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!  

Lauren's Bunk Bed - Complete

Okay, it took a little less than a year, but Lauren's Bunk Bed is officially completed.  This photo was taken about 3 weeks ago, so I'll call it 11 months to completion.

After this photo was taken I also added in another piece of wood between the tall supports at the head of the bed.  This was screwed to the back of the supports, then screwed to joists in the wall.  At the foot of the bed, I drove some screws through the side of the bookcase into studs in the wall.  With these two attachment points, the bed is solid and won't be moving even when the kids are jumping and playing on top.

I'm very happy with how the bed turned out, the maple looks great finished with Watco Natural finish. The stairs turned out very nice and as you can see the bunk bed is already stuffed full of books and toys.  

On the other hand Lauren has only slept in the upper bed once or twice, apparently she prefers to bottom bunk.  I guess she is ready for future sleepovers!

Lauren's Bunk Bed - Mattress Boards 2

I found some time the other night to get a bit more work done on the mattress boards.  I ripped them all to width on the tablesaw, then laid them out to see if I had enough for the bed.  All the boards came out to about 85" and I was looking for 80" so I've got a whole extra board!  

Over to the router table and I used a bullnose bit to put a little detail onto one edge of each board, on the bottom side.  Next I sanded all the boards with a random orbital sander, 80 grit and here is the result :

One more sanding session to 150, then I'll bring them upstairs to apply the finish.  I'll probably put a nail or screw into the ends of each board and then support them between a couple of 2x4s in order to finish both sides at the same time.  

I'm hoping to move her bunkbed into the house this weekend and I think I can do it.  The last thing I have to do is to put together a safety rail, but I'm waiting on that until I get the mattress in place so I can make sure the rail is high enough.  

Originally I was supposed to have the bunk bed done for Christmas, so I'm about 8 months behind.  Lauren's okay with it though, and she's very excited about her new bunk bed.

Lauren's Bunk Bed - Mattress Boards

After a pretty long delay, I am back working in the workshop on a regular basis.  The cold weather always puts a damper on my workshop time and I never really recovered my enthusiasm after the weather warmed up again.

The few times I did get into the workshop were spent productively on Lauren's Bunk Bed.  I am happy to say it is almost complete and it should be finished and installed in her room this weekend.  All the major parts are upstairs in the workshop in the 'finishing' room.  The bunk bed 'top' will be finished the same as her bottom bed, Watco Natural Danish Oil.  This is my favourite finishing method, wipe on with a rag, follow up with a second coat 30 minutes later, then wipe off the excess.  Let it dry and it's done.  Add a coat of poly if you want extra protection (not needed on this bed).

Downstairs in the workshop I need to cut the mattress boards and the safety rail.  First the mattress boards.  Since the mattress boards are mostly hidden under the mattress, they'll be poplar.  I dug through my wood pile to find all the poplar.   My quick measurement shows that I should have enough - barely.

On the right are 3 more boards of curly maple that I made her bottom bed from.  I forgot I had those and they'll come in handy for the safety rails.  The boards on the left are all the poplar I had left and should just be enough to cover the frame.

My favourite way to plane lots of wood is to open up the garage door and let the shavings fly.  Once planing is complete, I shovel the shavings into a garbage bin and put it to the curb for the compost truck to pick up.  I find that the 1hp dust collector I have frequently clogs with the planer shavings so this way is much less hassle - I'm sure the neighbours love it as well.

Here is the pile of mattress boards after planing.  I chopped them to size before planing to make them easier to handle.  I'll clean up the edges on the tablesaw, use the router table to put a bevel on the bottom edge and then a bit of sanding before moving them upstairs for a coat of finish.

Lauren's Bunk Bed

I've been working on the design for Lauren's bunk bed in sketchup.  Here is the first draft :

The bed itself will be made out of soft maple, the bookshelf mostly maple plywood with a solid face frame.  At least that's my current plan...it may change.

Wood Delivery

Before :

 

After :

I needed some Red Oak to finish up a couple of door frames in the house.  Since I had to get the wood delivered I added in White Oak and Poplar as well.  My wood rack is very full now.  I had to stash the last 8 boards of White Oak upstairs in the loft.

• 100 board feet of Red Oak
• 50 board feet Quartersawn White Oak
• 40 board feet of Poplar

Now if the weather would warm up I could get out to the workshop and build something with the wood!

Lauren's Bed - Part 6 - Final Assembly

We let the completed bed air out for a week in the house before moving it into Lauren's room.  Both Joshua and Lauren gave me a hand assembling the bed.

Once the bed was assembled, Rosemary gave me a hand moving the mattress into place, then made up Lauren's big girl bed for the first time!  Rosemary found a good deal on a polar bear comforter to keep Lauren warm.

Before Lauren could use the bed I finished up the install by adding some safety rails on the open side of the bed.  Nothing to exciting about the construction, just four boards with a 1/4" round-over on all sides.  They are held in place with 90 degree metal brackets that are screwed into the mattress support boards.  The safety rails are screwed together with 1 1/2" wood screws.

Lauren loves sleeping in her big girl bed!  At nap time in the afternoon she climbs in by herself when she gets sleepy.

I seem to have trouble finishing projects.  This one needs one more thing before it is really done.  I'm not sure when it'll get completed as I've already moved on to other projects!  The legs in the foot board don't have any end cap on them - I plan on adding some sort of removable castle decoration but didn't get around to finishing it before I assembled the bed.  Bed still works though :)

This bed was a fun and pretty simply project to do.  The curly maple wood I worked with was frustrating to work with at times, but we are really pleased with the final look.  My biggest regret is the middle panel in the top of the head board - it's colour does not match the rest of the bed.  I'm not sure how I missed that when I was assembling the bed, but it's what I notice every time I look at the bed.

One other improvement that I'll probably add to the bed is to add a lip to the top shelf of the head board.  Things keep sliding or rolling off to fall behind the bed and a 1" lip on the top would help a great deal.  I can still add it to the finished bed and I'll probably add that the same time I finish off the leg posts - any day now...

Lauren's Bed - Part 5 - Rails and Finishing

Just a few things left to finish off the bed - it's time now for the bed rails, mattress slats and some finishing.

Before cutting any wood I dug through the pile and picked the straightest boards that were 6" or greater in width.  There weren't many candidates.  I found one good one and settled on the other as the best of the worst.  After running them through the planer and jointer I had two reasonably straight boards.  Next up was rounding over the corners and for that I used a 1/4" round-over bit in my hand held router.

The bed hardware I got from Lee Valley had hooks to attach the rails to the head and foot boards.  I decided the best way to attach them to the rails was to mortise for the hooks, then screw them in place after finishing.  I figured this would be the strongest way to attach them.

After tracing the outline of the hook I used a 1/4" straight cutting bit in the router to cut really close to the line.  I finished up the mortise with a couple of chisels and got reasonably good fits on all of the hooks.

Before moving onto the finishing, I attach some support rails onto the bed rails.  The mattress slats will rest on these supports when the bed is assembled.  I glued the supports in place, no fasteners, just clamps to hold them overnight.

While waiting for the rails to dry I plane the poplar for the mattress slats down to 15/16", then cross cut them to size on the mitre saw.  I'll leave them unfinished as they'll be hidden under the mattress.

After the rails finished drying I moved everything upstairs to my 'finishing' room.  The bed rails head board and foot boards all received two coats of Watco Danish Oil, Natural.  My favourite finish at the moment, wipe it on, let it dry, wipe it on again then wipe off the excess.  Piece of cake.

After letting the Watco oil dry for an hour, I attached the hardware, then brought the project into the house to let it dry inside.  The oil finish has an odour that takes at least a week to go away, and we'll wait until the smell is gone before moving it into Lauren's bedroom.

Both kids were very excited to see the new bed.  They gave me a hand with a test assembly of the bed :

Lauren's Bed - Part 4 - Finishing Foot Board

The next step in completing this bed is finishing off the foot board.  After the top and bottom caps were dry, I needed to do some work on the posts to get them solidly to the foot board.

Before starting that I needed to cut mortises for the bed mounting hardware.  I decided to use bedlocks and hooks from Lee Valley to attach the bed rails to the legs.  I used a 3/8" spiral upcut bit and an edge guide on the router to cut the mortise for the bed hook.  For some additional work I decided to also rout out a recess to accept the flat part of the bedlock that is screwed into the leg.  I did these mortises freehand with a 1/4" straight cutting bit in the router after tracing the outline onto the leg.

The slot mortise is taller so that the hook on the rail can be slid in and then lowered into the bedlock.




The legs will be attached to the frame with 3/8" dowels.  To make sure my drilling was accurate, I picked up a set of four drill guides from Lee Valley.  After making a custom jig to fit the legs, I used a 5/8" bit to drill holes where I wanted to place the dowels.  I then knock a bushing with a hammer into those holes, then screw a 3/8" insert into the bushing.  The 3/8" insert ensures that the the hole I drill for the dowel is precisely placed and 90 degrees to the leg.

After the holes in the legs were drilled, I added spacers to on the inside of the jig and reused the jig to drill the dowel holes in the foot board panel.



Once all the holes were drilled, I glue up the end panel.  The dowels all lined up perfectly.




With the end panel complete, I used a half dozen biscuits to glue the top onto the headboard.



Now all that's left is to :

• make the bed rails
• apply finish to the bed rails, head and foot boards
• cut the poplar slats that will be the mattress supports
• safety rail
  

Lauren's Bed - Part 3 - Head board

The head board panels will be just about the same as the foot board and construction was the same. The most tedious part was gluing up the six panels for the head board. Once again the curly maple was a bear to work with. For the last three panels I gave up on resawing and just planed the 1" boards down to 1/4". A waste of wood but much less hassle than the resawing.

I again pre-finished the panels with two coats of Watco Danish Oil, then glued up the panels. The bottom panel has longer rails that will form the legs of the headboard.

Next was gluing up the panels for the two sides, shelf and top of the headboard. The sides and shelf are 8" in width, the top is 9 1/2" so all three were glue-ups. After the glue-up was dry I ran the pieces through my drum sander to smooth them out and get rid of the tear-out caused by the planer.

Once the panels were ready I cut a whole bunch of biscuits to line everything up then used all the long clamps I had to glue up the head board. The top shelf will be added later after the rest has dried.

While waiting for that to dry I gave the foot board caps a 1/2" roundover, then glued the top and bottom caps onto the footboard. I used biscuits to align the parts.