction .. if you missed the post back then, its a really nice project and a nice collaboration with the museum and frog hollow to get artists work in the public domain. we are flattered to be included ... scroll down to see the bench in process ... well be finishing it up later this week .. 2/1/11 We were flattered to get a letter in the mail Saturday from The Montshire Museum of Science. They announced a competition last fall for the purchase of 5 benches, made by Vermont artists and furniture makers, for their outdoor garden walk project. Thank you Dave Hurwitz for reminding me (several times) to enter. they selected a new version of our Bridges bench that we made for the State of Craft ... 50 Years of Craft in Vermont show at the Bennington Museum last spring ... Were flattered and honored and I located the chestnut planks well use for the wood part earlier today .... ready to go ... All five benches will be displayed at Frog Hollow in Burlington for a brief time before being installed in their permanent location at the museum in May ... Looking forward to it ... Click the photos and specs to enlarge them ...
step one ... roll the 3/8ths by 2 steel into two identical arcs and weld on the top rails and the bridge struts ...
prime and paint the steel
make the wood base and lay it out for the bolt holes ...
here will is drilling for the rivets that will go in the edge of the seat ... he made a jig with the layout holes on the drill press and then drilled the holes in the seat edge freehand using the jig as a guide
we collaborated on the installation base design with the museum installation experts and we will install this base on the bottom of the base after the show ... all stainless and pressure treated ..
well be finishing the chestnut using a penofin verde color .. weve used penofin products in the past and they are excellent, except for the smell when you first apply it ... it dissipates pretty quickly though and leaves a nice water resistant finish ..
and we got a nice photo of our original bench in the recent montshire news letter ... thanks ! ill post more photos when were finished ...

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What We Can Do With Metal

Sams been working with metal now for about 5 years, full time for the last two. Hes a great welder and fabricator and his artistic and problem solving sense is evolving everyday. As we get more and more requests for pieces both entirely of metal and as furniture, in combination with wood, often questions of finishes, materials, and capabilities arise ... Rather than answer the same or almost the same questions over and over, this post will serve as a general outline for potential clients who want to know more about what we can and cant do ... Click the photos to enlarge them ....
We have a fairly well equipped metal shop. We could use a little more space, a milling machine and maybe a more professional drill press but mostly, were pretty well set. We also have a company we work with for custom CNC waterjet cutting and custom CNC plasma cutting, as well as chrome plating and powder coating ... Right here in Vermont ....

Sooooo, what are the options as far as materials, finishes, fabrication? For a quick overview, visit the Sam Mosheim category off to the right there or any of the links directly below....

We work in steel, both hot and cold rolled, stainless steel, brass, copper, and punched tin.

Possible finishes are:
Natural oiled mill finish .... The Williams Store RailingsBlackened steel, done with a cold patina chemical called ready brown ... works great on brass and copper too .... It can be nicely highlighted with steel wool, then oiled ....
Polished natural steel finish. Essentially a process of grinding off the mill scale and polishing with finer and finer grades of abrasives ... While we have not as yet done any pieces in polished stainless, our satin finish stainless is typically looking a lot like the project above .... Perhaps just a bit brighter .... A Custom Contemporary Railing
For antique or Art Deco style pieces, golf leafed, natural or antiqued, might be a good choice ...
For outdoors, we recommend two coats of primer, two of paint with refreshing when necessary ... any color ... A Fine Outdoor Railing
For indoors, primed and painted, any color also; here with a nice gold paint from Fine Paints of Europe which will be glazed and antiqued later ...
A mix of finishes and materials .. blackened, natural,polished, brass and copper ... Were currently working on designs for a bed with inlays in a variety of metals and finishes ...
A Door For a Pizza Oven Thermometer
Products and Services .....
Custom Outdoor Chairs and Table Parts
Lighting, railings, sculpture, belt buckles, custom tools, fireplace accessories, furniture parts, metal repairs and custom welding ....
Whatever else you can dream up that you think we might be able to do ....
dan@com
sam@com

Boxing in the Bastard Tool Cabinet

Those of you following along have now realized that I havent posted about the Bastard Tool Cabinet for a few weeks. Lately Ive been busy attending the Woodworking Shows in NJ and preparing for the Northeast Woodworkers Showcase in Saratoga (more on that in some upcoming posts). Ive also had tons of work to do at my day job, which has frequently become my night and weekend job too.

So many woodworking shows. So little time.

Through most of the Bastard Cabinet build the posts have been about a week behind my actual progress. As its been a few weeks since I worked on the cabinet, this week the post will catch up. Hopefully the cabinet build will jump ahead again soon.

Dominoing the top.

The most recent work Ive done on the Cabinet was to install the top and sides. As with all of the other joinery on the Cabinet, the top and sides are attached with many, many dominos. For both I referenced the Domino off its base rather than its fence. This let me rest the carcass and Domino on the bench, eliminating the wiggle that occurred when trying to balance the Domino fence on the 3/4 edge of the Carcass back. When I was Dominoing the top and sides, I clamped a fence to their edge to provide a reference and then rested the face of the Domino on the face of the top & sides. Lining the Domino mortises up was as easy as using the pins in the face of the Domino to reference each of the previous. As long as I remembered to begin on the same edge (which I did, thankfully) all the mortises line up with each other.

Thats 23 Dominos holding on the right side.

Once the parts were Dominoed it was just a matter of clamping them. I glued up the top first, then the sides. For both I used my clamping squares to ensure a square glue up.

Lots of clamps and clamping squares for good measure.

A word of warning, as is preached by almost all woodworkers, do a trial glue up first. While gluing on the right side, I had to move the carcass with the side and clamps attached from my bench to saw horses. Not having moved the carcass with side and clamps attached before, I was surprised by how heavy and awkward it was to hold. In the process of moving it, I found that the plane shelf hinged out and hit me in the face/head too many times. Once I had it positioned on the saw horses, I took a screw to the plane shelf and temporarily attached it to one of the shelves beneath it so I wouldnt get hit anymore.

Did you finish youre Wood Whisperer Guild Wall Cabinet Build yet, or are you as far behind as I am?Other Bastard Wall Cabinet PostsWinter Wall Cabinet WonderlandThe Bastard Wall Cabinet (for tools!)Trudging Towards Tool StorageCutting the Cabinet Carcass (in relative terms)A Home For My PlanesContinued Wall Cabinet AssemblyWhats a Bastard Wall Cabinet without Shelves?

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