This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
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Notes -
When last I left you, I had milled most of the parts for my set of chairs, glued up the panels for the seats, and made a template for the back legs.
This week was all about trying to get ready for the weekend when a buddy came over to help me out. This was a fairly repetitive process of doing 96 tenons on 48 work pieces on my router table. I keep thinking it would be faster to do this on my tablesaw, with the proper jigs to support a workpiece on it's end. I should probably try that one day. Doing a handful of tenons on the router isn't bad. Doing 96 of them feels like an enormous waste of time when you know the tablesaw would make quicker work of it. Ah well, maybe next time.
I used a palm router for the mortises in the back rest pieces. It went ok, and since these just hold the slats in for the back rest and are less structural than the mortises in the legs will be, it was sort of an experiment to see if the palm router is sufficient at scale. Pretty sure my answer is no. The mortises came out okish. I had to do them in 4 passes, reaching a total depth of 3/4", and weird things happened where it would grab a side just slightly wrong and rip out huge chunks on a deeper pass, or reach the end of a pass, contact the end wrong and somehow explode a chunk out of it. The nice thing about mortises, I think, is they can not be perfect. Glue does most of the work, and so long as there is enough good contact, they'll be fine. Any imperfections get covered up when the tenoned piece overlaps it. All the same, I want to do better on the legs.
So I got a plunge router from Harbor Freight. Short of a dedicated mortising machine, this is what I've seen used most often for mortises. I got started on a jig for it, which was super easy. Slapped on a fence, used a 1/2" bit to route out a 1-1/2" and 2-1/2" slot, and then a 1/2" bushing with a 1/4" bit will make the mortises easy peasy. I do need to pay more attention to some sort of clamping contraption on the back side though, because when I used it on a test piece, all clamped down to the table, the work piece walked off a huge amount. So some improvements will need to be made before I use it on the legs. Either adding a fence to the bottom, gluing some sandpaper to it so it had a bit more grip against a workpiece, or somehow adding rails to the bottom that clamps can be used with to clamp the piece directly to the jig.
Speaking of the legs, I picked up the 6/4 walnut I needed for those, and when my buddy came over we got to work. I didn't stop at all to take photos cause it just didn't occur to me, but here is the finished product. At least the first one. The template worked pretty well. Has a lot more milling marks than I anticipated, but those will sand out. Took about 90 minutes from rough lumber to semi-final product, which may not be bad? Usually I'd do them all in a batch, but I wanted to take my friend through the whole process on one leg so we weren't just on the jointer all day.
Only thing that went wrong was at one point the weight of the leg caused it to lift off the router table, and the router took a small chunk out of the template. I need to repair that before using it again, otherwise it will just transfer that mistake to all the other legs. I'm thinking sawdust and superglue, or something more temporary, but making a fresh template off it that will hold up better. I may do both just so I have a backup template if it happens again.
Had my first go at using a (borrowed) router today. Need to rig up a ghetto method of deflecting the dust as my lower half looked like a pine-y snowman and there was practically a radiation style shadow behind me after profiling one small piece. Good results otherwise after one quick test piece to better dial in the motor speed and pace of cut to avoid the unanticipated scorching. Far more productive than my one attempt at making a round over using a file but like most power tools despite it's undeniable productivity and accuracy it's not a "nice" tool to use.
Found some crafty YouTube ideas for converting it into a router table too but that's for down the line when I own my own, for now I'm just interested in getting this project structurally finished before the end of the month.
RE: The burning, make sure the bit is clean. I use a spray like this, and so long as you haven't worn the bit dull, it works wonders. I generally clean all my blades and bits after every major project. If you are scorching the wood, that means there is too much heat, which means you are also dulling the blades of the bit. There are some, well not exceptions exactly, but times when this is less the case than others. Maple scorches notoriously easy as I found out the hard way. Just make sure you keep feeding at a steady rate and don't linger for too long in any one area. If you need to reposition, pull the bit away from the workpiece a little and then get back to it.
The other thing is to invest in good bits. In the US Whiteside is a reliable brand that has proven sharper and more durable than anything I'd find in the store, or whatever cheap chinesium shows up on Amazon. I actually grabbed a fresh Whiteside template bit before I began my current project because the one that came in a (I suspect counterfeit) Bosch set was a fucking joke.
I'm also looking forward to building a router table. I have one that came with the first router I bought, and it's ok. I had to buy a new fence for it though, since the one it came with had a problem where the left side of the fence wasn't flush with the right side of the fence. Wrestled with that always taking a slight divot out of the last inch or two of a workpiece for 2 years before I splurged on a $100 "high quality" fence. Was definitely worth it though. Lately I've been desiring a higher quality router lift to build into whatever table I make. Debating building it into the miter saw station I have in mind. But it might have to wait since that's a pricey bit of kit, and this project is supposed to be on the cheaper side.
I think the cutter was new as unlike everything else in the tool case it was spotlessly clean and wrapped in what looked like a factory applied shrink fit rubber cover that unavoidably tore a little when I carefully took it off, so I assume it was its first outing. Good tip though, I probably wouldn't have thought of that. Any suggestions for a non-dedicated cleaner? I've got isopropyl, mineral spirits and a degreaser that I use on my bike chain.
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