Recent content by moparfreak

I originally saw it on Eastwood, but was out of stock, and turns out it's a rebrand of a Vevor on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FTZWYW5Y?tag=atomicindus08-20

Finally, I wanted to get a tow hitch installed onto our new '25 Kia Sorento Hybrid. Been a fantastic family vehicle for us so far. Fits just right and ridiculous mileage (36mpg, 600mi range on a full tank). It's the fully optioned out so lots of safety and creature comforts. Was a great deal as...

Been pushing hard to get a lot of open projects finished up. I have a bad habit of having too many started at once. First up - the kitchen table! After the recovery on the router bit snafu, I set it up for threaded inserts to mount the metal reinforcing brackets and the leg columns. Then went...

Next up, biscuit joints on the edges and glue/clamp-up of the main table. Glue-up went well. Next I used the hand plane to take down the high spots and get it generally flat enough. Lots of cleanup and sanding of the seams. Tracksaw takes it down to final size. Cut corners to a nice radius...

Then it was on to the main tabletop. What a labor. Handling the larger boards just makes everything take longer. Milling, glue up, orienting, clamping, everything. After milling, a lot of time taken to finalize layout, pick and orient boards for best flatness and grain appearance. Also set up...

OK, now some Non-Car stuff. Back in the winter I started up on a kitchen table and desk project. Some posts above about the legs. Once legs were done, I set to making the desktop. This was a "dry run" for the main tabletop, as it was simply a smaller version - around 22" x 42" whereas the...

Long hiatus. But the projects have continued, seems nonstop. My son's Encore has been a sore spot this past year. It started with a cracked turbo, which I covered here earlier. After I did that swap over the winter, it was quiet and behaving for about 2 months and then started acting up again...

While I was cleaning up in the shop this evening, I took care of a couple more nagging things in the shop. For quick stuff, I like to use a bottle of the Titebond Quick & Thick glue. I found that the cap had broken. It has a little flat tab on the inside of the cap that slides into the nozzle...

Alright - back to it. And of course, I get distracted into a side project. I was doing a lot of thin cuts and everytime I do, I keep battling the stock blade guard dust collector that comes with the sawstop. When I want to get the fence closer than ~1.5" I need to pull it off and stick it into...

Been making more slow but steady progress on the table. I figured I'd start my milling process of the rough maple lumber on a part that is pretty hidden just to work out the bugs in my process. Started work on the two "Leg Mounting Plates" that assemble to the leg columns and can allow me to...

Some more progress on the leg columns. Just glue, no fasteners. Because this is plywood, putting on a coat of pre-stain conditioner really helps knock down the splotchiness when applying stain. I put one coat, but probably should have put two coats. Here it is with the stain applied. It's a...

The extra 2x4 is cause once I had the cabinet built, I had to make adjustments cause the bandsaw footprint itself is actually quite lopsided. The table sticks out a lot to the left hand side, and on the right side I needed to clear the swing of the door, so in order to scooch it over as much as...

As I was moving machines around and setting up the router table and planer for milling work for the kitchen table, I sent myself on one of my many side projects and decided to move a few machines around and redo the tool stand that holds the bandsaw. Basically, I decided to put my frankenstein...

Here's the kitchen table design. All from rough hard maple. All the maple sitting ready to be milled up. I think it's acclimated to the shop now and ready to go. Will be good to get it out from under it's hiding place underneath the Charger. Adam

So, automotive projects aside for the time being, and I'm getting ready to do some big woodworking projects finally. Going to make a maple kitchen table. Some more details on that to follow, but preliminarily, I would like to to use dominos - loose tenons - for the edge-to-edge joints of the...