Builders Share

Cabinetry Hack Continued

The first step in making a box to hide the ductwork was to build a frame around the ducts that would support the top and sides.  I ripped some scrap 2x4s in half to make a frame of 2x2s.

The sides of the box are about 15" high which meant gluing and clamping some one inch pine stock together and then sanding it down with my new belt sander.

I then cut the side panels down to size, and since my table saw isn't large enough to crosscut a board 15" wide, I drew a line and used a circular saw, even carefully cutting a mitered edge. 

On the front of the box, I cut openings for the vents.  I did this by drawing the rectangles where the vents would go, then I drilled a hole in the space where I could insert a jigsaw and cut out the shape.

One problem I encountered was that the pine is so soft that a small burr in the base of the jigsaw marred the wood's surface.  Something to keep an eye on in the future.  Another problem was that the wall is not square to the floor so I needed to use a bevel to scribe my lines.

So I got the box a little ways along before being called off to other duties (shoveling snow as a matter of fact).  I still need to put a top piece together and then coat all the sides with water based polyurethane before I fasten it all together.

handyman

hack cabinet maker

Alright.  With my funky workshop setup, I no longer have an excuse not to finish up the air re-circulation project that was started back.... when?

Well, I do have some more excuses actually.  It turns out the table saw that my brother lent me, and then after I used it for 3 years and he got another one he gave to me (thanks Pete!), is not going to be the machine I need for finish work.  This cheap little Delta has been a sufficient workhorse for most of the renovation, ripping and cross-cutting rough stock as needed and even playing a role in the finish work of the upstairs bath.  But after all that, I've discovered that the armature is bent slightly causing the blade to wobble.  Even with a new 40 tooth finishing blade, the cuts are looking pretty ugly.

On top of needing a new saw, the old orbital sander that I picked up at an auction a few years back finally crapped out for good.  This little number was an old Craftsman model that I took apart and put back together more than once to keep it alive.

The wallet won't handle two new tool purchases this month, so in order to keep the work moving I had to decide which was the more essential. I went with getting a new small belt sander.

The box I'm making to cover up the ductwork will be made from the same pine stock as the baseboard.  I'll have to glue pieces together to meet the necessary dimensions, and once those are glued together, they'll need to be planed smooth.

The saw will cut straight enough for prepping the boards for gluing.  The new sander will (hopefully) serve as the planer.

handyman

Project Hopping (part 3)

The instant shop is ready.  In the last post I shored up one of the barn's foundation beams and was ready to start building a floor/deck.

The first step of making the floor system was nailing a 2x6 ledger onto the beam. I might have hung the joists right off the beam but installing a ledger gives me an edge surface on which to fasten the sub floor.

Once the ledger was in place, I strung some line and used a line level to determine the height and placement of the concrete block posts for two corners of the floor.  (Remember, it's the middle of the winter, the ground is frozen, and I'm building a down and dirty shop floor in order to get some other work done.  I wouldn't be using concrete blocks to hold up the corners otherwise.  Eventually this floor will be expanded and tied into the other foundation beams of the barn once those beams can be shored up and made level.)

The floor/deck is going to be 8' x 12' feet utilizing 3 full sheets of 3/4" plywood. With the placement and height of the corner posts set, I put together the perimeter of the floor using two 8 foot 2x6's and one 12 footer using corner braces.  I used shims on top of the corner posts to get the perimeter level all around. I was then ready to mark where the joists would go.

I made marks along the end pieces every 18" from one side and then used a combination square to draw a vertical line at those marks so that I could line the joist plum and square.  I also put an 'X' next to  the vertical line to remind me which side of the line to place the joist. I've made the mistake in the past of nailing one end of a joist south of the line while the other end is north of the line making for a cock-eyed joist.  The little 'X' saves me thinking later when I'm nailing the boards in place.

Then come the joists.  Each 8-foot 2x6 needed to be cut down a few inches to fit between the ends.  The best way to measure for the cuts is to hold the lumber in place and mark it where the cut needs to be.  Working alone, I found it was easy to nail one side of a joist hanger in place and then I could rest one end of the board on top of the hanger while I marked for the cut on the other end.

Once the joists were all cut and nailed in place using joist hangers, I was ready to screw down my subfloor.  But first, I spread some 3mil poly down on the dirt floor as a moisture barrier.

I screwed down the sheets of plywood instead of gluing and nailing them because I expect to be pulling them up again a little ways down the road when I expand this quasi-floor/deck to become a complete floor system for in the barn.

For the time being, though, I have a functional 8x12 level surface for placing a saw and a bench where I can get a little woodworking done.

handyman

Project Hopping (part 2)

The first step in building my shop floor was deciding on a foundation.  The barn's foundation is made up of 8x8 hemlock timbers resting on flat field stones.  If all was sound with that, I would simply hang 2x6 joists right to the timbers.  But the barn's foundation has been kicked around by 150 years of frosts and one box elder tree that was left to grow for a good 10 years until it pushed one of the sills right off its stones.

Now remember, this project is a down and dirty attempt to make some space for finishing up some projects in the house.  I'm not trying to build a shop for filming episodes of "This Old Cabinetry Builder."  My first thought was to build frames underneath three 4x8 sheets of 3/4 plywood and mount those on blocks inside the dirt floor barn. But once I figured the amount of time and materials that would take, I thought, why not hang a floor system from the one good foundation beam I have, then when I get around to straightening out the other sills some summer weekend, I can extend my floor to meet those too.

Once I decided I was going to hang some joists off an existing foundation beam, I had to make sure that beam was well supported and relatively level.

I started by digging down through about 10 inches of loose wood chips and wood scraps to reach solid ground. The wood scraps were most likely left-over from when the house had a wood-fired cook stove, the other detritus (i.e. hub caps, a doll's head, an ancient bingo chip) were remnants of a later era.

Having reached solid ground, I was ready to put the jack to use and bring my support beam as near to level as possible without causing other parts of the structure to complain too much. If you physically forced a bent old man to stand up straight all of a sudden, he'd most likely bite you.  An old barn might come crashing down if pushed too far.

I used cinder blocks to support the newly leveled beam and then began planning the floor system which would extend from this beam into the room almost like a deck off the side of a house.

handyman

Project Hopping (part 1)

Barn stuffed with stuff

I promised myself that I would finish one project before starting another.  I found that making the switch from whole house renovation to weekend project work requires getting rid of certain habits. 

When the entire house is under construction there are any number of unfinished projects in the works and each of these can be attended to as needed and when time and materials permit.  And this held true for the time period when we were living in the downstairs of the house while I was putting the upstairs together.

But now that we're utilizing the entire house for living, I have to be much more tidy with my work.  I can't leave stuff undone for days at time with tools and materials strewn about (or at least I know I shouldn't). 

I still need a place to make a mess, though.

The last stage of my air re-circulation project requires building a box to hide the ductwork and mount air vents.  This is going to entail cutting up boards, maybe some gluing, some sanding, you know, finish work. Now blowing sawdust around the bedroom or kitchen doesn't seem like a very good idea, and up 'til now I've been able to do that kind of work either in the house or out in the yard. But February and the driveway wood shop don't get along well.  I need an indoor space where I can set up the table saw and a workbench.

Cleared out and ready for construction --sort of

The barn is the place.  Unfortunately this means starting another project in order to finish one already under way.  Am I just procrastinating?

The shop area is going to be what originally was the horse stalls of the old barn (really carriage house) that's attached to the house.  This room has a dirt floor, and has been used as a storage area for the past three years.  When we first moved in, I bought a couple of 3/4 inch plywood sheets and propped them up on cinder blocks to keep our stuff high and dry.  Now I'm going to re-use those sheets for a raised floor.

At first I was going to just make some staging, you know, build a frame with 2x6 lumber and mount the plywood to it.  The idea was that I could then move the units around as needed.  But once I had the shop room all cleared out of stuff, I decided that a floor was what I wanted, so that's what I should build.

handyman

 

Old Stuff Gone Bad

In a prior post I wrote about trying to resurrect an old wall switch (see: "Anatomy of a Switch").  I was successful for a while but inevitably the switch started to fail again and had to be replaced.  Ed Ross commented that it was unsafe to try to rebuild obsolete electrical switches, and he's right.  There are times when my efforts to conserve and my love for old things gets in the way of common sense.

You may also remember when I wrote about an old chainsaw (see: "Heavy Duty Wood").  This cranky old saw worked well when it worked but usually put up a fight every time I took it out of its case.  I got some pleasure tinkering with it and some pride in being able to keep it running but again, common sense finally got the better of it. Not without one last expression of craziness though.

The other day I needed to cut up some oversize logs for the wood stove.  The saw started and ran for about 15 seconds.  It took several minutes and a tired arm to get it re-started only to have it promptly conk out again.  To make matters worse, the pull cord wasn't retracting all the way.  I was just about ready to start taking the saw apart once more in an attempt to fix it (the original task now fading in face of this new problem) when I realized that the only way I was going to avoid having to fix this cranky old chainsaw was if I was convinced that it was beyond repair.

I took the saw into the barn and poured the fuel back into the gas can.  Then I took the saw out to the wood pile and proceeded to smash it to smithereens.  In this way I saved myself future trouble with the saw and was able to turn frustration into pure testosterone-based "joy of destruction."

I then went inside, fired up the computer and did some research before ordering a new chainsaw that should be arriving via UPS any day now.

Like the electrical switch before, trying to keep an old chainsaw running doesn't make a great deal of sense.  New chainsaws have more safety features built into them than the old ones and if you get a good one, it'll be weight-balanced to help prevent fatigue.  It should also start and keep running with little effort.

I'm sure my need to conserve and my love for old things will get the better of me again sometime, but for now I'm free of a couple of bad examples.

handyman

p.s. Click on the photos to enlarge them