More, more, more!

The new Oneida 6" dust collection cyclone system arrived for the basement shop. I spent the weekend tearing the old 4" system out and getting the new cyclone in place beside the house. Next week I need to buy all the 6" pipe and start to route that.

I fired it up once all the electrical was complete, using my trusty Radio Shack sound pressure meter to measure the noise levels. Standing about 3' away registered 84 dB, compared to the 4" dust collector it replaced which registered 72 dB. So quite a bit louder, but the Oneida is still quieter than the larger Clearvue cyclone which I have in the garage I am renting, it is 94 dB. I am hopeful that will a bit of soundproofing and an enclosure the noise level will drop considerably, if I can get it down to 72 dB then I will be happy.

Also got the bandsaw mobile base back from the shop. Bringing the bandsaw over from where it is stored into my garage will be on hold till the dust collection is finished. Too bad this bandsaw is too big for the basement!

Have not had good luck with the weather recently for milling. Got skunked twice in a row last week, planning to go on Tueday but the forecast was calling for 50mm of rain! I think we got most if not all of it that day. Was last out a couple weeks ago. Hopefully again next week, weather forecast looks good right now.

Cherry and Maple

Cherry and Box Elder

Less Milling! But More Other Stuff!

Tuesday's milling did not happen, despite it being one of the most beautiful days of the year so far. I confirmed on Monday that the crew would be at the beach to set up a couple logs for my buddy and I, but Monday night my buddy bows out as he has a bad flu, then Tuesday morning I check with the crew and they were called away, so no milling Tuesday. But they will be there on Thursday.

So Wednesday night my buddy is still sick, Thursday morning I wake up and the rain is hammering down. I call and confirm that the crew is there to set up a log or two for me, so I load up the van, stop at the coffee shop and head for the beach. By this point the rain has stopped and restarted again, but as I get within a kilometer from the beach my cell rings, it's the crew and saying they blew a hydraulic hose on the loader, so no logs can be set up. What a week! Anyways, I drop by to say hello anyways, and notice that there is at least a half dozen more cherry logs there. So there will be some good milling ahead, if the milling horsehoes ever get their act together again! That will bring this "season's" cherry to about 20 logs, a record for any species for me!

On my other projects, I have definitely violated one of my personal cardinal rules, which is to only work on one project at a time. Too many times I have found myself making tiny progress on multiple projects, seemingly never finishing any of them.

I continue to make tiny progress on the Continental 6" jointer. The knobs for adjusting the height of the infeed and outfeed tables were giving me fits recently. I wound up drilling them and using roll pins to secure them to their shafts. next will be getting the tables level, then I will install the gibs and knives. My enthusiasm for this project has diminished quite a bit, this turned out to be such a coarse machine, I doubt that I will ever use it.

Also rough cut the yellow cedar for the lamp project. I resawed all the pieces to be rift sawn, that way all four sides show nice straight grain lines. I cut a few  pieces of alder as well, I'll be using those to start with for practice. I'm letting the wood settle for a while, then I will dimension it once all the movement is done. I am really looking forward to using some of this beautiful old growth material. It is so aromatic in the shop, and the growth rings are incredibly tight, more than 30 per inch. It is a privilige to have such wood.

And I have not given up entirely on my daughter's desk, although it is kind of off again, on again. I did paint it with black milk paint a while ago, and redid a couple pieces that were not right originally. Once I get a topcoat of shellac on I hope to glue it up, and I have a nice slab for the top, I think it is rosewood.

And I am anticipating the arrival of my new Oneida cyclone dust collector in a few weeks.  I would have prefered a Clearvue, but the Oneida is a 3 HP motor and the Clearvue's are 5 HP and so noisey. My power is quite restricted in my basement shop and I can only provide enough current for a 3 HP motor. So there you are. I have started to make some changes in my shop to accomodate the new system, starting with moving my clamp rack to make room for an old-school manual starter. Love the retro look of this!

And I took all the Manitoba Maple / box elder pieces out of the furnace room the other day as they had dried very nicely there. I think I will sell or trade these small pieces, as I have plenty of this type of wood already.

And of course all the various slabs I have cut over the past few weeks are starting to accumulate against the garage. I really need to get them stacked up properly.

The big bandsaw's mobile base should be done next week. I am having a local machine/welding shop make it up based on a design I saw online. I am really looking forward to getting this big old beast up and running!

More Milling . . .

This time it was plum, only the second plum log I have ever milled, and maple.

Milling

Also contimued to rough out yellow cedar stock for the lamp, and made some progress on restoring the old Continental 6" jointer.

I am having a heavy duty mobile base welded up for the big bandsaw I have had in storage since forever. I am planning to put it in my garage. I am so sick of the rinky-dink mechanism used to tilt the table on my current 16" bandsaw, I am looking forward to the 'new' old saw with its very slick wheel that adjusts the angle effortlessly!

More Cherry Milling

There seems to be a consistency to my life these days, lots of milling time at the beach! Not a bad thing at all, I guess I have milled up 11 cherry logs so far this season, there are still some more in the pile to get to.

Also started on a new project, a Japanese style lamp out of yellow cedar. Not sure how far I will get before the new dust collector arrives and turns everythign into chaos though. Have done some of the roughing out of the stock, just letting it settle for a bit now.

More Milling

Did some more milling this week and last week.

Also ordered a new dust collector for the basement shop, got back to the restoration of the Continental 6" jointer, put another load in the kiln, and ran a couple slabs of arbutus through the planer. Seems like I have been busy!

Milling More Cherry

Had a chance to mill up a couple small cherry logs with some friends the other day. This seems to be 'the year of cherry', the city is cutting down tons of old cherry trees these days. I know that a lot of the city's older cherry trees are diseased, so I guess that is why.

Cherry Milling

2012?? Yoo hoo, Where are you???

Well. So much for THAT year!

After finishing the Japanese tool box my plan was to do some machine restoration. I started on a Continental made in Montreal jointer, but for whatever reason I could not get my machine restoration mojo back, so I wound up back in the shop working on a couple of long neglected projects.

First, it was the desk for my daughter. I guess it is only 2 years late now. I had previously built the body of the desk out of poplar and decided it was too ugly for words, and abandoned it. At some point I picked up some milk paint thinking I could hide the poplar, and so I finally did the deed. Two coats of black milk paint sure hid the poplar! The next step will be a couple coats of a clear coat, then some wax.

The top will be an east Indian rosewood slab. Probably put in a butterfly key to control the crack at the top. Various parts of the table as well as the slab I will use for the top are here:

And a small panel to cover up an attic access panel in our house. The panel is made out of catalpa with a poplar frame. Since I was in milk paint mode and the frame needed to be black to match the rest of the bathroom, it seemed the obvious thing to do was to milk paint it. It was nice to be able to use up a spare piece of catalpa that Ryan had cut for me on his very excellent bandsaw a couple years ago.

And the same piece after a coat of Tried and True:

And I have a load of arbutus in the kiln, should be ready shortly. Speaking of that, I had some guy email me last week looking for a piece of arbutus for his father in law who lives in France. Nice guy, he told me "you are all over the internet". I laughed and gave him a small piece, hopefully I'll get a similar chunk of olive or something in return.

Also cut up a bunch of Manitoba maple AKA box elder. I chainsawed it into chunks, then used my bandsaw to cut it into something resembling 1" thick pieces. Some I put in the kiln with the arbutus, some I put in my furnace room as shown here. If anyone is interested in some let me know.

And in the good news department I have extended my lease on the neighbour's garage for another year, and the new owner has agreed to have a roofer replace the leaky roof on it! So I will be snug as a bug in a rug until the end of Jan 2014!