Doorbell Cover #3 - Finishing

My last few projects have just been finished with Watco Danish Oil.  This one I wanted to try and get a bit more of a match to old Craftsman furniture, as that is the next big project I have.  I found a recipe from Robert Lang on Stickley finishes and followed it.  I couldn't find any of the finishing products in my local home centers in Canada, but easily found them at Home Depot when we were in the US.

Step one was to sand it.  I did most of the sanding as I was building the project.  I used a random orbital sander to smooth out some of the joints before I added the top.  A bit of hand sanding with some 220 grit and easing the corners with some 120 grit and this piece was ready for some finish.



Step two, an oil based finish, wipe on, wait 10-15 minutes and wipe off.  I'm using Minwax Dark Walnut.  A fresh bundle of rags and latex gloves from Lee Valley made this step easy.  The drywall scrap sits on a lazy susan.

 

Step three.  After waiting 24 hours, back to my favourite finish, Watco Danish Oil, Dark Walnut.  Again, wipe on, wait 10-15 minutes and wipe-off.



Step four.  Another 24 hours and time for the finish coat.  Robert Lang says to thin the shellac, but I just applied it straight from the can.  I only used one coat here, but if this piece were to going to be handled I'd do multiple coats with some light sanding in between.

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Last step, hang it on the wall.  I couldn't dig up any hooks in my workshop, so I just put a couple of screws into the wall and set the cover on them.  It hasn't fallen down yet, but I should probably do a bit better job.  I'll pick up some kind of hanger the next time I go to Lee Valley.



I'm very happy with how this turned out and my wife has already said it's coming with us to the next house.  Hopefully that's a long, long, long ways away.

Doorbell Cover #2 - Cutting Wood

This is a pretty small project so it went together very quickly.  I dug through the wood pile and found a nice looking piece of quarter-sawn white oak.  A bit of milling on the jointer, planer, tablesaw and mitre saw and I had the basic parts.

One of the reasons I picked this easy project is that I wanted to finally try using my mortiser on a real project.  I had picked up the used Powermatic 719A mortiser a long time ago and had yet to use it on a real project.  My lovely assistant Lauren helped me cut mortises in the rails to receive the stiles.  It went pretty well, though on the first cut I thought something was wrong as I had to pull way to hard on the lever.  Turns out I'd left the depth stop tightened too low.  Oops.  After that it was just a matter of remember which handle to turn to shift the piece sideways before making the next cut.



I ran the stiles through the tablesaw with a mitre gauge to cut the tenons.  I just used the combination blade on the saw.  In retrospect I should have done a few things differently :

1. Moved the fence back before the blade to avoid potential kickback
2. Use a dado blade or the delta tenoning jig to get smoother tenons.

I had to clean up the messy tenons with some chisel work.  Next time I'll use the tenoning jig that I bought a long time ago and haven't used yet (there's a theme here).

 

After cleaning up the tenons, everything did fit together well.  Here's me testing the fit of the first joint.



I glued up the rail and stiles, and while that was drying I cut the side pieces.  I could have used mortise and tenons to join these, but just went with a simple butt joint using pocket screws instead.  No one will see this joint and it's quick and easy to make.



I clamped the cover together and then drove in the pocket hole screws.  Once that was done, I added the back sides, just glued and clamped, no screws necessary for this joint.



And every last, the top and bottom pieces.

Doorbell Cover #1 - Project Design

I find project ideas in many different places.  Woodworking magazines and books are a great place to find project plans, I've got stacks of old ones in my workshop and the library has a good supply as well.  There are a couple of TV shows worth watching, such as New Yankee Workshop and Rough Cut.  However, most of my ideas come from the Internet.  I usually 'Google' around until I find something I like, then reproduce it in Sketchup before cutting wood.

I've been doing some painting in our house and one of the walls I painted had the doorbell that came with the house.  It was an ugly mirrored abomination that matched the rest of the decor that the house had when we moved in.  Since then we've gotten rid of just about all of the mirrored doors, the mirror fireplace and glass block wall, but this doorbell was still around.  Since I had to pull it down to paint the wall it was a good time to replace it.  Since I have a workshop full of tools, this would be a nice easy project to get back into woodworking after a long break.

But first, I needed a plan.  First, I Googled around for various doorbell covers, eventually settling on 'Craftsman Doorbell Cover' as my search :



I didn't find exactly what I wanted, but this image brought me to a Pinterest page full of doorbell covers and that's where I hit the jackpot.



The cover in the bottom right corner is my favourite, and after getting approval from my wife I was ready to go.

The website for the doorbell cover had a few more pictures of the doorbell.  I imported the front-on image into Sketchup and traced it to make my plan.  The existing doorbell could not be used, but I picked up an inexpensive doorbell from Home Depot and dismantled it to get the chime mechanism.  I measured that and sized the cover to match.  Here's what I ended up with :



For larger projects I'll make a full 3D model, going as far as to create all the joinery as well.  For this simple project I just made up this simple 2D image, and built from it.

Stool Build

Well, there's not much to this build post.  Once we had the plan, this was pretty straightforward. I sketched out the leg pattern, then cut four legs to size on the bandsaw.  Next I cleaned up the edges of the legs with a belt sander and put them to the side.

The legs attach to a round bottom, which then gets the lazy susan mounted to it, which supports the actual seat.  I briefly considered dove tailing the top of the legs, but decided to keep it simple and just leave them straight.  The round bottom got intersecting dados cut in it to receive the legs, I almost forgot to cut them before cutting the bottom round, but remembered just in time.



I cut both the seat and bottom round using a simple circle cutting jig on the bandsaw, then cleaned up the edges on my spindle sander.

The legs were secured to the round bottom with glue and 2.5 inch wood screws from the top.  I routed out the bottom of the seat to hide the lazy susan, then mounted it to the round bottom.  The last step was adding a stretcher on each side of the stool to tighten up the legs and provide a foot rest.  I put them at different heights to accommodate different sized guests.

I covered it with a wipe-on finish - Watco Danish Oil, natural.  Took a couple of days to dry, so it's probably time to toss that old container and get a new one.



And lastly, here's my helper trying it out :

Stool History

My first real job was as a computer technician.  I was in high school at the time and the computer shop in question was run out the owner's home.  This was before I had a license, and my Dad would drop me off and pick me up.  I worked there for a number of years, eventually buying both the business and the house when the owner was ready to retire.  After a year or two I decided business ownership was not for me and closed up the business and went back to working for someone else.  I got rid of just about everything from the business, but kept this stool.

Almost 25 years since I first started working at the computer shop, I've still got the same stool I used on my first day there.  I spent countless hours sitting on this stool, fixing and building computers.  Somehow this little computer shop managed to get the perfect stool.  It has three key features :

1. It's the perfect height
2. It's lightweight and indestructible 
3. The horizontal spacers are optimally positioned to act as a comfortable foot rest

So needless to say, I'm quite attached to this old stool,  I still use it every time I venture out to the woodworking shop.  Now my kids are getting to the age where they sometimes join me in the workshop and they have been 'stealing' my stool while we are out there together.  So one day I was out in the shop, sitting on the stool doing some sanding when my daughter came out to join me.  Naturally she needed the stool as well, so she could sit and draw at the workbench.  After a brief struggle she suggested I just make another stool.  

It seemed like a reasonable request, so I picked up the old stool, spent a bit of time measuring and got to work.  First, we glued up a seat blank out of some red oak :

Next, we cut some legs :

Here's where I started to scratch my head.  First, how was I going to attach the legs to the seat, second, how about those compound angles?  I decided to use my mortiser for leg attachment, but then the compound angles had my scratching my head for quite a long time.  Shortly thereafter I bailed on the idea of copying the stool and decided to go with a new design.  

We dug way back to June 2000.  Wood Magazine #124 had a stool that looked a little more like 1990 than 2000, but looked like it would do the job.  We'll drop the brass ring and luckily enough I have a lazy susan that's been kicking around my workshop for about ten years that finally be able to put to good use for the seat!