site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   3485 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 18, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Kids are pretty great.

My daughter just turned 3. Also I've been learning/practicing some wood working. So naturally my daughter thinks every crooked, marked up box or tray I give her is the most amazing thing ever she can't wait to use.

So I got a routing table finally. Trying to cut rabbets or dados with my table saw was just too time consuming, and difficult for me to get accurate consistently. Especially if I had to reconfigure the tool for another purpose, and then I had to dial it back in. Once I dialed it in on a router however, it was a piece of cake.

I made a small tray for my daughter's cluttered toy shelf, just to feel out how the router fits into the workflow. About 9"x11", poplar sides, a birch plywood bottom. Miter joined the sides, cut rabbets for the bottom, played around with rounding over the top lip. No nails or screws, just some extremely basic joinery and wood glue. Then some danish oil to give it a little bit of a finished look.

It's getting cold out though in my workshop, so I had to bring a space heater out to the workshop's office and do the danish oil in there. I've already brought all the liquids and batteries inside for the winter, so at least the can was room temperature when I brought it out. Been sticking with the wet on wet method I read about, where you just keep applying danish oil every 20 minutes for an hour, then wipe off the excess and let it dry for a day. So I finished all 3 applications, wiped off the excess, then brought it into the house to dry after another hour. I think it went well. Looks great, even on the poplar which I'd read doesn't take stains well. But I guess the danish oil isn't really a stain.

A couple things I learned during the process. The fence on my routing table was slightly misaligned. The left half of the fence was back maybe 1/64th of an inch further than the right side, resulting in a bit of snipe on the piece being routed as it came off the right half of the fence. Pretty sure I fixed that with a straight edge and fiddling with bolts. Second, I waited just a bit too long to get everything lined up after I glued it, and one of the corners was ever so slightly screwy. Came out mostly when I sanded, but I'll have to keep an eye on that. I think what slowed me down was the box clamp I was using was already too tight when I started assembly. Third, I seriously need a dust management system in that workshop. Even the smallest project results in every surface being plastered in fine sawdust. I have a small shopvac that works ok I guess, at least with the router. But it's utterly inadequate for the tablesaw.

And won't be anywhere close for the planer I want to get. Been eyeballing a simple "portable" dust collector, but I might go bigger with a chip separator, dust collector, and dust filter. Alternately I've seen people who just direct the output of the dust collector outside their shop instead of into a bag, which is appealing.

I think coming up soon I want to make a small bookshelf for the game manuals the accompany my retro pc game collection. Right now they just sit in a battered cardboard box, and it's impossible to fish any one manual out. I've got the perfect space for it, on top of my filing cabinet. I was tempted to buy a shelf for the purpose, but I couldn't find anything that quite fit my needs. But hey, now I can just make my own, exactly how I want to make it! Hurrah for that.

That's awesome! I loved helping my dad with his woodworking (really just being fobbed off sanding duty) but still love finish work. I've been using walnut oil more (it's another natural drying oil like tung or flaxseed/linseed). It's got a nice color and sheen.

Nice. I prefer hand tools myself, only my drill is powered. Planing a board by hand or chiseling out a groove or a dado is just more... personal?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats