OP
longlivepunk
Well-known member
WELL! Ya gotta love having time off, I couldn't do anything on the garage itself, but I've crossed a few things off the lists over the last while! So that's good.
The dryer is silent and running like a top. The snowblower is chugging along super solid, cleared a huge dump of snow for my house, my 2 neighbors, and the entire other side of the street. I'm not using the 60gal. compressor I got for free "not running" from work a while ago or my little sand-blasting cabinet, so I moved them over to my mother's husband's garage so he can use them to help his Lotus build along. The motor ran great and I had a spare pump, so a bit of plumbing and he installed a new power cord and it should be better than new by tomorrow. Now today my girlfriend's serger died, so I took that apart. Seems to need a new motor. Pretty complex machines once you take the covers off.
Finally the big project, the girlfriend also wanted some new displays for her dog collars. She wanted them to be the same basic idea as the ones she was using, but with 4 rows, more capacity, and more solid. I wound up making them in the garage my compressor is now in since it has, you know, heat and power. They help.
I made them out of basic paint-grade pine to save money and since I wasn't actually 100% sure how they'd turn out. Since the tops are round dowels it can be a pain to make sure the holes are in-line with each other (not entering from a different angle) and the saw-cuts are square to the holes. I was considering a few different ideas including making V-blocks, but in the end I decided to try clamping the dowels right to the wood, marking out where my cuts would be, then where I wanted the holes.
I drilled straight through the base, and about half-way into the dowel, the first dowel was difficult since I didn't have the others clamped on. I was also doing it on a very small "King Canada" drillpress with a tiny table, so it was hard to keep things balanced and such. The second dowel got easier, and the third and fourth were even better.
After that it was out to the table-saw to make the cuts. I had knocked small cut-off pieces of the material for the supports into the holes to hold everything together and straight, so here's how it came off of the table saw:
Flip the pieces right-side-up and you have the next picture. Now for some sanding, then more sanding, then a bit more...
Good thing I had my super-duper top-of-the-line (in probably the '70's) Black&Decker palm-sander! Runs great still!
...and finally it was all sanded and ready to start getting glued together.
Finally it's all done, glue is finishing drying. If I ever wind up doing it again I'll definitely spend the money on better materials. The dowels were cheapies from Home Depot so they weren't the straightest, plus a couple were oversized, the rest were undersized. This meant that when everything was glued up with the longer pieces of dowel not everything lined up quite perfectly. No one notices unless I mention it, and they definitely won't see it once the displays are covered in cute dog collars, it just bugs the hell out of me. BUT, here it is finished and sitting on her table.
Tomorrow I start school for my second period Apprenticeship training! Sadly that's the end of my nice little break. Hope everyone here had a great holiday!
The dryer is silent and running like a top. The snowblower is chugging along super solid, cleared a huge dump of snow for my house, my 2 neighbors, and the entire other side of the street. I'm not using the 60gal. compressor I got for free "not running" from work a while ago or my little sand-blasting cabinet, so I moved them over to my mother's husband's garage so he can use them to help his Lotus build along. The motor ran great and I had a spare pump, so a bit of plumbing and he installed a new power cord and it should be better than new by tomorrow. Now today my girlfriend's serger died, so I took that apart. Seems to need a new motor. Pretty complex machines once you take the covers off.
Finally the big project, the girlfriend also wanted some new displays for her dog collars. She wanted them to be the same basic idea as the ones she was using, but with 4 rows, more capacity, and more solid. I wound up making them in the garage my compressor is now in since it has, you know, heat and power. They help.
I made them out of basic paint-grade pine to save money and since I wasn't actually 100% sure how they'd turn out. Since the tops are round dowels it can be a pain to make sure the holes are in-line with each other (not entering from a different angle) and the saw-cuts are square to the holes. I was considering a few different ideas including making V-blocks, but in the end I decided to try clamping the dowels right to the wood, marking out where my cuts would be, then where I wanted the holes.
I drilled straight through the base, and about half-way into the dowel, the first dowel was difficult since I didn't have the others clamped on. I was also doing it on a very small "King Canada" drillpress with a tiny table, so it was hard to keep things balanced and such. The second dowel got easier, and the third and fourth were even better.
After that it was out to the table-saw to make the cuts. I had knocked small cut-off pieces of the material for the supports into the holes to hold everything together and straight, so here's how it came off of the table saw:
Flip the pieces right-side-up and you have the next picture. Now for some sanding, then more sanding, then a bit more...
Good thing I had my super-duper top-of-the-line (in probably the '70's) Black&Decker palm-sander! Runs great still!
...and finally it was all sanded and ready to start getting glued together.
Finally it's all done, glue is finishing drying. If I ever wind up doing it again I'll definitely spend the money on better materials. The dowels were cheapies from Home Depot so they weren't the straightest, plus a couple were oversized, the rest were undersized. This meant that when everything was glued up with the longer pieces of dowel not everything lined up quite perfectly. No one notices unless I mention it, and they definitely won't see it once the displays are covered in cute dog collars, it just bugs the hell out of me. BUT, here it is finished and sitting on her table.
Tomorrow I start school for my second period Apprenticeship training! Sadly that's the end of my nice little break. Hope everyone here had a great holiday!
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