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On todays show, were answering your emails and voicemails again. When to change your respirator cartridges, basement woodworking and the impact on HVAC, strategies concerning beading on a drawer front, polyurethane flammability, good woods to practice your planing, ebony species for G&G work, and cutting bevel angles exceeding 45 degrees.
Whats on the Bench?
Matt: Back from Vacation…Do not confuse Pirates of the Caribean ride with Williamsburg re-enactors!
Marc: Re-building an old prototype project and finishing up the Split-Top Roubo.
Shannon: Shaker clock and Spring Pole lathe
Around the Web:
Fine Woodworking April Fools
2012 WIA registration now open for both locations
2012 WIA Buddy Tracker Spreadsheet
Nintendo Controller Table
Baychico.com
Star Trek Enterprise Coffee Table
Listener Emails:
Chris Landy
I have a question regarding respirators. I have the 3M 7500 Series Reusable Half Facepiece, Model 7503
It’s the one that Marc recommended way back when on his video “Dust in Time”. I use it for heavy sanding and finishing in my tiny shop, but I am not sure how often I should swap out the filters. How do i know when they are spent and know longer doing their job.
Aaron Cashion
I will finally have my first shop, and it,will be in the basement. The only concern I have is my hvac equipment is down there. Do you have this issue, and if so what do you recommend for keeping this thing clean? I will have a cyclone and an air cleaner. I would appreciate any advice at this point.
J – One in Millions
I am making a jewelry box for my wife. She wants zebrawood fronts on the drawers. My thought was to build the drawers out of walnut and use some shop made veneer for the fronts with an 1/8″ wenge bead around the edge.
1. How do you recommend I make the 1/16″ round overs on the 1/8″ bead?
2. I’m also open to other dark woods for the bead because I’ve heard wenge splinters terribly.
3. I’ve read recommendations about creating a sort of shop made plywood for the drawer fronts in order to give the fronts stability which would help the bead stay on the ends by reducing movement across the grain. It sounded good to me because it would help the bead stay on the end and for the second reason that my wife wants the zebra wood to run vertically. I read that the minimum number of layers for this process is 5. Considering I was shooting for a 1/2″ thick max front it sounds like a pain because the veneers are thin. What are your thoughts on this theory and is it required for drawer fronts where the largest front is about 8″ wide and 3″ tall?
4. Will the bead stay on over time with the above method and which glue do you recommend?
Voicemails
Nathan – Concerned about Polyurethane flammability
Aaron – What woods do we recommend for hand plane practice?
Brad – What type of ebony for G&G and will Brazilian Ebony work too?
Daniel – Has a bevel to cut that exceeds 45 degrees. How would we go about cutting it?
8 replies on “WT95”
Regarding Daniel’s bevel cuts in excess of 45 degrees, I’d be inclined to use hand tools as discussed. An alternative that I didn’t hear discussed for the power tool afficionado: consider using a router sled like the one Marc used to flatten his workbench and shimmed up to the appropriate angle. I’d imagine the jig wouldn’t be too hard to put together, just a couple parallel runners set at the appropriate angle and a flat surface to clamp the workpiece to.
First of all…Happy 5th Anniversary guys! It’s pretty cool that I managed to cover all the episodes on the same day you celebrated.
Second, I really appreciate the 16 minutes you spent on my question(s). Marc, you were correct on your assumption that it was a bead around the drawer. I know it is called a cock bead, but I hesitated to call it that because I was afraid what you guys were going to do with it.
I like Matt’s suggestion on making the bead with a beading bit on the router table then ripping the strip on the table saw. However, I cannot find a beading bit with a 1/16″ radius yet (plenty with 1/8″ radius or larger). I think I’m going to wind up using thin strips and feather boards. Marc, I also agree that my concern was consistency. If it’s not perfect at the corners it will look less than desirable.
Regarding the Wenge or other dark wood, it was for the design aesthetic. I realized that the wenge turns very dark and to avoid making it too overbearing and look too much like the pirate eyeliner discussed previously, I thought that the 1/8″ bead would be appropriate. Still, I wanted to delineate the drawer edge with both texture and color. I think what I’m going to do is experiment with the wenge. If that fails due to splintering I will take Matt’s suggestion and ebonize the walnut.
Moving on to the drawer front…if you’re thinking the zebrawood won’t self destruct due to the size of the drawer, I’ll just glue that veneer to the walnut backer. If I misunderstood you and the three of you were saying the plywood is better, please let me know. Initially I was trying to avoid using plywood so I could make finger joints or dovetails for the drawer corner joints. Perhaps though, the quality plywood Shannon mentioned will still be crisp. I could always make sure the wenge bead covers the joint. For reference I do have a drum sander and could have done it, but as much as I enjoy the journey I also want to actually finish the project at some point. No matter what happens and what path I choose I definitely don’t want to nuke it. I’ll save the time spent on doing work no one will see and use it somewhere else.
Moving on…I’ll think about the hide glue, but I’m going to try the blue tape trick first. It’s worked for me in the past. Matt, I understand the comment about the brad…I was thinking maybe a pin nailer, but I was really trying to avoid splitting the thin edging and also avoid having the pin/brad blow out the front or back in the thin drawer front. I also agree with what Marc said that with the ply and front veneer there will be good glue surface.
If you have more comments with this explanation, please let me know. Again, thanks guys!!!
This was a great show. The topics were great and the woodworking content was on track.
I am very impressed with Shannon’s knowledge of wood species. I was intrigued when he said African Mahogany was a completely different genus and species than Genuine Mahogany. I would like to hear about the differences in the types of “mahoganys” in a future show.
I look forward to the stool project, Marc. I have been toying with ideas and designs for a stool project for my shop as I need a seat. Will this project be able to be augmented to a bar stool height (or slightly lower)?
Well done, Gents.
Daniel
Use your table saw with a crosscut sled and a stack dado set,
first cut to rough size with your miter saw then cut angle ends with dado.
Along the subject of HVAC and basement shops…
Lots of us have hydronic heating that uses hot water instead of forced air. While we don’t have air ducts to carry dust throughout the house, we do have to be mindful of the burner combustion air intake, which is not equipped with filters. Once upon a time, my air intake got restricted, causing the furnace to run overly rich. This required a special cleaning, as well as a chimney sweeping.
During my next annual cleaning, the technician showed me 3 spots to hit with compressed air or a vacuum. I usually hit ’em every 2-3 months, maybe 3-4 times a year. 8-9 years later, I get the thumbs up at every annual cleaning, and the screen at the top of my stove pipe remains silver and clean.
So… ASK at your next burner service. A minute or two a few times a year is all it takes to keep the burner clean.
One more thing…
When can we buy Woodwhisper shop onesies? Can we preorder?
The easiest way to know if your respirator filters need changing is when you can smell the finish through it.
Gentleman,
Sorry I’m late getting to this. I only listened to this episode today. When you got to the last question about cutting bevels greater than 45 degrees on the end of long boards, I had to comment.
I think you guys were on the right track regarding taking the tool to the wood and using an angled spacer. However, if the pieces are as I imagine them, a few inches wide and a foot or two or more long, I don’t think a circular saw is the right tool and I think it would be especially hard to balance even a short track across a narrow board in order to use a track saw.
I encountered this problem myself, when cutting the trim for my bay window. I was using 1×6 and 5/4×6 PVC to trim the top and bottom of the window (respectively). In order to cut the 60 degree bevels I made a jig for my router. The jig is angled and 30 degrees. It has a stop attached to it’s base so that it’s always perpendicular to the length of the board. Then by adjusting the depth of the router I can cut either a 60 degree bevel or a bird’s mouth with a 60 degree edge.
The jig was very easy to make out of scrap plywood and with a little math it could be adapted for any angle. As for the steep cuts on the angled supports for the jig, they were cut on the table saw with the blade at 90 degrees, so all it takes is a sled and means of clamping the plywood to the sled at the correct angle.
Here’s a link to a quick video I made of the jig in action.
http://youtu.be/IzNCB_xfRY0
Hopefully this isn’t too late to help. Good luck with the project, Daniel.